The Crucifixion
Matthew 27:32-56
Main Idea: Jesus victoriously endured the shame, mockery, & condemnation of crucifixion to accomplish salvation for us.
I. The Contempt of the Cross (27:32-44)
The mockery and contempt of Jesus are hauntingly ironic:
The man mocked as king is the King of all kings (27:37)
The one scorned by the religious leaders as a false Messiah is the ultimate temple of God (27:39-40)
The one who refuses to ‘save himself’ will be the Savior of many (27:41-44)
The jeering & mockery of the bystanders echo the temptations of Satan in the wilderness in Matthew 4. They are participating in an ancient conspiracy with demonic origins even though they do not realize what is happening.
“Jesus could not save himself, not because of any physical constraint, but because of a moral imperative. He came to do his Father’s will, and he would not be deflected from it... It was not nails that held Jesus to that wretched cross; it was his unqualified resolution, out of love for his Father, to do his Father’s will—and, within that framework, it was his love for sinners like me. He really could not save himself.” ~ D.A. Carson
II. The Cry of the Cross (27:45-50)
A supernatural darkness of divine judgment covered the land from 12pm-3pm, when the sun should be at its brightest; Jesus’ death is ultimately a sin-bearing death on behalf of a guilty humanity.
“Part of the whole point of the cross is that there the weight of the world’s evil really did converge upon Jesus, blotting out the sunlight of God’s love as surely as the light of day was blotted out for three hours… Jesus is ‘giving his life as a ransom for many’ (20:28), and the sin of the ‘many’, which he is bearing, has for the first and only time in his experience caused a cloud to come between him and the father he loved and obeyed, the one who had been delighted in him.” ~ N.T. Wright
Though the physical pain of crucifixion was immense, the gospel writers emphasize the existential & spiritual pain of Jesus on the cross. His cry from Psalm 22 is from a place of forsakenness as he “bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24).
“[Jesus] is not on the cross by mistake… The crucifixion was not just an unfortunate thing that happened to Jesus on his way to the resurrection. It is not a momentary blip on the arc of his ascent to the Father. It is precisely on the cross that the work of Jesus is carried through to its completion.” ~ Fleming Rutledge
III. The Completion of the Cross (27:51-56)
Immediately after Jesus “yielded up his spirit” in death, three things occur:
1. The temple curtain is torn in two (27:51a)
Hebrews 10:19–22a: “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith…”
2. Death starts to work backwards (27:51b-53)
3. A Roman centurion confesses & cries out in faith (27:54)
Galatians 2:20: I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
