SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/27/2017
10:04 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Intro
to John 18:39-19:16
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John
18:39-19:16
Message of the
verses: 39 “But you have a custom
that I release someone for you at the Passover; do you wish then that I release
for you the King of the Jews?" 40 So they cried out again, saying,
"Not this Man, but Barabbas." Now Barabbas was a robber.
“1
Pilate then took Jesus and scourged Him. 2
And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His
head, and put a purple robe on Him; 3 and they began to come up to Him and say,
"Hail, King of the Jews!" and to give Him slaps in the face. 4 Pilate
came out again and said to them, "Behold, I am bringing Him out to you so
that you may know that I find no guilt in Him." 5 Jesus then came out,
wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them,
"Behold, the Man!" 6 So when the chief priests and the officers saw
Him, they cried out saying, "Crucify, crucify!" Pilate said to them,
"Take Him yourselves and crucify Him, for I find no guilt in Him." 7
The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and by that law He ought to die
because He made Himself out to be the Son of God." 8 Therefore when Pilate
heard this statement, he was even more afraid; 9 and he entered into the
Praetorium again and said to Jesus, "Where are You from?" But Jesus
gave him no answer. 10 So Pilate said to Him, "You do not speak to me? Do
You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to
crucify You?" 11 Jesus answered, "You would have no authority over
Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered
Me to you has the greater sin." 12 As a result of this Pilate made efforts
to release Him, but the Jews cried out saying, "If you release this Man,
you are no friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself out to be a king
opposes Caesar." 13 Therefore when Pilate heard these words, he brought
Jesus out, and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Pavement,
but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. 14 Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover;
it was about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, "Behold, your
King!" 15 So they cried out, "Away with Him, away with Him, crucify
Him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The
chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar." 16 So he then
handed Him over to them to be crucified.”
I have been thinking a lot about John 17 as this is the
chapter that I am now teaching in our Sunday school class and this week’s class
will be on the first verse and so as I was reading over what these verses say
my thoughts went back to 17:1 “Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His
eyes to heaven, He said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son,
that the Son may glorify You.” Jesus
look’s back to what He had just said to His disciples in chapters 13-16 in the
first part of this verse, and then looks ahead to what will happen to Him in
chapters 18-19 when He stated “the hour has come,” and we are looking what that
hour was as we continue our study on chapters 18-19.
John MacArthur entitles this chapter in his commentary “Jesus
Before Pilate—Part 2: Phase Three of the Civil Trial.” We will probably take a couple of days to
look at the introduction to these verses that are before us.
The question that is posed in the introduction to this
section from MacArthur’s commentary is: “Who is Responsible for the Death of
Christ?” I have to be honest in that as
you read different portions of the Scriptures you seem to find different
answers to this question. I remember
after Mel Gibson’s move came out about the crucifixion of Christ and he was
being interviewed and asked this question and his answer was “me.” He was saying that because of his sin that
Christ was crucified. This truly is one
of the answers that we find in Scripture, and yet there are others as Peter in
his sermon on the Day of Pentecost says “this Man, delivered over by the
predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands
of godless men and put Him to death.” We
see in this verse what is called juxtaposing, and we have looked at this word
before and I have to say that this has become one of my favorite words to help
me understand some difficult things in Scripture. God planned the death of Christ in eternity
past and as Peter states the Jews had Him nailed to the cross, so the question
is who is to blame. Isaiah 53:10 tells
us “It was the will of the Lord to crush Him, He has put Him to grief.” We see here that it was God’s will to have
Christ put to death.
Now speaking of whether to blame the Romans or the Jews
John MacArthur writes “But the real responsibility does not rest solely with
either of them; What put Him on the cross was God’s own determination to punish
His Son for all the sins of all who would ever be saved. John the Baptist hailed Him as the ‘Lamb of
God who takes away the sin of the world!’ (John 1:29). The writer of Hebrews said that He ‘has been
manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself’ (Heb. 9:26). In his first epistle John wrote that ‘He
Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for
those of the whole world’ (1 John 2:2) and ‘He appeared in order to take away
sins’ (3:5). Our sins put Him on the
cross.”
Elsewhere we read that Jesus said that “no man has taken
[My life] away from me” and then went on to say “but I have authority to take
it up again. This commandment I received
from My Father” (John 10:18). Later on
Jesus told Pilate, “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been
given you from above.”
At this point I think that I will express some things
that I think are true as we look at this subject. First of all I want to list the attributes of
God that I praise the Lord for many days of the week: “God is HOLY, good, glorious, pure,
sovereign, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, truth, measureless,
omnipresence, omnipotent, omniscience, all wise, immutable, eternal, God is wrath, God pardons, God is Jealous, faithful,
God is love and just.” Now you can see that I have highlighted four
of these attributes and the reason for them is that before God created the
earth and surrounding universe there was only the trinity that was in
existence. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit, and all of these Persons of the godhead had and still
have all of these attributes. We know
that in eternity past that God promised to give His Son a love gift, that is a
bride. Now before the creation of man on
the earth, and before the angels were created, God did not demonstrate any of
these attributes that I have highlighted as there was no need for wrath, God to
pardon anyone, the jealously of God, or the justice of God. Now in God’s plan to give His Son a love
gift, that is a bride these attributes that are highlighted will be seen as man
will sin, God will pardon, God’s jealously will be in effect as those who will
not worship Him will see His wrath and His justice. So I conclude this by saying that for reasons
that I totally do not understand it was in the plan of God to Have Christ die
to pay for the price of His bride and to demonstrate those attributes that in
eternity past were not demonstrated. Of
course this is all conjecture on my part and so I truly cannot say that I can
find verses that say exactly what I am saying, but I do believe that there is
Scripture that can support this “theory” of mine. One thing I do know for sure that it was God
who was in charge of the death of His Son, and that death paid for my sins and
has allowed God to justify me in His eyes so that I can spend eternity with
Him.
John MacArthur writes the following paragraph at the end
of his introduction and I usually quote it as it tells us where we will be
going as we study the section before us.
“As he did throughout his gospel, John presented the majesty
and dignity of the Lord Jesus Christ—even as He was beaten, unjustly sentenced
to death, and led away to be crucified.
The apostle did so by contrasting Him with the weak and vacillating
Pilate, who lost his composure, his control over events, and was pressured into
sentencing and innocent man to die. The story of Pilate’s downfall reveals his
failed proposals to dispose of the case, his fatal panic as events spiraled out
of control, and produced his final pronouncement of the death sentence on the
Lord Jesus Christ.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: As I have been
studying the sections that come from John 18-19 I am seeing more and more of
the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ was in control of what was happening to
Him.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I want to continue to trust the Lord to guide
me into what He has for me to say that will glorify Him as I teach Sunday
school on the amazing 17th chapter of John.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “13.”
Today’s Bible
question: “How did the animals get their
names?”
Answer in our next SD.
4/27/2017 11:21 AM
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