The life & Death of Jesus Christ

from the Gospel of Matthew

(Matthew 27:26-31)

The Passion of Christ

Questions to be answered in this study

1. What was the price Pilate paid for his part in the crucifixion of Jesus?
2. Why was the Passover celebrated each year by the Jews?
3. What were Jesus’ activities during the week of the Passover leading up to His death on the cross?
4. There are three significant time markers: 9 AM, 12 PM, and 3 PM leading up to the death of Jesus; what is their significance?
5. “Barabbas was a title; what was the real name of Barabbas, and how did it relate to Jesus’ name?
6. In what way are each of us like Barabbas?
7. Why did Pilate interrupt the trial to have Jesus taken away and scrouged again and then bring Him back before the crowd?
8. What is the benchmark that the author of Hebrews sets for believers’ service to the Lord?
9. We celebrate “Good Friday” as the day Jesus was crucified, with our hope being “its Friday, but Sunday is coming.” But is that correct?
10. How can we know the exact day Jesus was crucified?
11. What was the day of preparation?
12. What was the High day?
13. What is the danger in being so caught up in a tradition?

Introduction                                                     

After Pilate pronounced the death sentence on Jesus, Matthew gives us a comprehensive overview of the crucifixion of Jesus from start to finish. It will take a few weeks to cover the details of over forty verses, details which are essential but often overlooked.

Our previous study ended with Pilate washing his hands, trying to distance himself from his decision to crucify Jesus, but that did not remove his guilt. He paid the price for his involvement in the death of Jesus by later losing his job and being sent to an undesirable, violent location to live out the rest of his life.

Considering the full horror of what Jesus experienced from the time He was arrested until the crucifixion is challenging to comprehend; as we go forward, we will try to understand as best we can. We know that Jesus’ primary purpose for coming to earth was to die for our sins so we may receive God’s forgiveness. We will look at the timeline leading up to the crucifixion to clarify our understanding of the events and correct some misleading ideas.

We want to be sure we understand these events from their proper perspective; this is Passover week in Jerusalem, and the death of Jesus is the fulfillment of the Passover. Hundreds of years earlier, at the time of Israel’s exodus from Egyptian bondage. The Passover was initiated to celebrate that event throughout the coming centuries. A lamb was slain, and its blood was applied to the doorposts to protect the life of the firstborn of each family as the death angel passed over. Jesus’ death on the cross fulfills that in that each person who trusts in His shed blood to forgive their sins is protected from spiritual death.

As we review the timeline of Passover week, we notice that Jesus taught in the temple the first four days of the week and spent His nights at Bethany. During this time, the religious leaders questioned Jesus to discredit Him and find reasons to accuse Him, but Jesus proved himself to be spotless as the lamb that was slain for the Passover. After four days, on Wednesday night, the beginning of a new day, as the Jews reckoned it, or the beginning of Thursday, was the official start of Passover. On Wednesday afternoon, the Jews brought lambs to the temple to be sacrificed. The lambs were prepared and eaten that night as the Passover feast. On this same night, Jesus and the disciples celebrated the Passover meal in the Upper Room, which we refer to as the Last Supper and which we memorialize today on given occasions in the church, which we call the Lord’s Supper or communion.

After celebrating the Passover meal, Jesus and His disciples went to the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane, where the disciples waited while Jesus went a little further into the garden and prayed to the Father in Heaven. A little later in the evening, Jesus was arrested by the Roman soldiers and taken to the high priests for His overnight trial. Around 6:00 AM, at sunrise, Jesus was brought before Pilate to be tried in His Roman trial and found guilty even though He was innocent on all accounts. We will pick up at that point with our study today. 

There are three significant time markers: 9 AM, 12 PM, and 3 PM leading up to the death of Jesus. According to Mark’s gospel, it was at 9 AM that Jesus was placed on the cross on Thursday morning.  At the sixth hour (12:00 noon) until the ninth hour (3:00 P.M.) there was darkness across the land, Matthew 27:45-46.  At the ninth hour Jesus gave up the spirit and died, Mark 15:25.

We start at the point where Jesus is prepared to carry His cross to Golgotha to be crucified:

Matthew 27:26-31, “Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. 27Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. 28And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. 29And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! 30And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head. 31And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him.”

The hardened criminal, Barabbas, is released after Pilate fails to persuade the crowd to release Jesus. In the previous study, we learned that Barabas was a title, not a name. His real name was Yeshua, a common name in those days, which meant son of the father. Yeshua was also the Greek name of Jesus. Jesus was the Son of the heavenly Father, while Judas was the son of Satan, the devil.

We relate to Barabbas in that we are guilty of sin and Jesus died in our place that we may be set free by the grace of God. We choose whether we continue to relate to Barabbas who represents those who are dead in their sins, or Jesus, who represents those who are alive, born again, and citizens of heaven. The crowd today must make the same choice as the crowd in Jesus’ day to either rebel against God or to choose the righteousness of Jesus.

The Bible has no record of what happed to Barabbas after he was released. So, we may never know his destiny. But we know about our destiny after God forgave us of our sins. What have we done concerning the gift of salvation that God has so freely given us through our Lord Jesus Christ? Paul asked the question in Romans 6:1-2: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” 

The Apostle Peter said in 1 Peter 2:24, [Jesus] “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.” We who trusted in Jesus are now dead to sins and alive in Jesus Christ.

Again, Paul says in Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

Jesus was scourged and beaten with a whip, a Roman-style whipping of the worst kind. The Romans used a short whip two to three feet in length, consisting of multiple leather strands. At the end of each strand, there were either small metal balls or sometimes sharp pieces of sheep bone, which inflicted severe lacerations. Before the beating, a person was stripped naked and tied to a post. Two soldiers on either side took turns lashing out with the whip several times until the victim was near the point of death. The metal or sharp pieces of bone shredded the skin, ripping the muscle and exposing the bone, causing severe pain. The loss of blood sometimes caused the prisoner to lose consciousness and even caused death for some.            

Scourging hastened the death by crucifixion, reducing the time guards would have to remain at the scene. Pilate went to the extreme to try and convince the crowd to release Jesus. Pilate interrupted the trial to have Jeus scourged again. After He was scourged, Pilate brought Jesus back before the crowd bloodied, torn to pieces, disfigured and unrecognizable hoping the crowd would have pity on Him and release Him. Still, they showed no compassion but continued to call out to crucify Him.

Isaiah describes the appearance of Jesus as appalling: “As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men,” Isaiah 52:14. “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted,” Isaiah 53:3-4.

Isaiah foretold hundreds of years before that Jesus’ appearance would be so horrible that people would not want to look upon Him. He had been beaten to the point that he was not recognizable. Even then, they continued to abuse Jesus, beating Him, placing a crown of thorns on His head, and mocking Him. We cannot imagine the pain Jesus must have felt. It is hard to understand why God permitted all the suffering Jesus went through, but it was all part of God’s plan for the redemption: “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: 14That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith,” Galatians 3:13-14.

Jesus made it clear that we believers would suffer in this world but that he also had suffered and overcome. That is an encouragement that we shall also overcome whatever we face in life because our strength is in the Lord.

No matter what we face in life, God has blessed us by His grace with eternal life: “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus,” Romans 3:24-26.

            Jesus became our propitiation because God was willing to accept His Son’s death in our place to pay the price for our sins: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins,” 1 John 4:10.

Our sin against God is so terrible that it took the suffering and death of Jesus to appease it. Our sin brought the suffering and death of Jesus, and we need not forget it, but most of all, we need to take up our cross and follow Jesus. We must be willing to do whatever it takes because Jesus gave His all for us.

The author of Hebrews sets the benchmark for service to the Lord: “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. 4Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin,” Hebrews 12:1-4.

Jesus sets an example for each believer when confronted with hard times. He endured all the physical and mental abuse forced upon Him and never complained or defended Himself. We have Jesus on our side, the most potent force in the universe. We don’t need to grow weary, lose heart and give up when trouble comes. We will certainly fail at times, but our direction will not fail. We are only traveling through this world; it is not our home. Our citizenship is in heaven, where we will spend eternity with God, His holy angels, and all the saints of old.

When we consider what Jesus secured for us by His suffering and death on the cross, we should renew our hope and press ahead to that high mark, as did the Apostle Paul.

In verse 31, Mathew says that Jesus is led away to the cross. So, what is the timeline; what day was Jesus led to the cross? Traditionally we have been told it was on a Friday based on John 19:31: “The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.”

So, we celebrate “Good Friday” as the day Jesus was crucified, with our hope being “its Friday, but Sunday is coming.” But is that correct? Since the Bible does not name a specific day for the crucifixion, we are left to figure it out based on other information. Good Friday as the day of the crucifixion, is based on the Jewish Sabbath and the tradition called “the day of preparation.” The day of preparation was the day before the Sabbath; the Jews were to do no work on the Sabbath, so they did all their work preparing for the Sabbath on Friday, such as cutting wood, cooking, etc.

According to the gospels, the evening Jesus died was the beginning of the Sabbath because each new day began in the evening rather than the morning, as we maintain today. However, another consideration is often overlooked. So, the gospels say that Jesus died on the day of preparation. What exactly did they mean if it was not the traditional Friday that came before the Sabbath? The clarification comes from understanding how the Jews celebrated Passover.

The Passover was celebrated each year on the 14 of Nisan, which could fall in March or April. Passover began in the evening, the same night Jesus had the Last Supper with the disciples, followed by His crucifixion the next day. The Passover was followed by a second feast, the Unleavened Bread, which lasted for seven days. According to Jewish law, the first and last days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread were always a Sabbath, regardless of the day of the week they occurred. These Sabbaths were called High Days. They were recognized just as the regular Sabbaths in which there was no work. Therefore, Passover was followed by High Day or a Sabbath. That means on this occasion of the Passover, it was the day of preparation, even though it was on a Thursday. Jesus was crucified on the day of preparation, which in this case was the Passover; the next day, Friday, was the High Day or Friday a Sabbath.           

So, the verse above from John’s gospel confirms that in the particular year that Jesus was crucified. John said that Jesus was crucified on the Day of Preparation, or Thursday, before the High Day or Sabbath, which fell on Friday and not before the regular Sabbath that came on Saturday the next day; this also gives the good three days and three nights in the tomb before the resurrection, which a Friday crucifixion does not. If Jesus had been crucified on Friday, it would not be on a High Day, as John records in his gospel. We will see more about that when we come to chapter 28. Therefore, according to the Bible, Jesus died on Thursday, which means that in that particular week, there were two days of preparation and two Sabbaths in a row.

Good Friday, the day we celebrate as the time Jesus died, is a mistake, but it is not a big issue and is insignificant and harmless since it does not change what Jesus did for us. However, there is a more serious concern that could impact what we believe, and that is following tradition and what someone says rather than depending on the Bible. We must always be aware that false teachers and traditions could impact what we believe if we rely on them.

The danger is being so caught up in a tradition that we are not open to learning the truth. To go beyond such traditions is to be teachable and to confirm what we believe by the Bible. Being teachable is a good thing, but a better thing is backing up what you believe by what the Bible says and according to what the Bible teaches: “We also have a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: 20Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. 21For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” 2 Peter 1:19-21.

According to Peter, you do well to heed God’s word like you would a lamp that shines in the darkness. That is a great analogy when you think about what light does to darkness; light eradicates darkness in the same way the word of God does. That means in the light of the term; the daystar arises in the heart. The daystar is none other than Jesus Christ. If truth is what you are searching for, you go to the Bible; the Bible contains the knowledge of God, who is the origin of all knowledge.

Some are looking for the truth in all the wrong places. It is not necessarily found in commentaries, TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network), on the Internet, or any place else. It is located in the word of God. The word of God leads us through the world’s darkness into heavenly light. In a nutshell, Peter is saying that we can depend on the Bible for our answers to everything because it is from God and not just from the minds of men.

I spend hours each week preparing this study on Matthew because I believe in the power of God’s word to change lives. Suppose I didn’t think that. I would not waste my time and yours, but it is not a waste of time because I have seen it work in my life as well as in the life of others. I believe learning God’s word changes our hearts and our way of living. If you want good things to happen in your life, get into God’s word; that is where it is.