Week 8 - Day 2
THE STORY
Rescue (New Testament)
DEATH
As Jesus warred against Satan’s kingdom by revealing the truth and setting the captives free, Satan struck back. Satan’s counter-offensive is seen in the unbelief of Jesus’ own family, in His disciples’ misunderstanding of His mission and ultimately in the Jewish religious leaders’ hatred and jealousy of Him. These religious officials were outraged that even though Jesus had no religious education or credentials, He taught the people as if He did and crowds flocked to Him. They raged, “Who does he think he is?! This has to stop. We have to stop him!”
And stop Him they did. With the help of Judas, one of His own disciples, Jesus is betrayed, arrested and convicted of blasphemy because Jesus claimed to be the promised Messiah (Anointed One) and the Son of God. He declared that He is the divine Warrior King of God’s Kingdom.
This passage comes from the court scene where Jesus is being tried by the High Priest before the Jewish religious officials.
Mark 14:61-64 (NIV)
The high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?”
“I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven” (quoting the Old Testament Prophet Daniel from Daniel 7:13).
The high priest tore his clothes. “Why do we need any more witnesses?” he asked. “You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?”
They all condemned him as worthy of death.
What does Jesus claim in this passage?
What is blasphemy?
What is the penalty for blasphemy?
Why is Jesus guilty of blasphemy and therefore worthy of death?
Because Israel is under the control of the Romans, the Jewish religious leaders may charge Jesus with blasphemy, but they don’t have the authority to carry out its death penalty. So the Jewish religious leaders turn to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, because only he could order Jesus’ death by crucifixion.
Mark 15:15-39 (NIV)
[Pilate] had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.
The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.
A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means “the place of the skull”). Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get.
It was nine in the morning when they crucified him. The written notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS.
They crucified two rebels with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!” In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.”
Someone ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said.
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.
The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”
If you were the coroner who had to issue Jesus’ death certificate, how would you fill it out? Choose from the list below? Defend your choice(s)?
Jesus died because of crucifixion
Jesus died because of Pilate’s order
Jesus died because of the religious leaders’ hatred and jealousy
Jesus died because of my sin
Jesus died because He voluntarily gave His life
Jesus died because the Father lovingly gave us His Son
The following passages may help with your decision.
Romans 4:25 (NLT)
[Jesus] was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God.
Isaiah 53:6 (NLT)
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the LORD laid on him
the sins of us all.John 10:17-18 (NLT)
The Father loves me because I sacrifice my life so I may take it back again. No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.
John 3:16 (NIV)
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Romans 5:8 (NIV)
God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
1 John 4:10 (Author’s Translation)
This is love: not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the wrath-removing-sacrifice for our sins.
Isaiah 53:10 (NLT)
But it was the LORD’s good plan to crush him
and cause him grief.
THE SACRIFICE
In the Old Testament, God graciously forgave sinners through the sacrificial system. An animal would be sacrificed as a substitute in a sinner’s place. These sacrifices, however, had to be repeated over and over because animal sacrifices couldn’t fully forgive the sinner. Every sin needed a new sacrifice.
Through His perfect obedience to His Father and the law of Moses and through His sacrificial death on the cross, Jesus is The Once For All Time Sacrifice who dies in our place completely forgiving all of our sins for all time, fulfilling the sacrificial system and ending all bloody sacrifices. Amazingly, Jesus is both our High Priest and the Lamb of God. In other words, as our High Priest Jesus sacrificed Himself for our sins.
John 1:29 (NIV)
The next day John [the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV)
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Hebrews 10:10-12 (NLT)
For God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time. Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins. But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand.
Romans 3:23-25 (NLT)
For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.
What Good News!
Are you right with God because you believe that Jesus sacrificed His life and shed His blood for your sin?
In light of what you have discovered through the Bible readings and your personal reflections, how will you respond? Finish this sentence: I will …