Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,
Last week we looked at Jesus’ first trial and we saw that it was a massive injustice. We also read about Peter’s three denials and I finished that sermon by asking you for your verdict about Jesus: Are you a believer or a denier?
Well, today we are looking at Jesus’ second trial. And while there is plenty of injustice in this trial also, now is a good time for us see that in the trials of Jesus it was actually the world that was on trial, not Jesus. And what I mean is that while Jesus was being judged by the rulers and the people, it was actually they who were appearing before Him or judgment.
And we know this because in Acts 4 we read about a time when the Apostles were praying. And they based their prayer on the Psalm we read earlier – Psalm 2. And here is what they prayed: “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them … The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against His Anointed’- for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.”
So while the trials seem like the kings and the people had Jesus exactly where they wanted Him, in actual fact, God had the kings and the people exactly where He wanted them! And this is because while the end result of the trials was the crucifixion of Jesus, what they actually revealed was innocence and perfection of the Lord Jesus and the guilt and corruption of the world. And this has massive implications for the message of salvation, as we shall see.
So our sermon theme today is as follows: The Trials of Jesus reveal the Justice and Mercy of God. And I am sure you know that most trials are decided by a jury but you can have a trial that is decided by a Judge. And the real Judge in this trial was God Himself. And He pronounced four verdicts during the trial. And these four verdicts will be the four main parts of this sermon.
- The first verdict that God pronounced was about the Jewish leadership.
- And we see it in v28 where we read
that they led Jesus to the governor’s headquarters but “they themselves did not enter the governor’s headquarters, so that they
would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover.” Now, it’s possible that their concern was that
Pilate’s headquarters was where people were executed, and any contact with a
dead body would make a Jew ceremonially unclean. But it is equally possible that this was just
another of the man-made rules of the Jews, which was that you could not enter
the home of a Gentile. The Law of God
did not say this but the Jews had made this a rule.
- But
do you see the verdict on the Jewish
leadership that God is pronouncing here?
What did we see last week about Jesus’ first trial and the laws of the
Jews about trials? We saw that pretty
much every rule they had was ignored and broken. It was a legal travesty. It was a sham. It was just pretence at justice. But now they were concerned about going
inside Pilate’s headquarters because they wanted to be clean so they could eat
the Passover! So this was religious hypocrisy
in the extreme!
- It would be like me turning up at your house covered in wet paint and dripping tomato sauce and charcoal dust and asking if you want me to take my shoes off before I come in? My problems are much bigger than whatever is on the soles of my shoes! And it was the same with the Jewish leadership. They had corrupt and wicked unbelieving hearts; ritual uncleanness was the least of their problems!
- But
do you see the irony here also?
They were worried about becoming unclean because they wanted to eat the Passover. But who is Jesus? 1 Corinthians 5:7 calls Him “our Passover lamb.” He is the Lamb of God who came to take away
the sins of the world. So while they were
sitting there munching on their Passover Lamb and praying for God to send
Messiah, Messiah was on the cross having been put there by them! What a tragedy! What a picture of failed church leadership!
- And the same thing can happen today when ministers or elders or deacons want others to view them as very spiritual when they are actually engaged in sin. And this causes so much damage in the church. It is why you must regularly pray that myself and the other elders and deacons would not give in to temptation.
- But we can all fall into this sin whenever we pridefully look down our noses at other churches or other people who do not do the things that we do, like attending two services on a Sunday or doing three Bible devotions every day. We need to remember that even our best is as filthy rags in the sight of God. Anything we offer to God, even when done in faith, is just the beginnings of the gratitude that we owe Him. Our standing in God’s sight is all about the perfection of Jesus! Our only hope is the obedience and sacrifice of Jesus! It is by grace that we have been saved, not our works.
- But
do you see the verdict on the Jewish
leadership that God is pronouncing here?
What did we see last week about Jesus’ first trial and the laws of the
Jews about trials? We saw that pretty
much every rule they had was ignored and broken. It was a legal travesty. It was a sham. It was just pretence at justice. But now they were concerned about going
inside Pilate’s headquarters because they wanted to be clean so they could eat
the Passover! So this was religious hypocrisy
in the extreme!
- So the first verdict in Jesus’ second trial was a condemnation of the hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders. But the next verdict is the one that God pronounced on Pilate.
- And there are all sorts of
fascinating and curious elements and questions that we could explore in
Pilate’s interactions with Jesus and with the Jews. And I might come back to some of them in a
later sermon, but today we will summarize Pilate’s main problem.
- It starts off, in v29, with Pilate receiving the Jews, “early in the morning,” because, like any other politician, he wanted to keep his constituents happy. So he asked for the charge and it is plain from his response that their answer was not very satisfying. The other Gospels tell us that Pilate knew that this was just a case of envy. So he told them to judge Jesus by their own law. And that should have been the end of the matter.
- But the Jews whined and pressed upon Him their desire for execution. And we know from Luke 23:2 that they did then lay a charge against Jesus. They said, “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that He himself is Christ, a king.” And we see from v33ff that this became the basis for Pilate’s line of questioning in the next part of the trial. So alongside his desire to keep the Jews happy, now he had what to worry about upsetting Caesar, because Caesar was Pilate’s boss. So he couldn’t just drop this matter. The trial of Jesus had to continue.
- So Pilate asked Jesus if he was the King of the Jews? And the conversation of vv33-38 is fascinating and a bit confusing for it reads like Jesus was kind of dodging the question but not completely, as He refused to state that He was a King but also spoke about having a kingdom that was not of this world, etc. But in a nutshell, this was Jesus assuring Pilate that He was no political threat, while at the same time preaching a sermon about Himself as the one who would soon turn the world upside down. And Jesus truly has been turning the world upside down ever since then through the preaching of the Gospel!
- But the net effect of this conversation was that it became very clear to Pilate that Jesus was no political threat to Rome. And so, his conclusion, as we see in v38, was that Jesus was not guilty. And so, again, this should have been the end of the matter. Jesus should have been released.
- But this is where we see Pilate’s problem. You see, Pilate was a political man-pleaser. Pilate just wanted everyone to like him. And this is plain from v38 where he said, “What is truth?” Truth, for Pilate, was whatever it took to keep his job and be liked!!! And that ain’t no standard for truth!
- So, knowing that just releasing Jesus would anger the Jews, he came up with what in his mind was a brilliant plan – give them a choice between releasing Jesus or a real crook. And the crook was a man named Barabbas, who Luke tells us was a thief, a murderer, and a terrorist rebel! So Jesus would surely be released and happy, the Jews would be happy, and Caesar would be happy! It truly was a brilliant political ploy! Except for the fact that the Jews chose Barabbas! #BrilliantPlanFoiled!
- So then Pilate came up with
brilliant political plan number two – have Jesus whipped in the hope that that would satisfy the Jews.
- Now, a whipping would have made Jesus unhappy with Pilate, obviously, but Jesus was now the lowest rung on Pilate’s ladder of people or groups he was trying to please. So a whipping it would be.
- And there were three levels of whipping that were possible, light, medium, and extreme. The extreme one was usually given to condemned criminals after they had been condemned to death. And Mark’s Gospel seems to indicate that Jesus was whipped like that after He was condemned to be crucified. So it’s quite possible that Jesus was whipped twice and that this whipping was the lighter version and that Jesus was given the more extreme form of whipping again after He was condemned.
- But whether it was now or later, the extreme whipping was with leather lashes studded with bits of metal that just tore strips of flesh off that often exposed the bones. It was absolutely horrific. And it explains why He was unable to carry His cross to the crucifixion site.
- So having had Jesus whipped and having allowed the soldiers to taunt Jesus and strip Him and mock Him with the crown of thorns and the purple robe, and hit Him, Pilate brought then Jesus out to the Jews, and you have to be totally horrified and bamboozled by what he did next, or he declared Jesus not guilty for the second time!
- But did this satisfy the Jewish leaders? No it did not! And so, in v6 we see that they cried out for Jesus to be crucified. And then Pilate said, for the third time, He is not guilty!
- But then came the massive plot
twist as the Jews said, “We
have a law, and according to that law He ought to die because He has made
Himself the Son of God.”
And then we read, “When Pilate
heard this statement, he was even more afraid.” Why was this?
- Well up till now Pilate feared condemning an innocent man, a little bit, and he had feared the dislike of the Jewish leaders and the dislike of Caesar, but now a new element of fear had been introduced. You see, the Romans believed that sometimes the gods came to earth in the form of men to test people. And if you upset one of these god-men, well life would get utterly miserable. And here were the Jews talking about Jesus as the Son of God!!!
- And on top of this, Matthew tells us in his Gospel account that at some time during this trial Pilate’s wife had sent word to Pilate, saying, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of Him today in a dream.”
- So now there was also superstition and a troubled wife in Pilate’s pot of problems! What might have been just a cultural or political problem was also a religious problem and a marriage problem.
- So in v9 you can imagine Pilate approaching Jesus with an, Ahhh, look, just wondering where you are from? Up there maybe?
- But
Jesus refused to answer. And this just made
Pilate angry because he was getting increasingly nervous about the whole
situation, knowing that he was already morally compromised. So he played
the authority card – don’t you know that I am the top man around here? But Jesus’ answer in v11 was that Pilate was
not the top man because all human authority comes from God and every human will
have to answer to God on judgment Day.
- And brothers and sisters, that is a truth that you must hold on to if ever you are being persecuted by governing authorities. Yes, down here they can get away with plenty, but they will give an account to God for their use or abuse of the office that He has given to them.
- Well, Pilate once again tried to
release Jesus but then the Jews played their trump card by saying, “If you release this man, you
are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who
makes himself a king opposes Caesar.”
- Do you see the incredible irony in these words? Here are the Jewish leaders declaring themselves to be Caesar’s friend and questioning Pilate’s loyalty to Rome!
- And it
just got worse for Pilate as he brought Jesus out said to the Jews in v14, “Behold, your king.” For they responded, “Crucify Him! We have no king but Caesar.” Wow! Un-be-lievable! Do you see what they were saying? We reject God! We reject His word! We reject Messiah King!
- But it was basically checkmate and snooker all rolled up into one. This was a corner that gutless Pilate could not back out of, for if word got back to Caesar that he had released a man who was a threat to Rome, then Pilate’s career was toast. And so, he handed Jesus over to be crucified.
- So
God’s verdict on Pilate was that He was a Christ-rejecting, people pleasing
coward. Even though He knew that Jesus
was innocent, he was not prepared to pay a price for doing the right thing.
- And this is a trap that many politicians fall into, isn’t it – they abandon convictions just to stay in office and to hold on to the trappings of power. I dare say it is why voter turn out is getting lower and lower in NZ. People are tired of hearing election promises that they no longer even expect to be kept. And we know that laws are being passed because of ‘you scratch my back and I will scratch yours’ corruption.
- But
let’s bring this closer to home: How did you fear the last time that you had to
make a difficult decision that was going to cost you something and/or upset
someone?
- It is an issue I wrestle with often as I prepare sermons or talk with people. Do I say what needs to be said, knowing that it will upset someone or do I zip it and stay in their good books? And too often, I fear, I choose the Pilate option.
- But what have you suffered for the cause of Christ recently? Who have you upset because that was the inevitable cost of following Jesus? What relationships have been strained by your obedience to the Lord?
- One commentator said that the prayers of many professing Christians today really only amount to Lord bless us and help us maintain our standard of living. And that’s a far cry from what Jesus said, which was, Take up your cross and follow me.
- And when we hear the call for ministers or missionaries or church plant individuals or families, too often the answer of many of us, “Here I am Lord, take him or her,” because I like my house and my family gatherings and Sky Sports and pizza.
- May the Lord forgive us for our love of comfort and give us Christ-honouring back bones!
- Well, if you can count, you will have realized that we are at the end of the passage and we have only heard two verdicts from God when I said we would consider four. So two more brief verdicts from this trial. The first is God’s verdict on the soldiers who whipped Jesus and mocked Him with the crown of thorns and the purple robe and the “Hail, King of the Jews!” taunts, and then hit Him.
- And let’s call this what it was;
it was abuse
and it was sickening. And abuse is
sickening wherever and however it is done.
Whether it is torture in a military situation, elder abuse in a rest
home, sexual abuse or physical abuse of children, rape, emotional or physical
or sexual abuse by a husband against his wife, or the spiritual or emotional or
sexual abuse of clergy against congregant, any form of abuse offends God and it
should offend and sicken every one of us.
It’s not OK! It’s never OK! It is absolutely contrary to what God calls
us to as followers of Jesus.
- But if we could have talked to these soldiers I am sure they would have said that they were just doing their job. They didn’t particularly hate Jesus, they were not rejecting Him like the Jewish leaders had done; they were just doing their jobs.
- But that just makes them a picture of so many people today – do you know the ones I mean? The ones who just live for work and the weekend party. They don’t have anything against Jesus, particularly, and they are happy for us to be religious if we want to, but Jesus just isn’t for them. They just want a bit of money and a laugh and maybe a bit of fame and as much sex as possible but that’s about as far as it goes.
- I wonder if this be you, perhaps? Are you living for today and totally unconcerned about eternity? Well, I have to warn you that Judgment Day is coming. And if you have not embraced Jesus as your Lord and saviour, you will be sentenced to eternity in the fire of hell. And eternity is a very long time! So use this life to prepare for eternity by believing in Jesus for salvation and then walking the pathway of obedience.
- And that brings us to the fourth and last verdict from this trial. And it’s quite different from the others. or while the others have been verdicts of justice, this one is a verdict of mercy! It is God’s verdict on Barabbas. You see, in Barabbas we have an incredible picture of the gospel that is laid out in three ways. And you will find these three points in pretty much every commentary and sermon about Barabbas:
- The first is that Barabbas
should have gone to the cross because he was guilty and he deserved to die. Barabbas’ guilt is plain – he was a thief, a
murderer, and a terrorist rebel. And
what was the crime of the two other men who were crucified with Jesus? They were thieves. So Barabbas would surely have been on that
middle cross if it were not for Jesus.
- But
we are all Barabbases, aren’t we.
- We are all thieves. We rob God of His worship and glory and His lordship in our lives.
- And we are all murderers, according to the standard that Jesus laid out in Matthew 5, because anger and insult and calling someone a fool are forms of murder that take place in the heart.
- And we are also all terrorist rebels – we rebel against God’s rightful rule every time we disobey Him or fail to obey Him perfectly.
- So what does Romans 3:23 say? “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” That’s all of us – guilty sinners. And what does Romans 6:23 says? “For the wages of sin is death.” We all deserve eternal condemnation.
- But
we are all Barabbases, aren’t we.
- But
secondly, Barabbas did nothing to earn his release. What we read about him was that he was a thief,
murderer, and terrorist rebel. He hadn’t
paid reparations or apologized; he was simply set free.
- But that is the rest of Romans 6:23, “But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” When God sets us free from our sin and guilt it is not because we have put things right or because we are sorry enough; it is all because of Jesus.
- And
that bring us to the third and last part of how Barabbas is a picture of the
gospel for Jesus died in Barabbas’ place.
- As I said a moment ago, Barabbas would have been on that middle cross if it had not been for Jesus. And if not that middle cross, surely another one soon thereafter. But Jesus died in His place.
- And I wont give you the whole textual explanation, but there is actually very good reason to believe that the first name of Barabbas was also Jesus. ‘Bar’ means ‘Son of.’ So our Jesus would have been known as Jesus BarJoseph – Jesus – son of Joseph. But ‘Abbas’ means Father. So Jesus Barabbas was Jesus, son of the father. And that means that Jesus BarAbbas, son of the father, should have gone to the cross, but Jesus, the Son of the Father, died in His place.
- And I am not trying to talk Barabbas into heaven. I sure hope that what happened that day had a saving effect on him! But his eternal destiny is God’s business. What I am saying is that Barabbas is an incredible picture of the gospel. The guilty go free because the innocent one died in his place. What a powerful picture of the gospel!
So there you have the account of the second trial and four verdicts. And my closing question to you today is this one: Are you a son of the Father? John 1:12 says, “But to all who did receive [Jesus], who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.” You have seen that Jesus was perfectly innocent and unjustly condemned. But He did this so that the guilty can go free. If you believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that He died in your place for the forgiveness of your sins, then your guilt is washed away and you have eternal life! And that, my friends, is amazing grace! Amen.