Crucifixion
Transcript
So we'll be in Mark chapter 14. We're in our second week of our Jesus series, and we're just looking at who Jesus was, why he came, what he accomplished as the most influential man in history. We wanted to just cut out some time to talk about him. And so that's what we're doing, just some three specific things we're going to be looking at. So last week we looked at kind of the historical Jesus and how he comes to us through history, how he has unquestionably altered human history.
And so he kind of comes to us as a force through history. And so what we looked at last week was we just kind of talked about that and what historians have to say about him. And then we talked about the fact that part of the problem we have with Jesus is that he walked around telling people he was God. And so that kind of makes it difficult for us to approach him in a neutral way. It'd be like if you had, I don't know, like a really good high school science teacher. And I mean, they were just the best teacher.
They won Teacher of the Year awards all the time. They were great at like teaching kids science things like, you know, Bunsen burners and other science terms. And and then and then they started telling people they were God, like they would tell their students, you know, towards the end of the semester, just so, you know, the reason I'm a great science teacher is because I'm actually God as a human. No, no, we can no longer treat you the same science teacher. You're done messed up now like we can't. There's nothing we can do at this point.
So then parents would have problems or you you could no longer be like, yeah, OK, so he's eccentric, but he's a really good science teacher like that wouldn't fly. We would have a problem now. And that's kind of the problem we have with Jesus is because he comes to us through history. And we can't just be like, well, he was a really good teacher. It's like, no, because he walked around saying he was God. So it makes it hard for us to approach him in a normal way.
And so what we looked at last week was kind of our options when it comes to Jesus because of this, so that he is either lying to us, knows he's not God and he's lying or is crazy, genuinely thinks he's God, but is not or that he is God. So those are kind of our options when it comes to Jesus. Just for you all who weren't here, we kind of landed on the he is God one. So that's kind of why we get together, because we believe that he is God. And so what we're looking at tonight is his death. All around the world, Christians gather together to study scripture and sing about the cross, sing about blood, sing about all kinds of.
I remember when we were going, we were going to a concert and a buddy of mine was going with us and I told him it was a Christian concert. I was like, hey, man, just so you know, there's going to be a bunch of people like singing about a cross and singing about a blood, singing about blood. And it's, you know, it may be a little weird for you. And he's like, no, the last concert I went to was Oz Fest. So shouldn't be too much different.
OK, but but we do and we get excited about that and we sing about that. And it's even on jewelry now. So people wear cross jewelry. Believers and unbelievers will have crosses or cross tattoos. And it'd be similar to like wearing an electric chair around your neck. That's an instrument of torture, an instrument used for execution.
So I'd be like, hey, check out this sweet lethal injection needle I got on my arm. So we kind of had in the church, we've gotten used to this symbol and we celebrate it and we sing about it. And so what we're going to look at is Jesus's death. We're going to take tonight to just kind of unpack it and we're going to look at it in two ways. So we'll be in the Gospels and then we'll jump to Romans.
And what we're looking at is how did Jesus's death work as Jesus was a man? So Jesus came and was a man. He was God who was a man. And so what were the aspects of his death? If you looked at it as a man hanging on a cross, what did he go through? And then we're going to look at the fact that since he was God who was a man, what did he accomplish for us in his death and the fact that he died for us and rose again.
And so we'll be spending some time in the Gospel of Mark. And just so you know, the Gospels, which are the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are not biographies of Jesus's life. They aren't. We have very little information about his birth. Matthew mentions it. Luke talks about it.
That's why every Christmas when we're going to celebrate Jesus's birth, you're going to read from Luke because Luke's the only guy who spends any significant amount talking about it. We know one story about Jesus when he was 12. That's it. The rest of it picks up when he's about 30, covers about three years of his life very quickly, and then all of them hone in on the last week of his life, his death, burial, and resurrection. And so some people have even called the Gospels passion narratives, which passion just means the suffering of Jesus, passion narratives with long introductions. So the Gospel writers, if you pay attention to how they wrote their Gospels, were, hey, I really want to tell you about the cross, but if I start there, it'll be confusing.
So let's talk a little bit about who Jesus was, what he did, why he went to the cross. Now let me unpack the cross so that Matthew, 33% of it is last week of his life to death, burial, and resurrection. Mark, 37%, Luke, 25%, and the Gospel of John is 42% the last week of Jesus's life. So he lived for about 33 years, was in ministry for about three, and all of them are going to spend a disproportionate amount talking about the last week of his life, his death, his burial, and his resurrection. And that's why Jesus comes to us as a force through history, because of this moment. And so that's what we're going to be unpacking tonight.
So we'll be picking up in Mark 14, starting in verse 53. I'm going to pray for us, and then we'll get started. God, we ask you to meet with us, to teach us. God, we need the cross. We need you to have died in our place. And so God, I pray that you would show us through your word and through your Holy Spirit what that meant, how that worked, and how that applies to us now.
So God, be with us tonight, lead us tonight. We love you, and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. We're going to pick up in chapter 14, verse 53. And they led Jesus to the high priest, and all the chief priests, and the elders, and the scribes came together.
Okay. So what we have skipped, what has just happened, what has just preceded this, is Jesus was with his disciples. He washes their feet. They share the last supper together. And so that's where we actually get communion, or the Lord's table, or the Lord's supper, whatever different people call it. Can the Catholic church consider it a sacrament?
We consider it a sacrament, too. But anyway, that's where Jesus says, this is my body, this is my blood. It has the wine and the bread, and says, it's broken for you, that's poured out for you. It's a covenant in my new, a new covenant in my blood. And he kind of walks through that. Then they go out into a garden, and he invites his disciples to be praying.
He goes off and is praying by himself. His disciples are exhausted, so they keep falling asleep. Jesus is praying. Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke, was a physician. And he tells us that Jesus prayed with such intensity that he sweat drops of blood. This is called hematidrosis, which is actually where, because of intense stress levels, Jesus, understanding that he was going to the cross the next day, because of intense stress levels and increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, capillaries that feed our sweat glands burst.
And so Jesus' capillaries began to rupture, and he began to sweat drops of blood due to an increased level of stress. Not only was he going to be going to the cross the next day, enduring torture and persecution, he also was going to be facing the wrath of God and taking the wrath of God in our place. That's actually the term for that is propitiation, that Jesus took God's wrath on our behalf. And so he knew that he was going to be doing that and being separated from God. So Jesus is eternally God within the Trinity, and for the first time in ever, in all of eternity, and for the only time in all of eternity, Jesus would actually be separated from God and clothed in our sin.
That he would actually, the Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 5, 1 Corinthians 5, 21, that he became our sin. And so Jesus was going to, that actually might be 2 Corinthians, became our sin so that we could become righteous. And so Jesus, in this moment, is praying fervently and is stressed beyond, it's very rare that this would happen. And so I just wanted to point out in that, in the fact that Luke points that out for us, because we don't think about this often, Jesus had a heart that pumped blood through veins and arteries. He had capillaries. He had the ability to have an increased stress level.
He had the ability to have capillaries rupture. He sweats. Jesus was fully man. And so there are times when we would almost approach the cross as if Jesus, because he was God, somehow got out easily in it or was able to withstand it more because he was God. But he was fully man so that his blood pressure could increase to the point, with stress levels to the point that he would actually have hematidrosis.
And so Jesus stays up all night praying. And then Judas, who was one of his disciples, has betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver. And a band of men come with clubs and swords to take Jesus. And so they arrest him and take him to the scribes and the Pharisees and the chief priests and the elders come together to put him on trial at night. And so Jesus has not slept. And that's where we pick up in verse 53.
And they led Jesus to the high priest and all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes came together. And Peter had followed him at a distance. Peter's one of his disciples right into the courtyard of the high priest. And he was sitting with the guards and warming himself at the fire. Now, the chief priests and the whole council were seeking testimony against Jesus to put him to death. But they found none for many bore false witness against him.
But their testimony did not agree. And some stood up and bore false witness against him, saying, we heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands. And in three days I will build another not made with hands. Yet even about this, their testimony did not agree. And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?
But he remained silent and made no answer. Jesus in John chapter 18 says that no one takes his life from me, but I lay my life down and I pick it up again. And so Jesus is going to the cross willfully, who is in control the whole time and laying his life down. He's not making a defense. He's not a victim, although he was victimized, but he's not a victim unwillingly. He is going to the cross willingly because he is in it going to accomplish something for us.
And so high priest stood in the midst of them and said, have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you? 61. But he remained silent and made no answer. Again, the high priest asked him, are you the Christ, the son of the blessed? And Jesus said, I am.
And you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. And the high priest tore his garments and said, what further witness do we need? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision? And they all condemned him as deserving death. And some began to spit on him and to cover his face and to strike him, saying to him, prophesy.
And the guards received him with blows. So Jesus standing before the high priest, they're accusing him of things. He's not saying anything. And the high priest stands up and says, you tell me, are you the son of the blessed? Are you the Christ? And Jesus says, I am.
And you'll see me coming at the you'll see me seated at the right hands of power and coming in the heavens. And so the high priest tears his clothes and says, you've heard his blasphemy, which he he says, you've heard him just declare that he is God. He's mocked God because he is a human has declared that he is God, that he's the son of God. And this is unacceptable. What do you what is your decree? And everybody says he deserves death.
So then they take him. They put a bag over his head after they've spit on him. They put a bag over his head and they begin to take it says they receive him with blows and they begin to hit him and tell him to prophesy. And the reason they put a bag over his head. Two reasons. One, so he can't see who's punching him.
So they can mock him and say, who prophesied to us. You know, you're a prophet. Tell us who punched you. But the other reason is so that he can't see where the punches are coming from so that he can't prepare. So that in having his head covered, there's no way for him to to to flinch or to be prepared for when they're going to hit him or how they're going to hit him.
And so they put a bag over his head after spitting on him, beat him and then hand him over to other guards who receive him with blows. So they take him, hit him as well. We're going to skip the next section. We're going to pick up in chapter 15. The next section is talking about Peter. So we're just following Jesus through the story.
15. And as soon as it was morning. So this has happened all night. Chief priest. The chief priest held a consultation and the elders and the scribes and the whole council. And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate.
Pilate is the governor over the Jewish territory of Jerusalem. He worked for the Roman government. So Jesus was just on trial with Jewish religious leaders and then is now being handed over to Roman officials. And the reason the Jewish people would have handed him over to the Romans was they weren't technically allowed to perform capital punishment. So they had to now take him to the Romans and convince the Romans you guys need to kill him.
The other reason that the Jews would rather do this is because they didn't want to offend the Jewish people that thought Jesus was a prophet or held him in high esteem. So there was a little bit of if the Romans kill him, we're a little bit less culpable. And so they take Jesus to Pilate. Pilate asked him, are you the king of the Jews? And so when they accused Jesus, it's a blasphemy. It's of what we talked about last week where he claims to be God.
But in order to get the Romans to kill him, they didn't care about Jewish religious matters. They had to say, hey, he's saying he's the king of the Jews. And in being a king of the Jews, he's setting himself up in opposition to the Roman government. So they wanted him to be tried on treason. Pilate asked him, are you the king of the Jews? And he answered him, you have said so.
And the chief priests accused him of many things. And Pilate again asked him, have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you. But Jesus made no further answer. So that Pilate was amazed.
Now at the feast, so this is the feast of the Passover, he used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked. And among the rebels in prison who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas. And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them. And he answered them saying, do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews? For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have them release for them Barabbas instead.
And Pilate again said to them, what then shall I do with the man you call the king of the Jews? And they cried out again, crucify him. And Pilate said to them, why? What evil has he done? But they shouted all the more, crucify him.
So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas. And having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. The reason the gospel translations and the gospels are going to just kind of brush past scourging and just say having scourged Jesus is because they all knew what that meant. They understood what the process of scourging was, whereas it doesn't really connect with us. We don't know what scourging is and haven't seen it and it's not something normal. It would be the same as if we said, yeah, he's condemned to the electric chair.
We understand what that process is, how that works. But when they say it was scourging, the reason they just kind of go past that is because they would have understood what that meant. So I'm going to just briefly take the time to explain what scourging was. So he was scourged at the hands of the Romans. Romans had perfected torture. They had existed for a while and they had taken the time to perfect torture so that they could rule and reign over this large area of territory with great fear in people's hearts.
And so scourging was usually 39 lashes because they found that at 40, people died. So they would refer to it as the 40 minus 1 because they were going to do 39 lashes, which is the most they felt like they could inflict on you before you died or just passed out and it was no longer able to keep scourging you effectively. So what they would have done is it would have been one man with a whip or two men with a whip known as a flagrum or a cat of nine tails. And it would either be one man who would rotate sides or two men who would take turns. And so they would take the person being scourged and they would put them on a post so that their hands were up or they would put them over a post just so that they were stretched out so they could get to this area, to the torso area.
And so they would have their back to them and they would take a cat of nine tails, which was leather straps. On the end of the leather straps, usually nine straps, would be metal balls, glass, bone, or hooks at the end of the straps. And the reason was the balls were used for tenderizing the flesh, much in the way that a butcher would tenderize meat. And so they then would have the glass bone and metal to catch into the skin so that when they pulled it out, it would catch here. And if they were good at it, they could bring it all the way around. And so for 39 lashes, they sat there and ripped Jesus's flesh off of his bones.
And so he would have been flayed open with flesh hanging and quivering and tender hanging open all the way around from his ribs to his back. That's why in Psalm 22 where David is prophesying about the cross, where Jesus hanging on the cross says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That's the first line of Psalm 22. They didn't have Numbers that was added later for our benefit, but the Numbers aren't there in the original text. And so they would have used that to describe that Psalm. And so Jesus is referencing that Psalm, which was written hundreds of years earlier, to describe in prophetically what Jesus was going to go through.
And in that Psalm, it talks about, I can see my ribs. So it is very likely that Jesus was so ripped open that he could see his ribs. You could see bones sticking out. The other thing that they would do while they were in that process is they've excavated these torture chambers in Rome. There are pockets in the wall that held salt. And so periodically during this process, they would go get handfuls of salt and throw it into the wounds of the victim.
So that that did two things. It increased pain and scarring and it cauterized it so that it would quit bleeding so that they can continue to torture the person for a longer amount of time. So having scourged Jesus, flayed him open, he handed him over to be crucified. Verse 16. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace. That is the governor's headquarters.
And they called together the whole battalion and they clothed him in a purple cloak, twisted together a crown of thorns and they put it on him. So they took a crown of thorns to mock him and stuck it down into his head so that thorns jabbed into the tender flesh around the top of his head. So they put it on him and they began to salute him. Hail, king of the Jews. And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down to him and kneeling down in homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him and they led him out to crucify him.
Crucifixion was invented by the Persians in about 500 B.C. Most scholars believe it was perfected by the Romans. So it spread throughout the known world, but the Romans got really good at it. At one point, the Romans crucified 6,000 people at one time. They used crucifixion for Roman citizens were not crucified unless it was the most high treason because they considered it such a gruesome death. They only used it on those who were not Roman citizens.
Females were very rarely crucified. And on certain occasions when a female was crucified, they crucified them facing the cross so that people didn't have to see a woman suffer in such a see the face of a woman as she suffered in such a way. So what crucifixion was, Josephus, who was a Roman historian, referred to crucifixion as the most wretched of deaths. Ancient philosopher Roman Cicero asked that decent Roman citizens not even speak of the cross because it was too disgraceful for the subject of the ears of decent people. In Deuteronomy 21, the Jewish people refer to crucifixion or being hung on a tree as being cursed by God.
That in the law of God, it is a curse on those who are crucified. And so Jesus was crucified and cursed by God in our place. So it would have been in a public place. It would be similar to when we used to put people in the stocks in the center of a town. If we were going to crucify someone today, we'd probably do it over at Harvison in the way to the mall or something like that in the middle of Carolina's campus. That's kind of how they would do it.
So they took him out on a public place kind of outside of the city but on a place that entered into it so that many people saw him. And the Bible tells us that he carried his own crossbar and that a guy named Simon of Cyrene carried it. And so we understand that to mean that Jesus carried it for as long as he could because he had stayed up all night, because he had had the increased stress level, and because he had been scourged already. And so they would have taken a 50 to 100 pound crossbar and put that on him, on his shoulders and back that had already been torn open by the whipping that he had received.
And he would have carried it. It had been similar to a railroad tie. And he would have carried it as far as he could. Then Simon of Cyrene carries it the rest of the way. Then they would have placed it onto the top of the upright that was going to be used.
He would have been laid down, and they would have driven nails through. Scripture says his hands, most likely it was through here. The Greek word for hands includes anything from the elbow down. And so it was most likely through here in between these two bones in this nerve center, which is one of the most dense nerve centers in the human body. And so nails would have been driven through here and through the top of his feet. And then that crossbar would have been slid over into a pre-prepared hole.
And so Jesus would have slid and dropped into place. Because it was through these nerve centers, involuntary twitching most likely was associated with crucifix. And so Jesus would have hung on the cross. Twitching. They were usually naked or almost naked. Some were crucified at eye level.
We believe Jesus was crucified higher, which they also did so that you were more visible. And we know at one point when he goes to get something to drink, they put a sponge on a stick. So if they'd have been able to reach him, they might have not needed the stick. So Jesus then hung on the cross for six hours where in order to breathe, he would have had to have lifted up, twisted his arms, and pulled so that he could get enough air. Because the way you usually die on the cross is through exposure, starvation, or asphyxiation, suffocation. And so you have to lift yourself up in order to breathe.
So every time Jesus exhales or makes a statement, it was at great cost and great pain to him while he was on the cross. And so Jesus hangs on the cross for six hours while he's being mocked with his back that has been ripped open by scourging, rubbing against the cross every time he has to lift himself to speak. We know that it was a holy day. And the Jewish people, because of Deuteronomy 21, consider crucifixion a curse by God. So they would always take people who were crucified off of the cross at night.
That's actually in the law in Deuteronomy 21. So the Jewish leaders go and ask the Romans to break the legs of those who were crucified so that they wouldn't stay on it overnight, even though sometimes people who were crucified could stay on it for upward to a week, just depending. Jesus had been scourged. A lot of times crucified victims weren't necessarily scourged prior to hanging on the cross. And so when they go to Jesus six hours or so into it, he has already died. They break the legs of the other two men who were crucified with him.
Seeing Jesus has already died, they take a spear and they drive it through his side into his heart. We're told that none of his bones were broken, but when they did this, that blood and water came out, which in medical terms means he most likely died of asphyxiation, which means that basically due to suffocation, his heart exploded. And so that's where water and blood would have come from if the spear had pierced his heart sack. And so Jesus died. Gruesomely, horrifically, publicly, in the most shameful way that humans have invented to kill someone, Jesus died. And so the Bible is going to say that Jesus is God who became a man and that Jesus as God, fully capable of stopping this, fully capable of taking another route, fully capable of not going to the cross, lays his life down on the cross on our behalf.
So that Jesus as God died. And so what I want us to look at in the last part of tonight is why. What did Jesus accomplish in his death? Why would God see it important enough to become a man? And the way we see scripture playing out is he didn't become a man just to see how things were going, that God became a man with the express intentionality of dying. He continues to train his disciples.
I'm going to die. I'm going to be handed over into the hands of evil men. I'm going to be crucified. Three days later, I'm coming back. And he says that over and over again. Jesus came with the express purpose of dying.
And if he was God, and he was, why? Turn with me to Romans chapter three. Romans chapter three. It's just a flip to your right. Page six, 11. If you're holding one of the Bibles that we have, we're asking the question now.
So if that's how God died, why did God die? Did he have to? Romans three, verse 21. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. Righteousness means rightness or justice or goodness. So the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.
And the law and the prophets is referring to the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, and then the books of prophecy in the Old Testament. Bear witness to it. The righteousness of God. So the rightness or the justness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
So verse 23 says, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of the God. Here's what the Bible is going to say. Why Jesus died. Why Jesus came and why Jesus as God died. God in the beginning created the world to exist in a relationship with himself and the world rebelled. That humans who he made to be image bearers of himself chose to rather worship themselves, love other things more than they love God.
And that they thought that we believed that we have our own best interests at heart. That God doesn't know what's best for us and that we can make wiser decisions than he can. So we as humans rebelled. That we are sinners. That's what rebellion against God is. That's what choosing to pursue the things other than God is.
And so we are sinners by nature and choice. Which just means that we're born sinful. And then after that we choose to be sinful. And here's how we know that. I'll give you some examples. Nobody ever had to teach you how to lie.
Ever. You just knew. Nobody sat with a three-year-old. Like you didn't have an uncle that sat you down and said, Alright, let me explain something to you. I know you're three and it's going to be a little complex. But let me help you out.
If you do something and then your mom kind of takes that tone with you. The one that makes you feel uncomfortable inside like you're about to get in trouble. Just whatever she's asking. Just say the opposite happened. Or say you don't know. Or that you weren't involved.
Like it's hard. Like you can't even really explain that to a three-year-old. It would be hard to explain the concept of lying. But three-year-olds know how to lie. And you can hear people running. Something crashed.
You run into the other room. There's a kid holding a lamp. He's holding the power cord. Runs over to a broken lamp. Did you break that lamp? It doesn't seem like something I do.
Nobody has to teach them that. You can have a little kid three years old have Cheeto powder all over their face in their hair. Have you been eating Cheetos? No. I don't even like Cheetos. Nobody explains that to them.
Do you have to sit down a child and explain to them how to be selfish? No. You've got to teach them how to share. You have to teach humans how to be generous. You have to teach us how to be honest. And even as we grow up and we know, everyone in this room knows that life and society would be better if we were all just honest with each other.
And life and society would be better if we were all just generous. And let me tell you something. We lie and we're greedy. All of us. Because even though we know it's wrong, we still choose to pursue it. I lock my doors at night and sleep with a Springfield 45 in the bedside table.
I don't do that because I'm afraid of raccoons. I do that because of humans. I don't think a possum is going to bust up in my house and pick the lock and break in in the middle of the night. I think that a human might. Because the reason that the earth has problems, the reason that we have struggle and strife and war and infanticide and murder is because of humans. Because we're sinful and we're all sinful.
And so the Bible says that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That's what Romans 23 says. Romans 3.23. What we just read. So what that means is, and so we'll sit and say, well, yeah, okay.
But I'm not that bad. Like if you lined up all the humans, I mean I may be near the middle, but I'm going to be on the good side of the middle. And so we either believe, we'll either believe that we have to be mostly good. So I've got to be like 51% good. You know, if I'm just 51% good, I'm okay. I'm mostly good.
I'm a pretty good person. Here's the problem with that. That's not how justice works. My wife and I, my wife, Anna, loves murder shows. Loves them. Creeps me out.
She loves them. The other night we started to wash one. It was late at night. I don't like washing them late at night. I wash them with her during the day because I can get something else in my brain before I go to sleep at night. We were washing one the other night.
We cut it off. And she looks at me and goes, are you going to be okay? I was like, yep. And it got started. And I was like, no. And I cut it off.
Because I don't like them. I don't like having that in my head before I go to sleep at night. And the reason I think that is is because, first of all, they mess with me. I'll be laying in bed thinking. I always like the ones. If we're going to watch one, I like it when it was like someone they knew murdered them.
Like their spouse murdered them. I'm a little less worried about that. But the ones where it's like they were watching TV and men entered their house. And I'm like, we're watching TV. Messing my head. I'll be looking over my shoulder like.
And she just goes to sleep at night because in the division of labor at our home, if someone broke in our house, that's my job. Like it ain't going to be like, hey, you know the chart, honey. It's Tuesday. You got to handle it now. I'm a Monday, Wednesday, Friday guy. Like that's not how that works.
So she just goes to sleep. I lay in bed with my eyes wide open. And I'll be like. They'll be like, he was so normal. I'll be like, I wonder if I. If the person who works at my hardware store murders people.
Like I just mess with my head. And so we were watching one the other day and it was a doctor had killed his wife. And when he went to trial, this is how this worked. The prosecution was trying to prove that the doctor had killed his wife. And the defense was trying to prove that the doctor had not killed his wife. That was the point of contention.
The defense did not come in and say, hey, judge, okay. He killed her. Pretty obvious. But we have verified fact reported cases of 50 lives that he has saved as a doctor. Eyewitness accounts of all the lives he's saved. And the judge looked and said, oh, that means he's plus 49.
49 Humans he's saved. He's only killed one. He's plus 49. Innocent. That's not how justice works. If the doctor was some sort of a serial killer and he said, look, of course, okay.
I kill one person a month. But I save five lives a month. I'm plus four a month. I'm doing great. And we somehow think that our God, who is a just God. We can stand before him and say, yeah, I'm sinful, but I'm mostly good.
And I hate to break it to you, but the Bible is going to come out pretty hard on you're not even mostly good. That your heart is twisted and marred beyond belief. And the truth is none of us would like to sit down and have our thoughts and our actions displayed on screen for everyone else to watch. I know to the Lord I would not. Because we're messed up and we're broken. And the Bible says we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
The other thing that we do is we'll say, well, okay, yeah, I'm messed up, but I'm better than other people. On the bell curve of humans, I'm on this side of it. That's not what it says, though. What it says is we've all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The test for us is not, are you better than other humans? So we in some ways think that sin works like running from a bear, which means you don't have to be faster than the bear.
You just got to be faster than the person with you. But that's not how it works. We all sin and we fall short of the glory of God. And we are all guilty. And our God, who is a just God, says that we're guilty. When we read through scriptures as Americans, as Westerners, we read through the Old Testament and you talk to people, the biggest issue we'll have is with God's justice.
We'll say, who does God think he is to destroy a city? Who does God think he is to flood the earth and kill all of those people? Who does God think he is to take a man who stole something and then take his whole family out and stone them? But see, the Bible doesn't have that problem. When you read through the Old Testament, when you read through the New Testament, scripture is saying, how does God forgive people? The Bible doesn't have a problem with his justice in the Old Testament.
It's God's mercy that's confusing. It's the fact that people who do rebel against God receive favor from him and are not destroyed. So you see, King David receives favor from God. He's on his roof one day while his army is out fighting. And he should have been with them, but he's on his roof and he sees a beautiful woman. He lusts after her.
He finds out who she is. They say, she's the wife of Uriah, one of your men, one of your soldiers who's out fighting. And he says, bring her to me. So they commit adultery and then she gets pregnant. After she gets pregnant, David decides the best way to handle this is to murder Uriah. So he has Uriah murdered.
Then a prophet comes to him and says, because you've done this, God says that that child's not going to live. But the Lord says, I have hidden away your sin and you won't die. And the Bible says, how does that happen? How is that justice? If you're Uriah's parents, is that justice? That he gets to stay king and he doesn't get punished for his sin?
Let's keep reading. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood. Propitiation means that he diverted the wrath. He accepted God's wrath on our behalf, that God has wrath for sin and sinners. And Jesus received it on our behalf through his blood that he shed on the cross. To be received by faith.
This was to show God's righteousness, his rightness, his goodness, his justice. Because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. So Paul is telling us this is how this makes sense for him to give grace and mercy to people who deserve destruction. He overlooked it because Jesus was going to take wrath on our behalf. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. So that God can be both good and the one that makes us good.
That he can be both righteous and the one who makes us righteous. That he can be both just and the one who justifies, makes us right with God. God propitiated, poured his wrath out on Jesus so that he can be both just and justifier. And so in the cross what we see is God's wrath and his mercy. In the cross what we see is God's justice and his ability to justify us. What we see is his hatred of sin and his great love for us.
And so there are three things that Jesus accomplishes and that he makes certain on the cross. The first one is that our sin is a big deal. It's a big deal. You cannot watch God hang from a cross after having his back ripped open and think that sin is somehow a light offense. Rebellion against the most high God is treason of the highest sort. We cannot downplay our sin.
The cross negates our ability to do that. Our sin is a big deal. With every lash, with every nail, with every hour that passes Jesus hung on that cross, God with an exclamation Mark declares that our sin is a big deal. Be not uncertain at all. And in no uncertain terms, our sin is a big deal. The second thing that is made certain for us is that God loves us.
He loves us. So that scripture is going to say that God so loved the world that he gave his only son. Gave him. It doesn't mean he just came. It means he gave him up. He died.
Gave his only son that whoever believes in him might not perish, might not be destroyed, might not have the wrath of God met out on them, but might have life. So people will say all the time, God loves you. Great. That sounds good. God loves you. He wants good things for you.
That sounds nice. How do you know? I've had people before say, we don't need to talk about the cross. We need to talk about God's love. Okay, but if God loves us, how do we know? The cross is how we know.
Jesus on the cross once and for all proves that God is good and that he is for our good. That he loves us beyond measure. And the third thing we see is that we can be made right with God. That God is both just and justifier. That he makes us right with himself. That we who are sinful and broken and rebellious can stand before God and be justified.
Can be free. Can have life and righteousness. Jesus, people will say that we don't need to talk about the cross. That we need to talk about God's love or his mercy or how he's a good father. But we don't need to talk about the cross.
We don't need to talk about atonement. We don't need to talk about propitiation. That God has wrath for sin and sinners. But when I look at my life. When I look at my sexual sin and my rebellion. When I look at my pride.
And all the times that I thought that by being good or doing moral things. I could present something to God and he would owe me. When I look at how sinful I have been. I don't want to get rid of the cross. I need it too badly. I don't want to downplay the cross.
I need it. I need Jesus to pay for my sin. Because without Jesus paying for my sin. I'm hopeless. A vague promise that God loves me does nothing for me. When I've rebelled against him actively since the day I was born.
We need the cross. Because our sin is a big deal. But our God loves us more than we could ever comprehend. That he was willing to come and die to rescue his people. To make us right with himself. The band is going to come back up.
And we're going to celebrate the cross. We're going to celebrate that God became a human. And that God died in our place so that we could have life. It says that. 24. Or 23.
For all have sinned. And fall short of the glory of God. And are justified by his grace as a gift. Meaning we don't earn it. He freely gives it to us. We're made right with God.
Freely. It's a gift. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood. To be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness.
Because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time. So that he might be just. And the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Jesus. We approach Jesus with faith.
Faith that our sin was met out. Our punishment was met out. Jesus took it all on the cross for us. And so what we're going to do is we're going to celebrate the cross. And if you're in here tonight and you're not a Christian. And you haven't placed faith in Jesus.
Place faith in Jesus. Because all have sinned. All have fallen short. And all can be justified by grace freely through faith in Jesus. So place your faith in Jesus that he has rescued and redeemed with his blood.
And that the cross, your punishment that we all deserved was met out on Jesus. That we who are rebellious and deserve destruction and wrath can have life and freedom and hope. Because of what Jesus has already accomplished. That he died for our sins and that he rose again. Came back to life fully conquering the grave. Place your faith in Jesus.
And we'll pray and then we'll sing. God we thank you that you are just and justifier. That we can receive grace as a gift. That we can be made right with you because of Jesus. Not anything we do. Not anything we earn.
Not how smart we are. Capable we are. How religious we can be. But that we can repent of our sins. That we can admit that we're broken and that we fall short. And that we can have life in your name.
Jesus. We have life in your name and your name only. And we praise you. We ask that through your Holy Spirit you would save people tonight. That God the just punishment for our sin would be met out on Jesus. And that we would be set free forever to walk behind you as those whom you've rescued through your blood.
We love you. We praise you in Jesus name. Amen. Y'all stand and let's sing.
Incarnation
Transcript
We're going to talk about who he was, why he came, what he accomplished. So we're just going to spend three weeks talking about Jesus and some specific aspects of his life, of his death, of his resurrection. So that's kind of what we'll be doing for the next three weeks, and I'm excited about it. I think it's going to be good. Tonight we'll be specifically talking about the Incarnation, and we'll talk more about what that means later. If you'll turn with me to Philippians chapter 2, it's going to take us a long, long time to get there tonight.
I want us to approach this a little bit differently. If you don't have a Bible, just raise your hand. We've got some guys that will be handing them out. If you don't own a Bible, take that one with you. That's our gift to you. But we do want you to, we're Bible people, so we'll always be in the Bible together when we get together.
So it will take us a while to get there tonight. Don't worry, we will get to Philippians 2. Just for the record, if we ever get together and we don't eventually get to Scripture, we did it wrong, and I shouldn't be allowed to talk anymore if we just get together and talk about things and never unpack Scripture. But the reason we're going to approach it a little bit differently tonight is I want us to not approach, we're talking about the life of Jesus and the impact that he's had, and I want us to just for a little while not approach it as Christians, not approach it as people who automatically believe that what the Bible says is true, not approach it as people who study the Bible to find truth.
I just want us to look a little bit at first at Jesus, the man from history. I just want us to investigate it more as skeptical Americans as we get started tonight. And so if you can do that, if you can kind of take yourself out of Christian, ready to just unpack Scripture mode for just a little while, and we're going to get there, but I want us to approach it more as skeptical Americans just looking at who Jesus was as he comes to us through history. And so that's kind of what we're going to be doing tonight. I'm going to pray, and then we'll get to talking. God, I thank you for this opportunity to get together.
I pray that your Spirit would be here, that you would lead us, and that you would teach us and draw us to yourself. Ultimately, Jesus is about you, so I pray we'd make much of your name. And may you reveal yourself to us every time we gather together with church family, whether that's in our homes or at a restaurant or here when we get together on Sundays. And so, God, we praise you, we thank you, and we ask you to be active and at work with us tonight. In Jesus' name, amen. My granddad, when he was somewhere between 5 and 10, was at a barbershop getting his hair cut.
As he was getting his hair cut, a man walked up on the street and kind of turned and started looking in the window and sat looking in the window at my granddad for just a minute or two. And then he just kind of turned and walked off. And my granddad had kind of made eye contact with him and noticed the guy was looking at him. And as he walked off, the bartender said, son, do you know who that was? Oh, sorry. The barber.
Yes, my granddad had a drinking problem from the age of five. Sorry. The barber, thank you. The barber said, son, do you know who that was? And my granddad said, no, sir. And he said, that was your daddy.
And so my granddad hopped out of the chair and ran over to the window, his hair half cut, and watched this guy walk down the street. And that was the only time he ever saw his actual father. He had an adoptive father, Papa Holloman, who ended up being a good dad and a good granddad. And it's funny, but the man who should have used his life to impact my granddad chose to peace out, chose to not be a part of it. And somebody who didn't have to be involved chose to step in and be a father to him when he didn't have to. And that's how life works.
Life affects life. So our lives have been the most radically impacted by other lives. That's just how living on the planet Earth works. So whether it was coaches or teachers or parents or grandparents or friends, the end of a life or the beginning of a life, life affects life. We bounce around into each other having massive impact on one another. And there are some lives that have an impact on the few lives around them, and then there are some lives that impact millions and billions of lives.
And so what we're going to do tonight is we're actually going to look at the life that has had the most lasting impact on the history of the world. We're going to take some time for the next three weeks, and specifically talking about his life tonight, to just look at Jesus who has had a massive impact on the history of the world. Just as humans, we owe it to ourselves to investigate the human who has impacted the world more than any other human. We have to just be logically coherent and intellectual beings. We've got to look at and investigate this life. And so that's what we're going to spend some time doing.
So I want to read some quotes to you. This is from H.G. Wells. He wrote A Short History of the World. He's a British author and historian. And this was in a conversation he was having about this book, A Short History of the World.
Because in the book he included Jesus. And so he says this. He says, I'm a historian. I am not a believer. But I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history.
Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history. So that's a British historian. He's saying, look, I'm not a Christian. I have no reason to puff Jesus up or to sell him to you. All I'm doing is looking at history. And he's the center of it.
He's easily, irrevocably the center of all history. In 1999, Time Magazine, which is not a Christian publication, was doing some stuff on the past centuries, past millennium. And it says this in Jesus. It refers to Jesus as man of the millennium in this article. And it said, It would require much exotic calculation, however, to deny that the single most powerful figure, not merely in these two millenniums, but all human history, has been Jesus of Nazareth. Not only is the prevalent system of denoting the years based on an erroneous 6th century calculation of his birth, but a serious argument can be made that no one else's life has proved remotely as powerful and enduring as that of Jesus.
It's an astonishing conclusion in light of the fact that Jesus was a man who lived a short life in a rural backwater of the Roman Empire and who died in agony as a convicted criminal. So Time Magazine said, It doesn't make sense. He shouldn't have had this impact. But Jesus is not only the man of the millennium, but all of history, Jesus. And I've got one more. This is from a Yale historian.
His name's Jaroslav Pelikan. He says, Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of Western culture for almost 20 centuries. If it were possible with some sort of super magnet to pull out of history every scrap of metal bearing at least a trace of his name, how much would be left? So what he's saying is if we just had history and it was some sort of metal and you just took a magnet and sucked all the things that Jesus impacted out of it, history wouldn't look the same. That he's the most dominant figure in history.
Jesus broke history in half. That's what the Time Magazine article said. We based the date off of him. You can't sign a contract without making reference to Jesus. You can't do it. What you say is, Oh yeah, Chet Phillips, this is 2014 years since Jesus was born.
He was a carpenter and he lived in the middle of nowhere and eventually he was killed when he was about 30. Yep, that should about do it. I've signed my contract. Like that's what dates are. We're referencing Jesus' birth. He is the most influential man that has walked on the planet and that's crazy because his impact shouldn't be that.
It doesn't make sense from historically who he was. It doesn't make sense from where he lived, what he did, what he accomplished. He didn't live past the age of 33. He never did any of the things you're supposed to do to get famous. And he didn't have any of the things that we have that help us get famous. Like he didn't have the internet and the ability to film himself doing something funny with a cat.
Like he didn't have that. But there are some things, if you want to get famous, if you want to imprint your name on history, there are a few things you can do. You can write a book. Have you ever heard of Mark Twain or Tolkien or Hemingway or Shakespeare? You can paint. So he could have been an artist.
He could have painted pictures. You ever heard of Picasso or Monet or Rembrandt? If he wanted to make himself famous, he could have done that. He could have written songs or music like Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Vanilla Ice. You know, all the major ones. But he didn't.
He didn't do any of the things that you're supposed to do to be famous, to imprint your name on history. He never led a rebellion. He wasn't a king of earthly kingdom. He never did any of the things that when you look at him in a historical perspective that would say, oh yeah, absolutely, this man should have marked history. Absolutely. Because he was born to an unwed mother in the middle of nowhere and then he was a carpenter for 30 years, which we all know is what you're supposed to do to get famous, be a carpenter.
And then he led a group of guys around for about three years, did some, you know, taught them some things and then he died and had about 120 people that were really bought into what was going on. Nailed it. Absolutely he's going to be famous. That's not how that works. And so he never did any of the things that you're supposed to do to impact history, to when you look at him from a historical perspective. And so it's as if you were walking along, skipping rocks at a pond and you picked up a rock and you threw it in and when it hit, it didn't skip, but it caused a tsunami wave that threw all of the water out of the pond.
And then you looked and the rock was just sitting there on the bare bottom of the pond by itself and you would go, that's weird, and keep on walking. No, you would want to investigate what was different about that rock. You would just assume that that rock wasn't the same as the other ones you had been throwing. And in some ways, when we look at history and say, yes, absolutely, Jesus is the most impactful man in history, but he was just a man who taught some things and died when he was 30. It's not logically coherent. And so as intellectual beings who investigate the world around us, we have to do something with Jesus.
He comes to us through history and we have to do something with him. We have to investigate this a little bit. And so I just want to let you know before we hop in, what we're going to do tonight is we're going to look at some eyewitness testimony about Jesus. But I want you to know that my skeptic's radar is fully functioning. I don't just believe things because people tell it to me. I never really have.
I got that honest because my dad's like that. He'd be like eight telling my dad a story and you'd be like, guess what happened? And you tell him, he'd go, that didn't happen. That's stupid. And you're like, what? But a guy at school told me.
This doesn't make any sense. How did they make the phone call? And it's like, I don't know how to make the phone call. Right. And then how would the people have known to show up? Tell your friend he's lying.
It's like, well, I don't know if we'll still be friends. Well, you shouldn't be friends with people that lie to you. And so he would do this and this is how I grew up and that's kind of how I am when people start telling me stories. I just automatically, if it doesn't sound like it makes a lot of sense, I just, I'm not buying it. And I've gotten better with Anna's help. I don't immediately tell people anymore.
I haven't fixed my face yet. So if you're ever talking to me and I do this, that, I mean, okay, sure. Sure, you think I'm stupid. That's fine. But, but I won't cut you off to tell you all the reasons why what you're telling me doesn't make any sense. I might sometimes.
But, but anyway, I just wanted you to know, I don't, I don't just approach things blindly. And so as we go into looking at what scripture says, I want to, all of us to approach it like skeptics just for a little bit. So there's some of us in here that we believe the Bible because it's the Bible. And there may be some of us in here who we don't believe the Bible because it's the Bible. You're automatically, oh, that's the Bible so it can't be true. Or you're automatically, well, it is the Bible so it has to be true.
And I just want us to approach it with a little bit more investigation before we hop in and start looking at this eyewitness testimony. And so I want to give you some facts about scripture, about what we have when we study the Bible really quickly that helps me appreciate what it is. So the way old documents work, so I'm going to go into professor mode for a second and just track with me. The way old documents work is this. You want to get the original document that was handwritten. We don't have many of those for anything.
After about the Middle Ages, we don't have them for hardly anything at all. I don't think we have them for anything. So what you want to do is then get to a copy of the original document that was close to when it was originally written. So if something was written today or something was written, let's say something was written at 0 BC, we want to get as close to it as we possibly can of a copy of what was originally written. So we'd like to get to 200 or 300 or somewhere around in there.
Then you want to have multiple copies of the original so that you can match them together. So if you have 10 copies of something, you read this one and this one and this one and this one to kind of match them up. You may have heard the argument that scripture's not really reliable because what happened was it was written in Greek and Hebrew. That was translated into Latin and other languages, but that was translated into English. The next translation was off of that English translation and the next translation used that English translation and the next translation used that English translation.
And so it's like the elementary school whisper game. And so you whisper something and the next person whispers it and by the time it gets to this person it's a jumbled up bunch of garbage. That's not how scripture works. That's not how the Bibles that you're holding work. They always go back to the original manuscripts and we have more manuscripts now than we've ever had. So when a Bible translation comes out it's looking at the original extant copies of manuscripts that we have.
So to compare this the Bible to other things we have in antiquity. So we believe the history stuff we learned in class. Let's investigate the Bible the same way. Everything we learned about Caesar and his wars comes from a document called the Gallic Wars. We have about ten of those. The closest one to when it was originally written is 900 years.
So it was originally written on this date 900 years later we have a copy we have ten copies that we can compare and that's what you're taught in school about Caesar and a lot of the wars that took place and how they took place and what he did and Carthage and all of that. The copies of scripture we have 24,970 copies of scripture in 15 languages that are in 90 to 95% agreement with each other. Which means when you compare the 24,000 across the board they agree 90 to 95%. Now that is before the printing press. A lot of those were done in the middle ages when you had monks just sitting and writing out things.
If you went back to just 300 years and only looked at the Greek we have about 5,600 copies of Greek manuscripts that were handwritten copies of Greek manuscripts. This beats everything else we have in antiquity. Everything else prior to the middle ages the Bible beats it. As far as what copies we have of it. The next best thing is Homer's Iliad. The closest copy we have is about 400 and we have got about 650 copies of those.
So everything you read about Homer that really long poem that was kind of confusing. The Iliad and the Odyssey. We have a pretty good amount of copies of those. We're pretty sure that's what Homer said or wrote. The Bible is actually more trustworthy than that. It's the most trustworthy document in antiquity.
The most well-attested to event in history. Ancient history. Outside of something we have on video is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ because of the amount of copies that we have that we can compare to each other and the way we view history. So, one more thing that I think is helpful when I approach this and look at it and I'm automatically skeptical about things. if you just look at quotations from church fathers. So, Christians who were writing things to each other and to churches at the beginning of Christianity existing. If you took about the first 300 years you'd have about 36,000 quotations of the New Testament.
We don't recreate the entire New Testament but much of it can be recreated just from reading the original church fathers. So, the reason I say that is when we look at scripture we're looking at historical accounts of eyewitnesses that is what we know is that what was written is what we're reading. Now, if you want to say well, sure, they wrote wrong stuff. Fine. I'm fine with that. If you want to say that John made stuff up I disagree with you but I'm fine with you saying that that's at least logically coherent you can make that argument.
But, if you want to say that what we have is not what John wrote I disagree with you because that's not accurate when you when you compare the manuscripts. Does that make sense? Okay, so, when we look at this we're at least looking at what was written by them when we study this. So, what we're going to do is we're going to look at some eyewitness testimony about Jesus. So, what we have is a guy who was born in the middle of nowhere to an unwed mother who lived for about 30 years as a carpenter. We don't know much about his childhood.
We do know that he existed from all kinds of documents not only scripture but other historians and everything. We know that he existed. We know that he was crucified under Pontius Pilate and we know that he's had a more long lasting impact on the rest of history. So, we have a human who should not have had a major impact who did. Has had more impact than anyone else and didn't do any of the things he should have done to accomplish that. So, we've got to ask the question why?
We have to do something with Jesus when it comes to this. So, we're going to get to Philippians. I'm going to show three verses in the New Testament in the Gospels eyewitness accounts about Jesus that really mess up our ability to approach Jesus in a good way because Jesus walked around telling people he was God and that messes up our ability to approach him in a normal way. That really throws us off. When Jesus starts telling people he's God we can't just approach him the way we'd approach any other human. So, I'm going to give you a few examples of that.
John 5.18 says, But Jesus answered them, My father is working until now and I am working. This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him because not only was he breaking the Sabbath which is why they were arguing but he was even calling God his own father making himself equal with God. Okay, so, we refer to God as father all the time. Jewish people did not do this. So, when Jesus says this it automatically they're like, whoa, because they understand how father-son relationships work. The son of a duck is a duck.
Son of a goat is a goat. Yeah. So, when Jesus says my father is God he's claiming to be God and the Jewish people immediately recognize this and that's why John writes that. So, when I say God is my father we're used to that language but Jewish people were not. Jesus is the one who introduced that language and invited us into the family. John 8.
So, it's another argument with religious people. He says, Your father Abraham, so Abraham the father of the Jewish nation rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad. So, the Jews said to him you are not yet 50 years old and you have seen Abraham. Jesus said to them truly, truly, I say to you before Abraham was, I am. So, they picked up stones to throw at him but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
Okay. Also, doesn't immediately register with us. I am is the name that God used when he showed up to Moses in the Old Testament. So, actually, the uppercase in your Bible, if you see uppercase letter Lord, all uppercase, that's actually the I am. It's the name that God, proper name God gave himself. So, they would have actually avoided using the I am statements like this.
Jesus says them a lot and the reason I like this one is because we would say, well, he doesn't really say he's God. The people there knew immediately what he had said because they picked up rocks to kill him. They understood what was happening. So, he says, before Abraham was, I am, and they were like, oh, no, he didn't. Get your rocks, he's going down. Like, they immediately reacted knowing that what he had said was blasphemous.
You're not allowed to say these things. We have to kill you. Like, that's not okay. And I'm going to give you another example. He hid from them there. So, it wasn't like they changed their mind.
It was just, he got away. Mark 14, 60 and 65. This is, 60 through 65, 64. This is the night before Jesus is going to be crucified. He's on trial. It says, the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, have you no answer to make?
What is it that these men testify against you? So, a bunch of people were accusing Jesus of things, but he remained silent and made no answer. Again, the high priest asked him, are you the Christ, the son of the blessed? And Jesus said, I am. And you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. And the high priest tore his garments and said, what further witnesses do we need?
You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision? And they all condemned him as deserving death. So, he looks at him and says, are you the Christ? Are you the son of the blessed? Are you the son of God?
And Jesus says, I am. And you'll see me seated at the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. Very clearly looks at him and says, I am. They tear their clothes and say, we don't need any more testimony. We just watched him say he was God. We just watched him blaspheme.
He must be destroyed. So, for everyone who would like to say, well, Jesus was a good guy and he was a good teacher, there's a problem with that. He walked around telling people he was God and that only gives you a few options. You only have a few choices when it comes to Jesus because he told people he was God. Like, you've got to make a decision on that. He's the most influential human in history and he told people he was God and so we've got to do something with that.
So, I'm going to help you out. I'm going to give you the four options that are logically coherent options that you can choose from but you've got to choose one of them. No choice is a choice, just for the record. You've got to do something when it comes to Jesus as he comes to us through history. So, I'm going to give you four. The first one is legend.
You can say that what we have in scripture was later made up. This is the least likely one and I don't think it's easy to argue if you study it for a while you'll realize that this can't be the case. But, what you could say is that people came, Jesus actually existed, he was a human, nobody argues with that at all anymore really because we've got so much historical fact pointing to Jesus. You could say he was a human but his followers made up all the stuff about him. All the mystical, all the miracles, the fact that he rose from the dead, his followers made it up, wrote it down, told people, or people made that up later is what people say.
Well, the problem with that is it was written, the documents about his life and the story about his life was written and spread with people who still existed when he was around. So, it's really easy to debunk a legend. That's not how legends work. Legends have to happen hundreds of years later because when you're making things up about some fantastic thing that took place, it's easy to discredit it and so it stops quickly. I can't be like, hey, y'all, remember when aliens took over Columbia in 1982? You'd be like, no, that never happened.
I'd have to wait hundreds of years before I could get that story going because I've got to have people around who weren't here, didn't know anything about it. If I started making up stories about a person that y'all knew, you'd just say, nah, he never did that and it would be easy to debunk it. It would be easy to get rid of it and so the problem is we have manuscripts that were written within 50 to 100 years after Jesus was around. Within about 150 years, they were on four continents in three languages. So whoever was making this up would have really had to have gotten to work spreading the story and people would have still been able to just say that that didn't happen.
But you can say he's a legend, he's legendary, he's made up. The next three are a little more options for you. You can say, and this is kind of C.S. Lewis lays this out, he calls it the trilemma, but you can say he was a liar. So you can just say Jesus knew he wasn't God and he tricked people and that's an option.
You would be saying that the most influential man in history was an epic con man who's conned billions of people, tricked billions of people. He was a liar. You could say that his followers were liars. The problem with that is that all 11 of his disciples were martyred, which means murdered for their faith, except for one who was boiled alive in oil, he just didn't die. And then he was exiled to an island where he died of old age with like a melted face. But all the other ones were murdered for faith in Jesus and so if it was an elaborate lie, I just got to feel like one of them would have been like, you know what, time out?
No, we made it up. Never mind. We made it up. Or you could argue that maybe they didn't know about it but then you'd have to do something with where the body went because the argument is that his disciples then stole his body and hid it and that's why it wasn't in the grave. They never produced a body and said here's Jesus, he didn't rise from the dead. But you could say he was a liar, that he tricked a bunch of people and that's actually logically coherent although he'd have to be pretty good at it.
You could say no, he wasn't a liar, he was crazy. He was a lunatic if you want him to all start with L's. I don't use that word, I say crazy. But he was a lunatic, he was crazy. And so the most influential man in history was akin to Charles Manson or Jim Jones. He was nuts.
And the truth is this is how we would treat you if you said the stuff Jesus said. So if I was like, dude, I heard people, you've been telling people you were God and you were like, I am. And you'll see me seated at the hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. I'd be like, okay. Did the unicorns tell you that? We would just assume, I got some people I need you to talk to.
Like, you need help. So if you want to say that, okay. What you're saying there is that he genuinely believed he was God but he was crazy. And so the most influential man in history who's had the most impact on our society and the way we view life was crazy. Or, your fourth option and what I would suggest you go with is that he was telling the truth and that he is Lord. Amen.
Those are our four options when it comes to Jesus. And this one to me actually makes the most sense because it explains the impact he's had in history. If somebody walks around and has this kind of an impact and changes the world the way that Jesus has and he walked around claiming he was God, we've got to do something with that. Philippians 2. Told you we'd get there. So this is what we're going to look at.
This is actually what scripture says. Scripture's going to say that yes, Jesus walked around over and over again saying he was God and the scripture's going to explain to us what that looks like because that's the position that scripture takes. That Jesus was God who became a human. Verse 5. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. What it's saying is that Jesus was in the form of God.
He was in the same substance of God that he was God. And he didn't account equality with God a thing to be grasped. He didn't hold on to that equality. He didn't say that this is where I rightfully need to be for all time but he actually it says he emptied himself so he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men. So that God our God became a human.
That's actually called the incarnation. That's what we're talking about tonight. That's what theologians would call the incarnation. What that means is like if you made chili con carne it just means chili with meat so that's the appropriate and correct type of chili to make for the record. Chili con carne and so when we talk about the incarnation what we're saying is that God took on flesh that he had meat. So if you ordered something at Taco Bell con carne it just means with meat so our God had flesh.
He became a human so he incarnated it says being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross and so here's what scripture is going to say very clearly that Jesus was God who became a man. He didn't cease to be God but it says he poured himself out so he basically took onto himself humanness and wrapped it around his divinity so he was God while he was a human but he released some of his divine attributes so divine attributes of God being that he's immutable which means he doesn't change Jesus changed he had to get haircuts he grew he got taller it says he grew in wisdom so he learned things like don't touch pots that are hot that kind of stuff he gave up his ability to be everywhere at all times he gave up his omnipotence he gave up all of his being all knowing all the time he actually we see him submitting himself to the Holy Spirit leading him and helping him understand people's thoughts but he poured himself out became a human was still God but wrapped humanity around that and that he lived a perfect sinless life on our behalf and that he submitted himself became obedient to the point of death even death on a cross so that Jesus died on a cross in our place for our sins it says therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father when it comes to Jesus we have four coherent options he's a legend he's a liar he's a lunatic or he's Lord and what scripture says is that everybody at some point is going to realize he was Lord the difference is are we going to realize it prior to dying or are we going to realize it when he comes back conquers his enemies and puts everything under his feet because every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and so we have the option and our goal as a church family is to see more and more people this side of eternity knowing that Jesus is Lord but you've got some options and you've got to if you're going to be an intellectual being who's coherent with history as it's presented to you you've got to figure out something to do with Jesus you've got to have a landing point somewhere you can't be neutral when it comes to Jesus because he doesn't give you that option and so I would encourage us to wrestle with that I would encourage us to ask those questions to investigate that and to walk that out in church family together as to where we land on that and what that looks like for us as he is as we would believe Lord of everything that he Jesus is God who became a man and who died in our place for our sins that's what we're going to talk about next week we're going to focus in on his death and what it looks like so we look like what it looks like when God becomes a man makes sense God becomes a man most influential man in history okay that's what it looks like when God becomes a human let's look at what it means when God dies and what that looks like band's going to come back up I'm going to pray and we're going to spend some more time worshiping God I thank you for your grace that you would be willing to become a man that you would humble yourself you would pour yourself out and become obedient to the point of death even death on a cross God I pray that your Holy Spirit would enlighten us and give us faith that we might draw near to you and that we might bend our knees and confess with our mouths that you are Lord that we might give you much glory in doing that God we love you and we praise you in Jesus name Amen