"Behold The Man" John 19:1-16

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agopic Baptist Church in George South Africa.

[SPEAKER_01]: You still have your place there, and John chapter 19.

John 19 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_01]: So we look at the passage this morning.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure most of you had experiences and maybe even this week or last week when you had a decision you had to make and it didn't seem like there was any good good decision either way you went.

[SPEAKER_01]: Either way you go somebody's not going to be happy.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think in back with family, many times family relationships, especially the expectations that parents may have, for example, in America, we have thanksgiving and day, and that's

[SPEAKER_01]: to the parents home and have a meal.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when you have both sets of parents living in different places and you have to decide, okay, where are we going, which family are we going to?

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's the kind of things that happen that you just have to make the best of it, either way you choose somebody's not going to be happy.

[SPEAKER_01]: But pilot here in the

[SPEAKER_01]: and our text today, he's caught in that kind of situation, but for him it's a much more serious situation.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a life or death situation.

[SPEAKER_01]: No one's a life or death for Jesus, but more importantly, for him it's life or death for him possibly.

[SPEAKER_01]: It certainly, we could lose his position and with the temperament of Caesar.

[SPEAKER_01]: He could lose his life over handling this matter in a wrong way.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the Jewish leaders, they've been seeking to kill Jesus for some time, but they just haven't been able to do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: They have just haven't got the timing right.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when they tried to take Jesus on occasions, he would just slip away.

[SPEAKER_01]: or the crowd would be in favor of Jesus because of miracles they had done and politically they didn't want to lose favor with the people and so they are just being frustrated with Jesus and so when Judas presents for them an opportunity they hastily put together a plan

[SPEAKER_01]: to have the Romans killed Jesus, which would be a much better solution for them.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so they bring Jesus to Pilate with what amounts to a charge of sedition against Caesar.

[SPEAKER_01]: They claim that Jesus has forbid the people to pay taxes and that He claims to be a king.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we've already seen in the previous chapter in chapter 18 that Pilate has made the judgment that Jesus is not guilty of the charges they've brought against him.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Pilate can't just let him go.

[SPEAKER_01]: He has to be careful because he doesn't want to

[SPEAKER_01]: A problem, his leadership, he doesn't want to create a riot or reason for the Jews to send a report to Caesar, and history tells us he's already made some mistakes, he's already got himself in trouble, the Jews have complained, created a riot over past decisions,

[SPEAKER_01]: And so, the pilot here is a trade-in-home, some thin ground, so to speak.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so he has to be careful about that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so he has this problem, what to do with Jesus?

[SPEAKER_01]: Either way he goes, either decision he makes,

[SPEAKER_01]: He stands to get in trouble.

[SPEAKER_01]: If he condemns a man who's not guilty, that won't look good for his authorities, those above him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if he doesn't go along with what the Jews want, they're just continuing to get more stirred up.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's religious leaders and there's a riot or some type of mass protest against his leadership.

[SPEAKER_01]: That won't be good either.

[SPEAKER_01]: So what to do with Jesus and it's a problem and it's a question that comes to us as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: What will you do with Jesus?

[SPEAKER_01]: You can surrender to Him and receive Him as you're Lord and Savior and most of us have done that.

[SPEAKER_01]: We have trusted the Lord, we've sided with Him,

[SPEAKER_01]: But me, we'll choose like the Jewish leaders to reject Jesus, to harden their heart against him and reject him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Or maybe, maybe there's someone that's more like pilot.

[SPEAKER_01]: He would rather just wash their hands of the situation and not make a decision.

[SPEAKER_01]: for what happens.

[SPEAKER_01]: But just like with Pollock, you can't be neutral.

[SPEAKER_01]: Either you're with Jesus or you're against him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we see Pollock's problem.

[SPEAKER_01]: And although his sin was less than kind of his sin, he was still guilty, wasn't he?

[SPEAKER_01]: He's still guilty of rejecting Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's the Roman soldiers in this account.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're just doing a job, but they want to be entertained.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in their cruelty, they make a game of mocking Jesus and laughing at him and hitting him.

[SPEAKER_01]: making the crown of thorns and the robe to laugh and scold at the claim that he is a king.

[SPEAKER_01]: And although that pilot had declared already that he was innocent, he likes the courage to set him free.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so, pilot begins this series of compromises to try to deal with this situation he finds himself in.

[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, when Pollock hears that he is from Galilee, he sends him to Herod to be tried.

[SPEAKER_01]: That would put it on someone else.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Herod, he doesn't really get anywhere with Jesus and sends him back.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so he's right back where he started.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then at the end of chapter 18,

[SPEAKER_01]: He appeals to the crowd.

[SPEAKER_01]: He goes out to the crowd and there's this custom of releasing someone at this time with the Passover.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so he decides that he has the plan that surely the people would choose Jesus over this criminal Barabas.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we know from the other accounts that Barabas

[SPEAKER_01]: an enemy of Rome for sure, but he calculates that this would be a way to get out of the situation, but he's underestimated how much they hate Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so they choose Barabas.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that brings us to chapter 19 where Pilate sends Jesus to be flagged or scourged

[SPEAKER_01]: Luke's account in chapter 23 tells us he says I found in him no guilt worthy of death.

[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore I will punish him and release him.

[SPEAKER_01]: So evidently, pilot sending him to be to be flagged was an effort to give the people what they wanted.

[SPEAKER_01]: They wanted blood.

[SPEAKER_01]: They wanted to see Jesus punished.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so he's, no doubt, thinking here that if he can bring him out, bring Jesus out to the people and they can see him, beaten and bloodied, and this flogging was so severe that many, many accounts of people dying, and surely that would be enough to satisfy the crowds

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus' punishment.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then we can read in verse 4 and 5.

[SPEAKER_01]: You'll look there in our text in John 19 in Pilate.

[SPEAKER_01]: Verse 4, Pilate came out again and said to them, but hold on, I am bringing him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in him.

[SPEAKER_01]: In other words, no guilt worthy of death is what Pilate has in mind here.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know it's not guilty of the crimes that he's been charged.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple road, and Paul it said to them, behold the man, behold the man, look at him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it seems that Paul it is sarcastically saying, you know, look at this man.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's the one that is being charged with being a king.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's the king of the Jews.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he's, we're not totally sure if he's just being He's ridiculing and mocking Jesus or the Jews, maybe both.

[SPEAKER_01]: But he's thinking that this will surely be enough that they will be satisfied.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's probably all he meant by the statement, the whole demand.

[SPEAKER_01]: But as we've already seen in John, sometimes God uses unbelievers to see things or speak to truth in such a way that it's not what they intended or even what they thought, but God uses their statements.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pilots words constitute an unconscious allusion to Zacharias 6 and verse 12.

[SPEAKER_01]: That says, Look, here is the man whose name is the branch.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a prophecy concerning the coming Messiah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Look, here is the man or behold the man.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the net translation goes on to say, in this case, pilot unknowingly and ironically presented Jesus to the nation under a messianic title.

[SPEAKER_01]: The whole demand.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this morning, I would like for us to do just that, the hold him, the hold the man.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the first thing I want us to see is that he is the king of glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, for the Romans, they just want to make fun of him and mock him.

[SPEAKER_01]: They put this crown of thorns upon his head and the robe like a burlty, and they're beating him and whipping him and laughing.

[SPEAKER_01]: But as they're doing so, he's more than they could ever imagine.

[SPEAKER_01]: Psalm 24, they're the psalmist and the song.

[SPEAKER_01]: it speaks to the gates of the city of Jerusalem and a metaphorical way telling the gates to stand at attention.

[SPEAKER_01]: Be lifted up because the king of glory is coming in.

[SPEAKER_01]: Psalm 24 from verse 7 says, lift up your heads, oh gates, and be lifted up, oh ancient doors, that the king of glory may come in.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then the song leader would ask, who is this king of glory?

[SPEAKER_01]: And the response would be Yahweh strong in mighty.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yahweh mighty in battle.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lift up your heads, oh gates, and lift up yourselves, oh ancient doors, that the king of glory may come in.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then the leader would ask again, who is he this king of glory?

[SPEAKER_01]: And the response, Yahweh of host.

[SPEAKER_01]: is the King of glory, C. Law.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this Psalm has final and ultimate fulfillment in the second coming of the Lord.

[SPEAKER_01]: In the establishment of his kingdom, on earth.

[SPEAKER_01]: We saw a glimpse of it earlier in chapter 12 of where Jesus comes into the city.

[SPEAKER_01]: The triumphal entry.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's referred to of Christ coming

[SPEAKER_01]: John 12 verse 13 says, they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him and began to shout Hosanna, blessed as he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel.

John 12:13

[SPEAKER_01]: And so they mock him as the king of the Jews.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Jesus is not just king of the Jews.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's

[SPEAKER_01]: King of the universe.

[SPEAKER_01]: King of glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: Secondly, this man, where to behold, is a despised in rejected man.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's rejected and hated by the Jews.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's mocked and despised by the Romans.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if we see in this first part of chapter 19, he's taken and flogged in such a cruel punishment

[SPEAKER_01]: the mockery and the shame that he endured.

[SPEAKER_01]: We just must remember that it was for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: That he willingly stood and received such treatment.

[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't resist.

[SPEAKER_01]: He had the power to resist.

[SPEAKER_01]: He could call upon legions of angels to deliver him.

[SPEAKER_01]: But he willingly went there and suffered such treatment for us to stand in our place for what we deserved.

[SPEAKER_01]: Mr. Dan Red Forest from Isaiah 53, some 700 years before the Lord had foretold this rejection and suffering of the servant of the Lord, the Messiah.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're strained for again, let me read for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was despised and forsaken.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's Isaiah 53, verse 3.

Isaiah 53:3

[SPEAKER_01]: He was despised and forsaken of man, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

[SPEAKER_01]: And like one from whom man had their face, he was despised.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we did not esteem him.

[SPEAKER_01]: As Jesus has brought out on that

[SPEAKER_01]: podium like area before the people they despised him.

[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't regard him for who he was.

[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't give him honor, they didn't give him glory.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the verse four says, surely our grease he bore, he himself bore, and our sorrows he carried.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yet we ourselves esteemed him

[SPEAKER_01]: The Jewish leadership, as Pauli reasons with him, they repeatedly checked Christ and called for his crucifixion.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then finally, we've become down to verse 15, we're out of their desperation.

[SPEAKER_01]: They denounce not only Christ, but God Himself is the rightful king in His place.

[SPEAKER_01]: they choose Caesar.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, it's first 15 again, it's an incredible thing that happens when Pilate is still trying to release him.

[SPEAKER_01]: They cry out, away with him, away with him, crucify him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Pilate said to them, shall I crucify your king?

[SPEAKER_01]: but Caesar, and so they, in their hatred of Jesus, have denounced their heritage as the people of God, people chosen by God and God as their team.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is really the sad truth that John begins with in John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_01]: He came to what was his own, and those who were his own did not receive him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that was the state of the nation.

[SPEAKER_01]: But thankfully, there were some who did receive him, some who did believe, and verse 12 goes on to say, but as many as received him to them, he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name.

[SPEAKER_01]: Are you among those this morning who believe and receive Him?

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't mean just when it's convenient, when other people are positive about Him.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when everyone else is turning away from Him, when everyone else is rejecting Him,

[SPEAKER_01]: And Hebrews chapter 2, verse 9, we read, but we do see Him.

Hebrews 2:9

[SPEAKER_01]: He was made a little lower than the angels, Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.

[SPEAKER_01]: The whole demand is the Son of God,

[SPEAKER_01]: Verse 6, Paul, it tells the Jewish leaders that he finds no guilt in Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Paul, it just means that he's not guilty of the charges.

[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't find him guilty as he's been charged.

[SPEAKER_01]: But again, he's saying more than what he realizes because Jesus is the guiltless son of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is the holy and righteous.

[SPEAKER_01]: One author writes, let us behold this man, he exercised all the virtues which could adorn humanity.

[SPEAKER_01]: See his meekness, gentleness, patience, faith, fortitude, piety, and perfect love to God and to man,

[SPEAKER_01]: In verse 7, the Jews, the announcer, Paulett, by saying, we have a law.

[SPEAKER_01]: And by that law, he ought to die because he made himself out to be the Son of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this has been, as we know, the purpose in John's writing, that we might believe that Jesus is indeed the Christ, the Son of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not just that he claimed to be that, but that he is the Son of God, and then the verse 20, verse 31, he says, and that believing you may have life in his name.

[SPEAKER_01]: Notice verse 8, when Paulot hears this statement from the Jews, leaders that he claimed to be the Son of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: This passage says that he became more afraid.

[SPEAKER_01]: Paul, it's fear is not because of his understanding of the Bible and who Jesus is.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's more out of his superstition of the pagan ideas that he has about the gods.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we see Matthew,

[SPEAKER_01]: in this same account telling us that Paul it's wife had sin a message to a morning him in Matthew 27 verse 19.

Matthew 27:19

[SPEAKER_01]: The message says, have nothing to do with this righteous man for last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so

[SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of a strange thing, no doubt, for Paul it to hear.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's making a decision about this man and here comes a message from his wife.

[SPEAKER_01]: Didn't have anything to do with him.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's had some kind of dream.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then the Jews say he claimed to be a son of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so now, Paul it, he's just had him flogged.

[SPEAKER_01]: Is this man one of the, a son of one of the gods, and so that's, I believe it's why he's fearful.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you see him going back into the, the Praetorium and asking Jesus, where are you from?

[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, he's, he's really baffled about about this situation and he, he didn't want

[SPEAKER_01]: feeling like he just wants to be, he just wants to wash his hands of this whole thing and be done.

[SPEAKER_01]: Notice, fourthly, that this man that we're to look at is the judge of the universe, the judge of the universe.

[SPEAKER_01]: When Jesus doesn't give him an answer,

[SPEAKER_01]: And Paul, this says, where are you from?

[SPEAKER_01]: You just, it doesn't say anything.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so, verse 10 and 11, we read, the Paul it said to him, do you not speak to me?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you not know that have authority to release you?

[SPEAKER_01]: And I have authority to crucify you?

[SPEAKER_01]: And Jesus answered, you would have no authority over me unless it had been given you from above.

[SPEAKER_01]: For this reason, He who delivered me to you has the greater sin.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we see Jesus instead of a helpless victim who's trying to defend himself, we see Him as the judge declaring the judge to be a sinner.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that He would not have any authority at all,

[SPEAKER_01]: And so in verse 12, we read as a result of this, Paul, it kept seeking to release him.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the Jews cried out saying, if you released this man, you are no friend of Caesar.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone who makes himself to be a king opposes Caesar.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty incredible.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're these Jewish leaders pretending to care about Caesar and his rule.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pilate knows their hypocrisy.

[SPEAKER_01]: He knows they do not care about Rome or the integrity of Rome, but they just want to find a way to accuse and kill Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what they say,

[SPEAKER_01]: of Caesar.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Pollock can't afford for that kind of message to get back to Rome.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so with that statement and with the fact that the people are already stirred up into what could become a riot, Pollock gives him over to be crucified.

[SPEAKER_01]: So out of fear of displeasing Caesar, he sets up on his throne.

[SPEAKER_01]: and pronounces the judgment against Jesus to be condemned.

[SPEAKER_01]: And He condemns the one who has been given all authority, and who is to be the judge of all, such as the irony that we see in this passage of what appears to be in what really is.

[SPEAKER_01]: In verse 14, John points out for us that it was the day of preparation for the Passover.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it must be for me with the history of the Passover going all the way back to when the Lord delivered the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt, in the Lamb of that night was to be slain, and the blood was to be applied to the doorpost and the lentil

[SPEAKER_01]: And all who obeyed the Lord in faith and were inside the home with the blood on the door were safe as the death angel passed over in the life of the first born children were taken throughout all the land.

[SPEAKER_01]: time that the Passover Lamb were being slaughtered.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it recalls what John the Baptist had earlier talked about, and said he declared when he saw Jesus in John 1 verse 29, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

John 1:29

[SPEAKER_01]: One writer,

[SPEAKER_01]: says it this way, behold the man, reviled, yet reviling not again, hated, but still loving on, cruelly wronged, the speaking no resentful word, behold the man, the God man, wearing humanity, the son of God humbling himself and becoming obedient to shame and death, that he might save our souls.

[SPEAKER_01]: behold the man holy, sinless, undefiled, separate from sinners, yet bearing upon his own head as the Lamb of God the sin of the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: behold the man, did you see him this morning?

[SPEAKER_01]: To really see Jesus is to love him and to desire in your heart to live for him

[SPEAKER_01]: to really see Him as to turn from the idols of your heart and turn to Him in faith, believing that He is the Lord our Savior, may the Lord help us to see Him as He truly is, man.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Father, for your word this morning, thank you for this view of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: And though we don't want to look, we don't want to think about how he suffered for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: We want to turn our eyes away from him because it is painful to think about his suffering and his agony and his shame and the mocking and all that was happening in that time leading up to the crucifixion

[SPEAKER_01]: because it is for our sin that he was there.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that we might stand forgiven before you.

[SPEAKER_01]: We thank you in Jesus name, amen.