Matthew 26:69-27:44

Therefore, though the decision to condemn Jesus was already made, and we see that in Luke 22:66-71, they conducted a second trial in daylight, because they knew the first one – the real trial – was illegal.

It was all a sham, concocted to feed their hatred and their obsession to kill Jesus and be rid of Him forever.

How utterly wrong can the mind of man be?

 

Conducting this trial at nighttime was only one of many illegal actions made in the trial of Jesus.

According to Jewish law, only decisions made in the official meeting place were valid. The first trial was held at the home of Caiaphas, the high priest.

Also, criminal cases could not be tried during the Passover season.

According to Jewish law, only an acquittal could be issued on the day of the trial. Guilty verdicts had to wait one night to allow for feelings of mercy to rise.

Aso, according to Jewish law, all evidence had to be guaranteed by two witnesses, who were separately examined and could not have contact with each other.

Then, false witness was punishable by death. Nothing was done to the many false witnesses in Jesus’ trial.

A trial always began by bringing forth evidence for the innocence of the accused, before the evidence of guilt was offered. This wasn’t done here.

All these were the Sanhedrin’s own rules, and it’s clear that, in their eagerness to get rid of Jesus, they broke their own rules.”

 

After all the false witnesses had their say, Jesus was finally charged with threatening to destroy the temple, like a modern-day bomb threat. Clearly, Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up…” John 2:21 makes it clear that He was speaking of the temple of His body, but this glorious prophecy of His resurrection was twisted into a terrorist threat.

 

It was remarkable that Jesus kept silent and answered nothing until it was absolutely necessary out of obedience for Him to speak.

Jesus could have mounted a magnificent defence here, calling all the various witnesses to His Deity, His power and His character. The people He taught, the people He healed, the dead who had been risen, the blind who could now see, even the demons themselves testified to His deity.

But Jesus didn’t open His mouth in defence. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth, just as Isaiah 53:7 prophesied.

When the high priest says in Matthew 26:63, “I put You under oath by the living God: Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God!”, He’s using a rare and very formal expression used in 1^st Kings 22:16, invoking the name of God in order to force a true answer. This is the high point of the hearing.

 

The high priest was frustrated by Jesus’ silence and tried a strategy of the direct approach. Was Jesus the Messiah or not?”

The trial had been a failure up to that point, and the high priest knew it, and he was in a rage. He bullies Jesus in order to get some declaration from Him which would save all the trouble of more witnesses, and put an end to the matter.

“It is as you said,” Jesus says. Instead of defending Himself, Jesus simply testified to the truth. He was the Christ, the Son of God. He answered briefly, directly and as matter of fact as possible.

 

Jesus adds, “You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power: Jesus added this one word of warning. He warned them that though they sat in judgment of Him now, He would one day sit in judgment of them – and with a far more binding judgment.

“Power” is a name often by the Jews to avoid speaking the sacred name of God.

The Sanhedrin react to Jesus’s answer with horror and brutality.

 

Now come to Peter’s denial of the Lord in Matthew 26:69-73,

Now Peter sat outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came to him, saying, “You also were with Jesus of Galilee.” 

But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you are saying.” 

And when he had gone out to the gateway, another girl saw him and said to those who were there, “This fellow also was with Jesus of Nazareth.” 

But again he denied with an oath, “I do not know the Man!” 

And a little later those who stood by came up and said to Peter, “Surely you also are one of them, for your speech betrays you.” 

The Galilean accent were a bit different to the Judean and Peter had a Galilean accent making him stand out!

 

Verse 74,

Then he began to curse and swear, saying, “I do not know the Man!” Immediately a rooster crowed.

Just like you and me, the poor bloke didn’t realise how weak he really was! But the Lord had prayed that his faith wouldn’t fail, and in the end it didn’t.

 

To verse 75,

And Peter remembered the word of Jesus who had said to him, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” So he went out and wept bitterly.

Peter’s denial grew worse each time. First, he just lied; then lied on oath; then he cursed and swore.

Peter finally remembered what Jesus had predicted, but it was too late.

For now, all he could do was to weep bitterly. And yet Peter would be restored. This is the difference between Judas’s betrayal and Peter’s.

 

With that we now move to Matthew chapter 27 where we see the events surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus.

We’ve come to the central fact of the gospel and, really the apex, of the Word of God, the crucifixion of Christ.

When Paul defined the gospel to the Corinthians in 1^st Corinthians 15 verse 3, he said,

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 

and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, 

We’ve now come to the record of that monumental event.

 

We’ll see that Matthew doesn’t give a record of the actual crucifixion. In fact, no Gospel writer does. They just tell us what went on around the Cross.

Some people explain in graphic terms how the nails were driven into the quivering flesh and how the blood spurted out, but that’s not in the Bible. In God’s Word it’s as if God placed the mantle of darkness over the last three hours of the life of Jesus on the Cross and said, “This is something you cannot look at. It’s beyond human comprehension. The suffering cannot be fathomed.”

It was between the Father in heaven and the Son on the Cross. The Cross became an altar on which the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, was offered.

The simple statement of Matthew is, “And they crucified him.”

This chapter begins with the morning after Jesus had been arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, after He had been brought before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, after false witnesses had testified against Him, after He had been beaten and ridiculed, and after Peter had denied Him.

 

Matthew 27:1,

When morning came, all the chief priests and elders of the people plotted against Jesus to put Him to death. 

This was the official gathering of the Sanhedrin following the informal (and illegal) night session. Luke, in Luke 22 verses 66 to 71, shows that this morning trial was virtually the same as the night one.

They’ve formulated a charge against Jesus, and they’ll now take Him to the supreme court. They think they have a case which’ll stand up before the Roman court.

 

Verse 2,

And when they had bound Him, they led Him away and delivered Him to Pontius Pilate the governor. 

Pilate had a palace in Jerusalem, although his headquarters were in Caesarea on the Mediterranean Sea. He was in Jerusalem at the Passover season because the city was crowded with Jews who had come to the feast, and generally there were riots on these occasions.

To Verse 3,

Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,

We see that the Lord Jesus was there when Judas came. As the chief priests and elders were leading Him through that hall to take Him to Pilate, here comes Judas.

Why doesn’t Judas turn to the Lord Jesus and ask forgiveness?

Instead of doing that, he addressed the religious rulers in verse 4,

saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” And they said, “What is that to us? You see to it!” 

In other words, they say to Judas, “You did the job, and it’s over with. We have the One we’re after. We’ve paid you off, and we’ve no need of you anymore.”

Perhaps Judas expected that Jesus would miraculously deliver himself from his captors, and begin to overthrow the Roman rule and start the process of bringing in the Kingdom, just as the other disciples thought. None of them understood the necessity for Jesus’s death to save the world from sin.

When he saw that this wasn’t happening and Jesus was condemned, remorse and revulsion at what he’d done overpowered him. He tries to give back the blood money, maybe hoping that in doing so he moves at least some of the burden onto the rulers.

Before we condemn Judas we should realise the state of mind of the world today. Judas and the other disciples of Jesus didn’t understand the full plan of God, that the Christ must die for the sins of the world, but today we have the convenience of the written word fully and clearly explaining it all its detail. Still, with all this explanation that the disciples never had, the world rejects and hates Jesus Christ, and you and I were no different before we heard the Word of God and believed.

Furthermore, we believers, and even the most ardent amongst us will constantly turn from the Lord as we turn our eyes away from His Word and focus on the trials and troubles this world brings.

 

Judas had been with the Lord in public and in private. If he could have found a flaw in Christ’s character, in Who He really was, this would have been the time to mention it. However, even this traitor, in his dying speech, declared that Jesus was innocent.

 

To Matthew 27:5,

Then he (Judas) threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed, and went and hanged himself. 

This man leaves the temple area, goes out, and hangs himself, yet at any time he could’ve turned to the Lord Jesus and would’ve been forgiven!

 

Now verse 6,

But the chief priests took the silver pieces and said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, because they are the price of blood.” 

 

How pious and self-righteous these priests are! They won’t put the silver pieces into the temple treasury because it is blood money, and they’re such righteous individuals, so mindful of the laws of God.

It almost makes a person sick, but it’s the epitome of the sickly virtue signalling we have everywhere today. Acts are performed and words are spoken with the goal of trying to make a person look good, caring and righteous. “Look at me I’m so good”. But, at the same time rejecting the very source of goodness and righteousness, God and the Christ.

 

Now verses 7 and 8,

And they consulted together and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in. 

Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day.

This was yet another remarkable fulfillment of prophecy which see in verses 9 and 10,

Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “AND THEY TOOK THE THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER, THE VALUE OF HIM WHO WAS PRICED, whom they of the children of Israel priced, AND GAVE THEM FOR THE POTTER’S FIELD, AS THE LORD DIRECTED ME.” 

We find this prophecy in Jeremiah 18:1-4 and from Zechariah 11:12-13.

It is credited to Jeremiah simply because in Jesus’ day Jeremiah was the first of the books of the prophets, and that section was identified by the name of the first book.

The significant thing is that Jesus was present when Judas returned with his thirty pieces of silver. In fact, Jesus was on His way to die—even for Judas. Our Lord had given him an opportunity to come back to Him there in the Garden of Gethsemane, and He had said, “Friend, why have you come?” Even at this time, Judas could’ve turned to the Lord Jesus and would have been forgiven.

 

Now we move to Matthew 27:11,

Now Jesus stood before the governor. And the governor asked Him, saying, “Are You the King of the Jews?” Jesus said to him, “It is as you say.” 

You see, the religious rulers wanted to get rid of Jesus because of what they considered blasphemy.

Remember that when the high priest put Him on oath and asked Him if He was the Christ, the Son of God, Jesus said that He was. And furthermore, He said, as we saw in chapter 26 verse 64, “…hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven”.

To the religious rulers that was blasphemy, and they would’ve stoned Him on that charge, but Rome didn’t allow the Jews to carry out the death penalty, so they had to deliver Jesus to Pilate with a charge that would stick in a Roman court.

The charge of treason would be one that would stick, and so Jesus was charged with claiming to be the King of the Jews.

The answer of Jesus to the charge was, “It is as you say.” 

 

To verse 12 now,

And while He was being accused by the chief priests and elders, He answered nothing.

Jesus doesn’t even bother to answer the false charges brought against Him.

 

In verses 13 and 14 we read,

Then Pilate said to Him, “Do You not hear how many things they testify against You?” 

But He answered him not one word, so that the governor marvelled greatly.

Again, prophecy is being filled by His refusal to answer. This time Isaiah 53 verse 7,

He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.

You see, He was the prophesied Lamb of God, who before the shearers was silent.

 

We go on to Matthew 27:5-16,

Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to releasing to the multitude one prisoner whom they wished. 

And at that time they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas.

Matthew doesn’t give us the details. The other Gospels add a lot of detail about this, but Matthew just states the raw facts.

Obviously, Pilate felt that the religious rulers had no basis for requesting the death penalty. Jesus had not incited rebellion against Rome. Others had, but Jesus had not. Pilate had a problem on his hands. He wanted to please the religious leaders in order to maintain peace in Jerusalem, but he felt that he could not sentence the Lord Jesus to death for no reason, so he comes up with a solution.

Since it was his habit to release a Jewish prisoner during the Passover celebration, he would offer the crowd a choice: Jesus; or a very notorious prisoner called Barabbas, who was guilty of murder, robbery and treason and this was well known to the people.

 

To verse 17,

Therefore, when they had gathered together, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release to you? Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” 

Pilate was sure that the crowd would ask that Jesus be released. The difference between Him and Barabbas was huge and evident to all.

 

Verse18,

For he (Governor Pilate) knew that they had handed Him (Jesus) over because of envy.

Pilate was a politician and a clever one at that. He could see what was taking place, and he was sure that the crowd would ask for Barabbas to be crucified and Jesus to be released. This would give him a “way out” of this situation.

 

To Verse 19,

While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent to him, saying, “Have nothing to do with that just Man, for I have suffered many things today in a dream because of Him.” 

Pilate’s wife was very superstitious. Perhaps she was tied up in the Roman religions, but most probably this was not some sort of warning that came from God. If she’d been a truly just woman, she would’ve investigated Jesus and found out more about Him. She did not. She was simply superstitious and asked her husband to have nothing to do with all this.

 

Verse 20,

But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitudes that they should ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. 

We see that the religious rulers were also clever politicians. They circulated among the crowd urging them to ask that Barabbas be delivered, and Jesus be destroyed.

This should serve as a warning to you and me of the power of both politicians and church and religious leaders to influence crowds.

 

To verse 21,

The governor answered and said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” They said, “Barabbas!” 

Pilate was stunned. How could this possibly be? Probably Pilate himself learnt some lesson that day about just how easy crowds and social groups could be led to make a decision when all logic and common sense spoke otherwise. He also learned how low religion could and would stoop.

 

Now Matthew 27:22,

Pilate said to them, “What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said to him, “Let Him be crucified!” 

 

Imagine how odd it would’ve been for a powerful Roman judge asking a crowd of Jews under his control what he should do with a prisoner! Pilate was supposed to be the judge, and he should have made the decision.

The Gospel of John tells us that Pilate repeatedly called Jesus inside the judgment hall and questioned Him privately.

His thought seemed to be, “Jesus, if You’ll cooperate, I can get You out of this, and it’ll get me off the hook as well!”

But the Lord Jesus wouldn’t defend Himself. We see through this whole farce that Pilate was the one on trial and Jesus was actually the Judge.

Pilate had to make a decision about Him, so he asked the crowd, “What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?”

The answer came back to him, “Let him be crucified,” and it would have shaken him to his core.

 

Verse 23,

Then the governor said, “Why, what evil has He done?” But they cried out all the more, saying, “Let Him be crucified!” 

We see here that mob rule, mobocracy, never has a reason and is seldom wise or logical.

 

Moving to verse 24,

When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult was rising, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it.” 

Pilate called for a basin of water and washed his hands, declaring that he’d have nothing to do with the execution of Jesus.

But it wasn’t as easy as that. He had to make the same decision every person must and that is, “What will I do with Jesus Christ?”.

Pilate may have washed his hands but right down through the last 2000 years the words of the oldest creed of the church say, “ … crucified under Pontius Pilate.”

The blood of Jesus was on his hands no matter how much he washed them.

 

Verse 25 now,

And all the people answered and said, “His blood be on us and on our children.” 

Unfortunately for the Jewish nation that’s clearly been the case for the last 2000 years.

 

Verse 26,

Then he released Barabbas to them; and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified. 

Pilate was willing to stoop this low himself. He had to make a decision, and his decision, of course, was rejection.

 

Now to Matthew 27:27,

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around Him. 

The soldiers were free to do with Him as they pleased. He became a plaything for this brutal, cruel crowd.

They only needed a regular group of four soldiers – called a quaternion – to carry out the execution, and yet they gathered the whole garrison around Him. It wasn’t to prevent His escape. It wasn’t to prevent a hostile crowd from rescuing Him. It wasn’t to keep the disciples away.

Think of whose hands our Lord is now in. Truly, at this time, He was surrounded with dogs, and enclosed with the congregation of the wicked, just as Psalm 22:16 prophesied.

 

To verses 28 to 30 now,

And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. 

When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand. And they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”

Then they spat on Him, and took the reed and struck Him on the head. 

 

The soldiers had their fun with Him before He was crucified. Since He was going to die anyway, they could mutilate Him and do anything their twisted minds could conceive with Him.

They played a cruel Roman game known as “hot hand” where the soldiers would show the prisoner their fists, blindfold the prisoner, and all but one would hit him as hard as they could. Then they’d remove the blindfold, and if the prisoner was still conscious, he was supposed to guess which soldier didn’t hit him. Obviously, the prisoner could never guess the right one. They would continue this until they had beaten the prisoner to a pulp.

The Lord Jesus was so mutilated that He couldn’t even be recognized, again just as Isaiah 52 verse 14 prophesied,

Just as many were astonished at you, So His visage was marred more than any man, And His form more than the sons of men.

 

Now we move to Matthew 27:31-32,

And when they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified. 

Now as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. Him they compelled to bear His cross. 

Jesus was subjected to untold suffering. We’re given the impression here that He was too weak to carry His cross because of the ordeal to which the soldiers had subjected Him.

 

Verse 33,

And when they had come to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, Place of a Skull, 

That place is identified as Gordon’s Calvary, named after General Gordon, who selected it as the probable site of Golgotha, but it’s difficult to be sure, although Gordon’s Calvary is close to the biblical description of Golgotha. It’s a place that resembles a skull.

 

Verse 34,

they gave Him sour wine mingled with gall to drink. But when He had tasted it, He would not drink. 

This is yet another fulfillment of prophesy, this time Psalm 69:21,

They also gave me gall for my food, And for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

 

To verse 35,

Then they crucified Him, and divided His garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet: “THEY DIVIDED MY GARMENTS AMONG THEM, AND FOR MY CLOTHING THEY CAST LOTS.”

This prophecy, again from Psalm 22 is fulfilled, which presents a graphic picture of death by crucifixion.

Then verse 36,

Sitting down, they kept watch over Him there. 

Here we see humanity reaching its lowest depth as we see these people sitting down watching.

More than likely Saul of Tarsus, who would later become the apostle Paul and who would write the 13 epistles of the bible that relate to us today, was in that crowd who watched Jesus in mortal agony.

Later on, when he wrote to Timothy in 1^st Timothy 1:15, he called himself the chief of sinners and he probably called himself that because he was the chief of sinners.

 

Now to verses 37 to 40,

And they put up over His head the accusation written against Him: THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS. 

Then two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and another on the left. 

And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.”

“If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” Notice how they raise doubts? “If You are the Son of God …”

Little did they know that because He is the Son of God, He’ll not come down from the Cross. This is the whole purpose he had come to His fallen creation, to free it from the curse of sin and to do it He must give His life. He’s now dying for the sins of the world.

He’d came all the way down to the deepest of humiliation and suffering to accomplish our salvation. He let go of absolutely everything from His deity, His Godship, even His clothes, becoming completely poor for us, so we could become completely rich in Him.

And yet even in all this sin, pain, agony, and injustice God guided all things to the fulfilment of His purpose and so that many prophecies were specifically fulfilled. It may seem that Jesus had no control over these events, but He was in control of the whole thing.

 

THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS, read the sign that Pilate had ordered placed over His head.

In John 19:21-22 we read that the religious leaders objected to this title. They felt it was false, because they didn’t believe that Jesus was the King of the Jews, but Pilate wouldn’t alter this title, saying when asked to take down, “What I have written, I have written.”

Two robbers were crucified with Jesus, one on the right and another on the left and as we’ll see in a couple of verses, even these robbers reviled Him with the same thing as the priests and rulers and those who were passing by saying, “You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.”

 

Matthew 27:41,

Likewise, the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, 

You’d think that after this pack of religious bloodhounds, including the chief priests, had succeeded in getting Him on the Cross, they’d go home and let Him die in peace, but of course they didn’t. They stayed there taunting Him while there was still life in His body.

 

Verse 42,

“He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. 

Continuing the relentless mocking, these scribes and elders and probably pharisees as well, said, “He saved others, but He can’t save Himself. If He is the King of Israel, let Him come down from the cross, and we’ll believe Him. He trusted in God; let God deliver Him now, this person Who said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

The mocking inferred that if Jesus did what they said, they’d believe Him. Yet it’s precisely because He didn’t save Himself that He can save others. Love kept Jesus on the cross, not nails! Jesus did greater than come down from the cross; He rose from the dead, and yet they didn’t believe even then.

 

To verse 43,

He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

One thing that we can clearly see from the abuse of that crowd is that they understood that Jesus claimed deity, He claimed to be God. There are many today who claim the title of Christian who don’t believe that Jesus ever claimed He was deity, that He was God.

 

In verse 44 we see this,

Even the robbers who were crucified with Him reviled Him with the same thing.

Matthew calls our attention to the thieves who were crucified with Jesus and the fact that they joined with the religious rulers in mocking Him, however he doesn’t call our attention to the fact that one of the thieves finally turned to Jesus. We see that in the account of Luke 23:39-43.

Next time friends, we see the final hours of Jesus’s life in the flesh and may God give us all the revelation of all that He’s done for us.