Every Last Word

Guest (Male): The trial of Jesus is over. Pilate found him innocent of all charges. End of story? No, not yet. Jesus was still sentenced to death. What happened next? Why was an innocent man crucified? As we prepare to look for the answers to these questions, let’s turn in our Bibles now to the Gospel of Luke.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Every Last Word, a radio and internet program with Dr. Philip Ryken, teaching the whole Bible to change your whole life. Today’s sermon concerns the crucifixion of Christ and is part of our continuing studies in the Gospel of Luke. We’ll see the plan of God and the desires of Satan coming together for an amazing outcome.

Mark: Phil, many factors contributed to Jesus’ execution on that Roman cross, but in the end, who was responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion?

Dr. Philip Graham Ryken: Mark, I really think everyone was. You read the story of the trial of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, and it’s very clear that both the Jews and the Gentiles—that is, the Romans—conspired against Christ. But in a way, all of us are implicated in the death of Christ because He was on the cross to pay the price for our sins. We are the ones that brought the Son of God into this suffering.

Mark: What should our attitude be when we’re faced with suffering in our own lives?

Dr. Philip Graham Ryken: It’s one of the wonderful things about the cross, Mark. It shows that we have a Savior who knows what it is like to suffer. And so we have a Savior who can be very sympathetic to all the troubles that we’re going through in life.

And also, those sufferings prove that God has a good plan even through the worst of suffering. If God could bring good even out of the sufferings that Jesus went through on the cross, He certainly has the power and the grace to bring good out of our own suffering. I pray that our listeners today would be able to hold on to that truth in their own trials and tribulations.

Mark: All right, thank you, Phil. Let’s turn in our Bibles now to Luke chapter 23, verses 13 through 25, and listen to Dr. Ryken.

Dr. Philip Graham Ryken: I have to say I'm a little surprised that the Christmas police haven't come after me this week. If you walked up to the church this morning, you may have been surprised by the sermon title: "Crucify Him!" Probably not a sermon title you'll see at any other church in the city of Philadelphia, maybe anywhere in the world this Sunday.

But you know, we have been studying through the Gospel of Luke. We come this week to chapter 23. Let me encourage you, please, to turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 23. It’s not a typo; we’re not in Luke 2, the traditional story of the first Christmas, but in Luke 23, continuing our study of the trial of Jesus.

In a way, I think this is very appropriate. I was speaking this week with David O'Reilly from the Philadelphia Inquirer, and he was wanting to do a story on how different preachers handle the themes of Christmas. I said, "You know, when we talk about the manger, we always want to talk about the cross." So how appropriate then for us to be considering the events leading up to the crucifixion. You can't really understand Bethlehem unless you understand Calvary.

Now as we turn to Luke 23 and begin picking up at the 13th verse, we may remember that Pontius Pilate had a serious problem, namely: what was he going to do with Jesus? Jesus had already appeared before the governor once that morning for judgment. Pilate had heard the accusations against Him, he had interrogated the prisoner for himself, and he had reached his verdict: the man was not guilty.

The problem was that many people were not willing to accept that verdict. They wanted Jesus dead, and so they continued to press the matter before Pilate. The question keeps coming back to him: what is he going to do with this innocent man? He had already made several attempts to try to resolve his problem.

He had, first of all, pointed out that this was really a dispute with the local religious authorities, and they should be handling the matter in their own courts. The trouble with that was that the Jews did not have the power to execute anyone, and so they had brought the matter to Pilate. They wanted Pilate to reach a verdict.

Pilate then reached his own verdict. He declared that Jesus was innocent. That should be the end of the trial and the end of the problem, and yet the people continued to press him. They would not accept that verdict. As they spoke with him, Pilate picked up on the fact that Jesus was from Galilee.

That suggested another way of resolving this problem. Pilate realized that Jesus was also under someone else's jurisdiction, and so he sent Him off to Herod, hoping that that would be the end of the matter. And yet, here as we come to verse 13, the next thing he knows, Jesus is back and the problem still isn't solved.

As we see Pilate struggle with his problem, we should recognize that each one of us has to make some decision about Jesus. We’re not in exactly Pilate's situation; we don’t have a legal decision to make, but we do need to decide what our opinion is of Jesus and what kind of response we will make to Him as He is presented to us in the Gospel.

Will we declare His saving innocence, or will we push Him away the way that Pilate did? Will we consent to His crucifixion, and what might be the implications of doing that? Let’s look closely at what happened next. When Jesus appeared before Pilate the second time, he still didn't have a solution to this problem.

The prisoner was now back in his custody. The crowds outside the palace were growing, and in desperation, Pilate summarized his findings in the case and suggested a cruel compromise. Notice what the Scripture says, beginning at verse 13: "Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to them, 'You brought me this man as one who is misleading the people. And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him. I will therefore punish and release him.'"

As he rehearsed the facts of the case yet again, this time in front not just of the religious leaders but also of the people that Pilate had invited to hear the verdict of this case, he makes another public declaration that Jesus is innocent of any and all charges. He certainly hasn't done anything that deserves the death penalty.

Here again, Luke is making sure we hear this verdict, not once but twice and again after that, so that we hear in the Gospel that Jesus is the righteous one, that He is innocent, that He is the perfectly spotless Lamb of God. Yet Pilate's problem was that the enemies of Jesus would not accept this verdict.

As the most pragmatic of politicians, he grasps at a compromise: he will have Jesus punished and then released. There's an obvious problem here because why would you punish a man who's innocent? That doesn't make any sense at all, and yet it was not unheard of. The Romans sometimes gave their prisoners a beating before letting them go as a warning for the future.

Under the circumstances, even the slightest beating would have been an outrage against every fair principle of justice. No one who loves what is right would ever think of hurting an innocent man like this. But Pilate loved his own convenience more than he loved doing what his conscience knew was right.

Very foolishly, he tries to bargain with these bloodthirsty men. "Let me just beat Jesus up," he says, "and then let's all agree to leave it at that." This, of course, did not satisfy the enemies of Jesus. No, they began to smell Pilate's weakness. They could tell that the governor was the kind of man who would give in to their pressure.

With each compromise, they sense that they are getting closer and closer to what they really want. When Pilate suggests this compromise, they shout him down. Pilate decides to try something else. It was customary for the governor to release a prisoner at the time of Passover.

He proposed to release whichever prisoner they demanded, and he suggested that they might ask for the release of Jesus, and that would resolve his problem. But the people would have none of it. Given the opportunity to reach their own verdict, they did not accept Jesus. They asked for someone else.

They all cried out together, "Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas!" Yet again, Pilate's pitiful strategy had failed. He's working to get Jesus released, but everyone else is refusing. He appeals to them again. You see this in verse 20; he addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus.

Yet once more they refuse, and now they take up the death chant: "Crucify, crucify him!" They demand not only the most painful but also the most disgraceful death to which any man in that society could be sentenced. You see how Pilate's problem simply refuses to go away?

He's not quite ready to give up, and so he goes back to one of his earlier arguments. That's a sure sign he's running out of answers, but he says a third time, "Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him."

Now for a third time, we have a declaration that Jesus is innocent, that He's never done anything evil. And yet the people still want Him to die. There is little use in arguing with an angry mob, is there? I learned this firsthand not too long ago when I went to pray for the opening of the Philadelphia City Council.

When I arrived at City Hall, I very soon learned that there was a major dispute going on. There were lots of workers there from various city unions, and by the time we walked into the chambers, it was absolutely deafening. People shouting all kinds of protest slogans. There was no chance of getting either any invocation or legislation done that morning, I can tell you that.

Pilate faced a similar problem. They were urgent, we read in verse 23, demanding with loud cries that He should be crucified, and their voices prevailed. So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. Who do you think was responsible for this grotesque injustice?

The Bible gives a number of different answers to that question. Luke makes it clear in his sequel to this Gospel—the book of Acts, which was also written by Luke—that the people themselves were responsible. That's what the Apostle Peter said when he preached on the Day of Pentecost.

He said to the people, "You crucified and killed Jesus. You delivered him over; you denied him in the presence of Pilate." But it wasn't just the people who were to blame, was it? It was also their leaders. They were the ones who had managed this whole situation.

When Peter appeared before the Sanhedrin, he blamed the religious leaders as well. He identified Jesus as the man whom you crucified; "you killed him by hanging him on a tree," Peter said. But it wasn't just the Jews either; it was also the Romans. It was the Gentiles. It was Herod and Pilate and the soldiers.

One commentator concludes: all are guilty. Not only the Jews; frivolous Herod and feeble Pilate are guilty too, and so is treacherous Judas, and so is Peter, and so are the rest of the disciples. They are all sucked into the vortex of Satan's cosmic plan for the destruction of the Son of God.

As we watch Pilate get sucked into that diabolical vortex, we should remember that each one of us is responsible for what we decide to do with Jesus. Here in Pilate, we see a man who did everything he could to get Jesus released. He desired to release Jesus, the Scripture says, and yet he never actually releases Him.

Here's a man who thinks that he is doing what he can for Jesus but never does the one thing that Jesus most wants from anyone, which is simply to believe in Him. Pilate recognized that Jesus was an innocent man and yet he refused to receive Him as the Savior or to worship Him as the King.

Sadly, he never did solve his problem but ended up doing the wrong thing with Jesus. Let me ask you again: what will you decide to do with Jesus as you see Him, as you see the innocence of Jesus as declared in the Gospel, as you see Him suffering these things on His way to the cross?

Will you trust in Him with a Christmas and a Good Friday and an Easter faith? Will you put your whole confidence in the manger and the cross and the empty tomb? Will you believe in Jesus unto salvation, or will you be like Pontius Pilate, hoping that at some point Jesus will just go away and leave you alone so that you can get on with the rest of your life the way that you want to live it?

I tell you, Pilate died in despair. The historical record shows that he died a suicide. Oh, if he had only made a different decision about Jesus on this day. What a warning and what an example that is to us to make the right decision about Jesus as He is presented to us in the Gospel.

Pilate's not alone in this; we all have a decision to make about Jesus. This trial of Jesus in a way poses a problem for each one of us, maybe not quite the same problem that it posed for Pilate, but a problem nonetheless. To show you what the problem is, let me invite you to answer this question: what do you hope will happen at the end of this trial?

As you watch Jesus go through these legal proceedings, what are you hoping will happen? What do you hope will be the outcome of this legal procedure? Do you find yourself pulling for Jesus to be released? Or upon honest and closer and more thoughtful reflection, hoping that in the end He will be crucified?

What role would you take? If you were in the crowd, would you be chanting for the crucifixion, or would you try to quiet people down? What would you need to say yourself? "Crucify him!" On the one hand, I think anyone on the side of justice has to be for Jesus and against His accusers.

Any impartial observer could see that here is a man innocent of all charges, a man who ought to be set free. It is so obvious that by this point in the trial, our souls are just crying out for Pilate to do the right thing and release the prisoner. He should not be accused and abused; he should be honored and adored.

If only we had the chance, we would plead with Pilate to find the courage of his conscience and deliver Jesus from this terrible miscarriage of justice. If we believe that what Jesus said is true, all the things we've been seeing in the Gospel of Luke, that He is Christ the King, that He is the Son of God, that He is the Son of Man, then surely He deserves His freedom.

What we should shout at the end of this trial is, "Release him!" Yet on the other hand, if we really understand what Jesus is doing in the Gospel, we must hope that He will be condemned and crucified. Because we know that this is the only way we will ever be saved.

It's the death of Christ on the cross that atones for our sins. That's what reconciles us to God, but that death only comes about because Christ is first condemned in this court of law. So even though we know that He deserves to be set free, we also find ourselves hoping for our own sakes that His trial will end in crucifixion.

What does that say about us? That we ourselves should be compromised in such a horrible dilemma, that we would need the death of an innocent man for our own salvation. It shows that by nature we do not have a right relationship with God; we have gone our own way.

We are people like Peter who give in to the public pressure and deny our Lord when the pressure is on. We are people like Herod who love violence or who pursue wrong pleasures. We are people like Pilate who follow the path of least resistance, not taking a stand for what is right no matter what the cost.

And of course, those are only a few examples of the many wrong things we have done: all of the proud thoughts, all of the selfish intentions, all of the angry words. Then all of the good things that we could have done for someone else but never got around to doing.

You see, we're so caught up in sin, we end up compromised in this trial, wishing on the one hand that Jesus would be cleared—that's the right outcome in one sense—and yet also needing Him to be crucified. Here is a trial that exposes us for the sinners we really are.

Some years ago, around the time of Easter, I attended a dramatic production, a presentation of the life of Christ. While the trial was unfolding, some members of the cast very quietly went around the back of the auditorium and slipped into the audience.

When the trial reached its climax and Pilate asked if people wanted Jesus to be released, these actors suddenly stood up right in the audience and started shouting for Jesus to be crucified. "Crucify him!" they shouted. "Crucify him!"

Since they were standing with us out in the audience, it seemed like we were all part of that crowd that wanted to kill Jesus. Just for a moment, I almost forgot that it was a drama. My first instinct was to grab the nearest actor and make him sit down and be quiet.

I had no intention of being implicated in this injustice. But you see what the actors were trying to say? That upon further reflection, we needed Jesus to do what He was about to do or else be lost forever. God help me, if there's any hope for my sins to be forgiven, it will only be through the cross.

So I have to, in a sense, join in with the crowd, not in cruel hatred, but out of desperate necessity. Yes, crucify Jesus, if He will be crucified, because I am a sinner who needs a Savior. This saving work of Jesus, I think, is vividly demonstrated by the plea bargain that Pilate offers to the angry crowds.

Near the end of this trial, an exchange takes place. Jesus is punished and crucified, and another man is pardoned and released. Luke tells us that Pontius Pilate, this is in verse 25, released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will.

Those are ominous words, aren't they? That he delivered Jesus over to their will. That's going to be the doom of Jesus, isn't it? We know that the will of these people is to crucify Him. Yet as we think about those words, we should also remember that this was the will of God.

There are really two wills at work in these world-changing events. One is the will of Satan for our destruction. But the other is the will of God for our salvation. It's strange to say, but at this point in the Gospel, both of those plans, both of those wills—God's and Satan's—are actually working towards the same goal: the death of Jesus by crucifixion.

These two plans converge at Calvary. But we should also remember that these two plans are not equal in strength. Satan didn't realize it yet, but his plan was actually part of God's plan. Here is the way Michael Wilcock describes it.

He says the most diabolical of all the schemes of Satan was not only countered at every point by a superior plan of God's devising, but it was actually woven into that plan and made to serve its ends. Anyone who doubts that God was overruling the plan of Satan should listen to what Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost.

He said to the Jews, "You, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross." But Peter also said, "This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge." You see, there's a human will at work, but there's also a divine will.

Peter's striking the balance there. Jesus was put to death by real human beings, ultimately Satan's idea because, as we've seen in the Gospel of Luke, he's the one who entered Judas before his betrayal. But you see, it is all part of God's preordained plan.

When the people said, "Crucify him," they were confirming the divine decree, as if God Himself were saying, "Crucify him." This is the purpose that's being worked out. The will of the Father and the Son for the Son's cross, the burden that He would bear for our salvation.

Long before it was the will of the people for Jesus to die on the cross, it was the will of the Father and of the Son. Now of course, not that this exonerates these people in any way; they're still guilty before God for the infinite injustice of murdering His Son.

It does prove that God knew what He was doing, as He always does, and that nothing would get in the way of His plan for our salvation. The reason that Pilate doesn't find a solution to his dilemma is because there is to be no solution to that dilemma. Jesus is to go to the cross; this is the purpose of God.

May I say, just by way of a sort of incidental application, this is an encouraging thing for us to realize in the difficulties of our own lives. Here you have the most evil plan ever worked out in the history of humanity, and yet even that is being used for God's glorious good and for our salvation.

If God was doing this in the trial of Jesus, will He not also do what is best in our lives? Even using the things that don't seem like they are the best, even the evil things, will He not also use those things for our good and for His glory?

Maybe there's someone here who needs that encouragement, and we should notice it along the way. Let us also consider what these things mean for our salvation because I think you see a very dramatic illustration here of the Gospel truth that the death of Jesus is for our deliverance.

We see it in what happened to Barabbas. Let me invite you to look back at verse 19, where Barabbas is described for us: someone who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. Barabbas was everything that Jesus was not.

The Apostle Peter emphasized this contrast in his preaching on the Day of Pentecost. He described Jesus as the Holy and Righteous One. He said to the people, "Look, you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and you asked for a murderer to be released to you."

That's the difference between a holy man and a murderer. One man is a sinner against God; he's guilty of many crimes. The other man is holy, harmless, perfectly undefiled, the very Son of God. In a way, even the name Barabbas serves to highlight this contrast, at least in some ironic way.

Barabbas means "the son of the father." Well, who properly deserves that title? It's Jesus; He's the Son of the Father. Here's a man completely opposite to everything that Jesus stands for. This guilty prisoner, Barabbas, I think is an apt illustration of our own sinful condition as fallen sinners.

Listen how the Dutch preacher F.W. Krummacher describes the character of Barabbas in this incident. He says Barabbas does not stand before us merely as an individual; he represents at the same time the human race in its present condition, fallen from God, in a state of rebellion against divine majesty, bound in the fetters of the curse of the law until the day of judgment.

Barabbas should be showing us something about ourselves. We're everything that Jesus is not: we're sinful, we're selfish, we're rebellious against the rule of God, and the guilt of our sin imprisons us and will not let us go. Even worse, the holy law that we have broken brings us under the judgment of God.

Can you see your condition by nature in the situation of Barabbas, waiting on death row? The Bible says that the penalty of sin is death, and after that, eternal punishment. And yet, remarkably, almost unbelievably, given the crimes that he had committed, Barabbas was set free.

An exchange takes place in which the innocent man ends up being condemned to die, and this guilty man goes free. In the sermon I just mentioned, Krummacher invites us to consider the result of Pilate's decision and to think about our own spiritual condition.

He says Barabbas and Jesus change places: the murderer's bonds and curse and disgrace and agony are transferred to the righteous Jesus, while the liberty and innocence and safety of that perfect Savior become the lot of the murderer.

Barabbas is installed in the rights and privileges of Jesus, while Jesus enters all of the infamy and horror of the rebel's position. They each inherit the other's situation and what they possess. Here is a kind of illustration of our salvation.

The point is not that we have any reason to believe that Barabbas ever came to faith in Christ. That's not the point. The point is rather that his pardon is a little picture for us of the grace that God has for us in Jesus. That like Barabbas, we are dead in our sins and doomed to die.

But an exchange has taken place in which Jesus takes our place so that we can take His. The innocent one is condemned and He dies in our place. The true Son of the Father takes upon Himself the guilt of all of our sin and is for that reason condemned to suffer the wrath of God.

He does it by dying on the cross. That crucifixion is at the same time our justification, and that condemnation is the freedom of our release. Here is the Gospel message: Jesus dying in our place, our substitute, suffering the death that we deserve to die so that we may enter into all of the joy and the blessing of God.

I was thinking about the exchange that takes place here. I couldn't help but think of what happens at the end of Charles Dickens's famous novel, A Tale of Two Cities. Amid the horrors of the French Revolution, during the deadly days of the guillotine, the patriot Charles Darnay is condemned to die.

But the Englishman Sydney Carton has a plan to save him. The two men are somewhat similar in their appearance, and in the hour before the execution, Carton suddenly shows up at Darnay's prison cell, and the two men exchange clothes and also positions.

Carton will go to the guillotine and he will die in the other man's place. As he is taken to the place of the public execution, Carton meets an innocent young seamstress who herself is also condemned to die. She in the past has met Darnay, and she recognizes that Carton is a different man.

He must be some kind of impostor, and yet she instantly recognizes what he is doing. She wonders, "Are you dying for him?" Carton's supremely costly sacrifice reminds her of Jesus and gives her the courage to face her own dying hour.

Clutching his hand, she says, "I have been able to raise my thoughts to him who was put to death that we might have hope and comfort." The young seamstress was right, wasn't she? You see someone dying in someone else's place, you're reminded of that transaction that occurred when Jesus took our place on the cross.

The theologians throughout the history of the church have talked about this exchange: "the wonderful exchange," some have called it, or "the sweet exchange." That's what we find in the Epistle to Diognetus, one of the earliest letters of the church after the time of the New Testament.

Here is what the early Christians said about their salvation: Jesus Himself took upon Himself the burden of our iniquities. He was given as a ransom for us: the Holy One for transgressors, the blameless one for the wicked, the righteous one for the unrighteous, the immortal one for those that are mortal.

For what else was capable of covering our sins other than His righteousness? What other person, by what other person was it possible that we, the wicked and the ungodly, could be justified, except only by the Son of God? Oh, sweet exchange! Oh, unsearchable transaction! Oh, benefit surpassing all expectation!

Yes, oh benefit surpassing all expectation. Can you imagine what it must have been like for Barabbas when he received his benefit beyond any expectation that he had? Can you imagine what it must have been like for him to receive the good news of his release, of this prisoner exchange?

He wasn't going to die after all; he was going home free. But only because Jesus would die instead. I am here in preaching the Gospel this morning to give you the same kind of good news. It's good news that comes to sinners who are on death row in the prison of a fallen nature from which there is no possibility of escape.

It is good news that declares that God has a gracious answer to the problem of our sin, to that compromised position we find ourselves in. His answer is that Jesus will die for us, if only we will hold on to Him with the hand of faith.

What then will you do with Jesus? What will you do with Jesus? Will you do what Pilate did when he said, "Away with this man"? If you do that, I tell you you will die in your sins. Will you instead make the happy exchange, the sweet exchange, the wonderful exchange, and ask Jesus to be your substitute so that you may be free forever?

Our Father in heaven, we give you praise for this grace, this grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh Father, we on the one hand see that He should not die, but it was His willing sacrifice, and He did die. Give us the faith that we might believe, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Male): You’re listening to Every Last Word with Bible teacher Dr. Philip Ryken, a listener-supported ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The Alliance exists to promote a biblical understanding and worldview.

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