SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/4/2024 9:08 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “The Ignorant Wicked”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
27:27-37
Message of the verses: “27 Then the soldiers
of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole Roman
cohort around Him. 28 They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. 29 And
after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed
in His right hand; and they knelt down before Him and mocked Him, saying,
"Hail, King of the Jews!" 30 They spat on Him, and took the reed and began
to beat Him on the head. 31 After they had mocked Him, they took the scarlet
robe off Him and put His own garments back on Him, and led Him away to
crucify Him.
“32 As
they were coming out, they found a man of Cyrene named Simon, whom they pressed
into service to bear His cross.
“33 And when they came to a place called
Golgotha, which means Place of a Skull, 34 they gave Him wine to drink mixed
with gall; and after tasting it, He was unwilling to drink. 35 And when
they had crucified Him, they divided up His garments among themselves by
casting lots. 36 And sitting down, they began to keep watch over Him
there. 37 And above His head they put up the charge against Him which read,
"THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.’”
In verse 27 we see the words the whole Roman
cohort and a full Roman cohort amounted to 600 soldiers, and because
this particular cohort served the Roman governor at his Praetorium at Fort
Antonia in Jerusalem, it was probably composed of elite legionnaires. MacArthur writes “They were not necessarily
all, or even mostly, Italian, because Rome typically conscripted soldiers from
among its occupied countries. Because
most men would be reluctant to fight against their own countrymen, they were
frequently sent to neighboring regions that spoke the same or similar
language. We can be sure that none of
this cohort was Jewish, because Rome had granted a special exemption of Jews
from Roman military service. It is
likely that the contingent in Jerusalem was composed largely of Syrians, who spoke
Aramaic, the most common conversational and trade language of Palestine.” I find this very interesting and probably
something that many who read over this passage did not even think about.
MacArthur
goes on to talk more about those who were involved in this wicked treatment of
Christ. “Because Pilate’s primary
headquarters were in Caesarea, this cohort may have been stationed there,
traveling from place to place with the governor as his military escort. If so, they would have been even less
familiar with Judaism than the average Roman soldier in Jerusalem and probably
had never heart of Jesus. To them, He
was simply another condemned prisoner, whom they were free to abuse as much as
they pleased, as long as he was not killed before the designated execution. If they considered Jesus to be in any way
unique, it was only in that He had apparently claimed to be some sort of
king. What they did to Him was therefore
unrelated to religious or personal animosity.
Their torment of Jesus was wicked and inexcusable, but it was done out
of spiritual ignorance.
“Jesus’
face was swollen from the slaps and beatings He received from the Temple police
and was covered with spittle from His Jewish tormentors. He was bleeding profusely from the scourging,
with terrible lacerations from His shoulders down, exposing muscles, ligaments,
blood vessels, and perhaps even internal organs. Because He had not spoken for the past hour
or so, the soldiers may have considered Him mentally deranged and worthy only
of ridicule. They played Him as a fool,
making sport of the comments they had overheard about His claim to kingship.
“It
did not matter to them that Jesus had never personally harmed them or that
technically He was innocent according to Roman law. They had been trained to obey orders, which
frequently required killing and torture.
Jesus had been officially condemned, and no sense of justice or
propriety, much less of mercy or compassion, tempered their cold-hearted
entertainment at Jesus’ expense.
Although in an extreme way, they expressed the natural wickedness of
every human heart that is ignorant of God.”
That
is about all I can handle this morning, and so we will continue looking at how
John MacArthur describes this section of Scripture in our next SD.
8/4/2024 7:55 AM
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