Jesus Died for You – True or False
Matthew 27:24-55
April 4, 2004 – Palm Sunday
This message is based on a series suggestion from Outreach Marketing and some material from the Jesus Died for You message from Brian Mavis
Introduction
Over the past couple of weeks we have been exploring the evidence for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The first week we studied the facts that support Jesus being the Son of God. Last week, we studied the evidence for Jesus being the only way to God.
This morning we will be examining the facts for the death of Jesus and that He died for you.
True or False – Jesus was never crucified
This is absolutely false. There are two main theories that promote this argument. The first suggests that the crucifixion of Jesus was not an actual event and that the writers of the gospels just made it up.
We have already proven the validity of the gospel accounts but let me refresh your memory quickly. The New Testament is not only reliable for being an ancient document but it is the most reliable document from ancient times. There are several key points.
· The New Testament has more copies than any other ancient document of its kind. There have been over 24, 000 copies found of the New Testament in over a dozen languages. These copies record the message of the gospels with minute variant. In other words, they all tell the same story.
· The New Testament has little time span between the original events and the writing of the gospels. However, there was even less time from the original events and the epistles. The epistles record the basic message of the gospel that Jesus lived, died and was raised from the dead.
All of the gospel accounts agree on the fact that Jesus was crucified dead and buried. However, that is not the only ancient source to give us this information. The simple truth of the matter is that the crucifixion of Jesus is one of the most reliable events of all the New Testament because it was so well recorded by Roman historians.
Roman historians kept an accurate record of all, important executions as a matter of record and testimony to the entire empire. Jesus of Nazareth would have been seen as an important figure to the Romans in the area of Israel. Jesus was well known in both religious and political circles, not because He sought attention but because He drew the attention of the masses. The Romans would have taken an interest in Jesus because He had such a large following and because He caused a great deal of turmoil with the Jewish leaders.
The second theory is that the person who was crucified was not actually Jesus. The thinking here is that Jesus got another person to pretend to be Him so He could fake the resurrection. This is so far fetched that it is almost not worth mentioning. There is no possible way for a different person to take the place of Jesus at the crucifixion.
The legal proceedings were conducted in private and public. The religious leaders who were trying to have Jesus killed would not have made such a mistake because they made sure that they had the right person. The crowds at the trial would not have collectively made the mistake thinking that someone else was Jesus. The truth is that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified
True or False – Jesus did not die on the cross
The theory here is that Jesus did not actually die on the cross but that He merely passed out on the cross or was given a drug that would make Him appear dead. Again this does not seem logical given the rigors of a Roman crucifixion or a decent understanding of basic history.
The first speculation that Jesus did not die on the cross comes from the Koran. The reality of it is this that all of the attempts to downplay or degrade the reality of the death of Jesus have the purpose to dismiss the resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus never really died then He could not have been raised from the dead.
There are several reasons that Jesus had to have been dead before He was removed from the cross.
1. Roman guards made sure that those being crucified were dead
The punishment for an escaped prisoner who was sentenced to death was death. In fact, the guards who allowed the person to escape alive were given the punishment of the escapee. In this case any guard who allowed Jesus to come down from that cross, alive would have been crucified
2. Pilate released the body of Jesus for burial
Pilate would have been given a report by the commanding officer that Jesus was dead before the body would have been released for burial. Again the punishment for an inaccurate or false report was death.
3. Romans guarded the tomb of Jesus
The fact that the Romans placed a guard at the tomb of Jesus made it clear that He was dead because the desire was to keep anyone from stealing the body of Jesus.
True or False - Jesus Died for You
Let’s examine the details of the death of Jesus:
1. The ordeal of the crucifixion begins in the Garden of Gethsemane
The opening scene of The Passion of the Christ shows Jesus in the garden in a type of deep physical, emotional and spiritual anguish. The fact that Satan is in the garden trying to get Him to abandon up His mission and the cross is not in the Bible but it is possible. Satan could not sway Jesus earlier and was waiting for a more opportune time and this could have been it.
The gospel of Luke records that Jesus was in such deep anguish that He sweat great drops of blood. (Luke 22:44) It is obvious that Jesus was losing a great deal of bodily fluids by the enormous amount of sweat. There is a high likelihood that Jesus experienced hematidrosis, a mixing of sweat and blood, which is cause by extreme stress or strain.
Jesus would have lost a great deal of fluid at this point and would have been given no chance to replenish these fluids before His trial and crucifixion. So it is safe to say that Jesus is beginning the ordeal in a dehydrated state.
2. Jesus endured a Roman flogging (John 19:1; Matthew 27:26)
The gospels do not go into detail about the nature of flogging, so we have to look at other historical references to understand what this process consisted of. The movie depicted that Christ went through two different beatings; the first was with rods and the second was with a scourge. There is no evidence to tell us what Jesus went through but we do know that He was sentenced to a severe flogging.
“Roman floggings were known to be terribly brutal. They usually consisted of thirty-nine lashes but frequently were a lot more than that depending on the mood of the soldier applying the blows.” Dr Alexander Metherell (The case for Easter p. 15)
The scourge was a whip designed with nine straps of leather with weights at the end of each strap. This allowed each of the nine straps to wrap themselves around the body of the victim. On each strap were knots about an inch apart that held a sharp piece of metal, wood or even bone. These pieces were designed to cut and tear the flesh of the victim. Each strap was dipped in sheep’s blood and then rolled in broken pottery, this process bonded the pottery to the leather. This would cause every strap to scratch and cut at the skin. Needless to say, the scourge was designed to inflict damage on a massive scale.
The Romans used a scourging post for their floggings. The post was driven into the ground and stood between 10 to 15 feet high with a bronze ring around the top of the post. The victim would have their hands tied with a long rope that would be threaded through the brass ring at the top of the post. The rope would then be pulled to stretch the arms of the victim above the head to make the skin on the victims back tight. This allowed for even greater effectiveness of the scourge.
To say that a Roman scourging was brutal would be an understatement.
Medical experts say that at this point that Jesus would have experienced hypovevolemic shock. This means that the extreme loss of blood would have caused Him to have a low volume of blood in His body. This would have caused His heart to race trying to pump blood that is not there, blood pressure then drops causing fainting, the kidneys stop producing urine to maintain the blood level that was left and the person begins to crave water because of the massive loss of fluid. (The Case For Easter p. 16)
3. Jesus was crucified
There is no credible historian that denies the crucifixion of Jesus because it is so well documented in other ancient sources. The Roman crucifixion was likely one of the most horrible methods of execution ever devised. In essence, it is a long, agonizing death by asphyxiation.
The Romans forced each person being crucified to carry their cross from the place of trial to the place of execution. This made Jesus and the two criminals walk through at least one marketplace and crowds lined the street to watch the condemned, spit on them and try to trip them as they walked.
The cross would have been dropped onto Jesus causing the rough wood to dig deep into His back and shoulder. Jesus was so exhausted from the beatings and the loss of blood that He collapsed on the way to Golgotha. Simon of Cyrene was then forced to carry the cross the rest of the way.
The place where Jesus was crucified was called Golgotha, which literally means place of the skull. This place was appropriately named. Golgotha served three key purposes from the city of Jerusalem. The first was a garbage dump for all of the refuse from the city. The second purpose was that of an open grave. Poverty was so great in Jerusalem that beggars literally died in the streets. With no money for a proper burial the Romans used Golgotha as the place to take the bodies. Literally, this place would have been filled with skulls. The third purpose was a place for Roman executions.
Jesus was nailed to the cross with nine inch spikes that would have been driven through each of His wrists and a twelve inch spike driven through His feet. The cross would then be raised, dropped into a hole in the ground and set into place with braces. This would have caused a severe jolting of the body and intense pain.
Crucifixions were held through the hottest part of the day so that the victims would have to endure not only extreme pain but also the harsh heat of the day. This added to the already severe and unquenchable thirst.
During crucifixion the nerves sent signals into the chest that would cause the diaphram to go into massive spasms. In order, to take a breath the person being crucified would have to stand on the nail in their feet to relieve the spasms in their chest.
Jesus did not die of asphyxiation but rather He died of cardiac arrest. The Roman soldier wanted to be sure that Jesus was indeed dead and so he drove the head of his spear into the side of Jesus. The wound produced both blood and water. This was caused by pericardial effusion and pleural effusion and when the spear pierced the side it ruptured both the lungs and the heart. At this point there can be no doubt that Jesus was indeed dead.
Why did Jesus die such a miserable and horrid death?
But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him. Romans 5:8 (MsgB)
Jesus died for you. He died the death that was caused by your sin. He died because it was the only way to bring you back to the family of God. He died because He loves you too much to be without you. He died because He knew exactly what you needed even if you didn’t.
Jesus is the Son of God, He is the only way to God and He died for you.
Jesus is the Son of God, He is above all powers and all authority. Jesus gave up all that He had in heaven for the filth of earth. Jesus was crucified and laid behind the stone. He was rejected and alone, He lived so He could die. Jesus took your fall and became like a rose trampled on the ground. This Jesus who was above all put you above all.
This morning, maybe you’ve been never considered a relationship with Jesus before or perhaps you’ve walked away from that relationship. Today is the day to make it right and come to Jesus the one who died for you.
The truth is this; Jesus cared so much about you that He died in your place
