I invite you to turn if you have your Bibles to John chapter 19. We're working through the gospel of John. As you know that this is what we call Palm Sunday, and we already considered Palm Sunday back in chapter 12, you'll remember, of John's 11 and 12 of John's gospel, which really does, I think, capture for us, for John this last week, look at how much of John since chapter 11 and 12 is given to the last week of the ministry of our Lord. And I think that's an important thing to consider here, the details that John gives us, how much he wants us to think through the sacrifice, the passion of Christ, all that he went through to pay the penalty and to understand it, to have good understanding of these truths. I think it's easy, as I said before, to just come to Good Friday and get one Good Friday sermon of a little piece of the story, one of the great blessings right now for us is we've, in God's providence, landed on this and are able to see the whole story and put it together. And I think this is a precious moment to be able to do that, that the Lord has given us. So I hope you're able to walk away with a bigger picture of this and understand it more looking at the pieces together. John chapter 19, beginning at verse 1, we'll read all the way through verse 16. This is the word of the Lord. Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. They came up to him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews, and struck him with their hands. Pilate went out again and said to them, See, I'm bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him. So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, Behold the man. When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, Crucify him! Crucify him! Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law. And according to that law, he ought to die because he's made himself the son of God. When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. He entered the headquarters again and said to Jesus, where are you from? Jesus gave no answer. Pilate said to him, you will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have the authority to release you and the authority to crucify you? Jesus answered him, You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. From then on, Pilate sought to release him. But the Jews cried out, If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar. So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat in the place called the Stone Pavement and an Aramaic Gabbatha. Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, Behold your king. They cried out, Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him! Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your king? The chief priest answered, We have no king but Caesar. So they delivered him over to them. He delivered him over to them to be crucified. There ends the reading of God's word. I'm convinced that the more we take time to meditate and to think about the passion of Christ, the death of Christ, what he actually endured for us, what he actually went through for us, It has an effect of strengthening us in faith and helping us in the difficulties of life that we're in to understand all that God's given us in the forgiveness of sins. Whatever it is in the world, in the struggles with sin and hardship and sorrow and death, even maybe chastening discipline in our lives, it is with the purpose in studying the death of Christ that we would know that we are sons and daughters of the Lord. So as we open up John chapter 19 today, I don't want to let you forget why there's so much detail here, why there's so much detail given on the death of Jesus on this great day here of his being delivered up, that we would have a good understanding of the Lord's gift to us of a substitute. That Jesus has come and Jesus has stood in our place, that Jesus has bore the wrath of God for us on the cross, so that we today would understand this great truth that I want you to take with you when you leave today, your judgment day as a believer already happened. It already happened. This is it. This is what you're studying. You're studying your judgment day. Now, I think that's really important, don't you? Because a lot of people fear what's coming. A lot of people are scared about what's coming, and rightly so. But if you have Jesus, that's taken from you. This is what this is about today. Really, the most important truth that could be given in the scriptures, Jesus, as the Heidelberg says, has freed us from the severe judgment of God. So study it then, and understand it, and appreciate it. That's exactly what this is about. You have before us today, if you can call it this, it's everything so wrong about what's happening here. The arraignment and then trial, the charge and the verdict, and then we're going to end with the meaning of it all in the big picture of scripture. This arraignment and trial is we've been looking at now and studying for the last few sermons. And now we have come in John chapter 19. you notice we have looked at these trials. The second round of trials, the first was, you'll remember, by the Jews. It was what we call the church trial, the ecclesiastical trial, if you will. It was totally and full of hypocrisy. It was corrupt. There's nothing right about what they did. They didn't follow their own laws. As they pompously parade in this section, we have a law. Hypocrites, Jesus had called them. The trial of Jesus had taken place at about one in the morning, one to three in the morning. Who does that? Who does that? Unless you know that what you're doing is going to cause massive upheaval evil because it's wrong. They questioned him viciously about his doctrine. Remember that? They wanted to know about his disciples. They were trying to pin him as an insurrectionist. After being before Israel's corrupt leadership, Annas and Caiaphas, he is led away to Pilate's Praetorium. This was Pilate's turn now to deal with this man. The Jews have left here. They wouldn't even step into the courtyard. So this is really a remarkable moment to show how you can make yourself perfectly prepared for the Passover and be the biggest hypocrite ever. They wouldn't step into the praetorium because they wouldn't put their foot on the land of a dirty Gentile like Pilate. You see the animosity between these two groups, the civil and the ecclesiastical here. Pilate can't stand the Jews. The Jews can't stand him. So here we are, never mind that they are murdering the Son of God. Hey, at least their hands are clean for the Passover. Jesus is now before Pilate, the governor of the southern half of Palestine, given by Rome. The questioning has begun. Remember the issue with Pilate. The issue was he has one concern. Jesus is claiming to be king. That was what the great charge was. This is what will come out today with the goal of taking down the throne of Caesar. That was what Pilate has come to this conclusion of that this is what ultimately they're saying, but something else comes out today. Pilate questions him. In verse 38, we have this statement. In fact, numerous times it's said, I think that John wants us to keep hearing it, I find no fault in him. I find no fault in him. It's a really important point to the whole message of the Bible, actually, that we'll come back to at the end. He's not a threat to the throne of Caesar. Remember when Jesus walked in and Pilate's questioning of him? The first question was, are you the king of the Jews? That wasn't a curious question. That was a scoffing question. Is this who they brought to me? This little beggar? This guy? He's not a threat. What can he do? What can he do? So Pilate made an offer to the Jews. And since it was their custom to release a criminal at the feast, they could release Jesus. But instead, last time we ended with them releasing the notorious thief Barabbas in his place. So here we are. Pilate still is not rushing into this. Pilate still is not rushing into this. When crimes were committed, the Romans took this very seriously, which I think underscores and makes the point that God didn't just allow this to happen by the Jews. Jesus was constantly saying he's going to be condemned and judged by the Gentiles to put it in a civil arrangement under a court trial so that we would understand something throughout history, something very important. There would have been nothing justly done by the Jews except grab the stones. So here we are. According to Roman law, no one could be put to death unless he had been brought to trial, where he had to be arraigned, confronted with the charge, and then given the opportunity for defense. It's not so unlike today. He would then, if he were found guilty, die before the Gentiles. Paul said this in Acts 25, you'll remember, when he appealed to the Roman system and them honoring the Roman system. This is not the custom of Romans to deliver any man to destruction before the accused meets the accusers face to face and has opportunity to answer for himself concerning the charge against him. Well, the hypocritical Jews, where are they? So they have no legitimate charge against our Lord. Let me make that really clear today. There was not one legitimate charge against the Lord. Pilate's looking for a way to release him. Pilate's searching for a way. Pilate knew that there was something about this man that was abnormal. There was something wrong about him. There was something that didn't compute with Pilate. The question in Pilate's mind is a simple one. It is, who is this? He just has no cause to put him to death. Again, the adversarial relationship between he and the Jews is important to note. But what should a just ruler do? What should a righteous ruler do? It's almost as if everything is working against the death of Jesus in some ways to make it happen. So that we understand what the Bible says And we study it carefully to understand what Peter would use in his first proclamation at Pentecost. They took by the lawless hands and crucified the Lord of glory. He didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve this. He was not guilty in himself. Big point. Now, this is where we enter the text today at John 19. This is where we've come up to. that gives you some background here to help with what's taking place. In verse 1 of chapter 19, we read that Pilate took Jesus and had him scourged. Don't ever read over that too quickly. That's an important moment. Jesus constantly talked about that this moment would happen. The Son of Man would be scourged. Scourging was an awful form of torture. Jesus spoke of it as such. The flagellum was a whip with many strands, about three feet long, and on the end of it was attached bone or lead balls so that when it hit your back, it immediately split it open. Eusebius talks about the horrendous nature of this act, that you would see veins and arteries. You can imagine how gory this is. They would take the criminal. They would strip him of his clothing. They would beat him to make a real good point until he's covered with blood. It was unimaginable pain, so much so that most of the time, many of those who received it actually died from the scourging itself. So first was a severe lashing on his body. Then comes the terrible shame in verse 2. The soldiers, we read, twisted a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. Remember, they're in the courtyard of the praetorium. The Jews don't see this, but apparently, Pilate ordered, in addition to the scourging, this crown of these thorns, large piercing thorns that would dig into the skull, causing, obviously, the imagery of blood running down the face. Then they take a purple robe that was represented with the royal color and they dressed it over his wet body. John doesn't give this, but we know that they put a reed in his right hand with the goal of mocking him as a king because a king would have an iron scepter. He has a reed in his hand. Now, I always have to stop and remind ourselves, who are we talking about here? This is really something to think about. With one call, the angels could come down out of heaven. It's meant to put us in horror and dismay. Sometimes I think we read the Bible and get rather pious and realize that these sort of things are taught to us to show us how violent human nature really is. How awful human nature really is. And we need to feel it. We may justify it on the movie screen and then come to the Bible and say, oh, before our kids, and this is important. In verse four, Pilate went out again. Behold, I'm bringing him out to you. Now this is the imagery here. I'm bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no fault in him. What Pilate was doing was hoping one thing would happen here, which is really interesting. Like if he humiliated Jesus enough, if he beat him enough, if he made him full of shame enough, they would say, that's good. Let him go. Pilate would not then have to execute a man he knows there's no real charge against. So it really does show that even in the most corrupt leadership, there still is a semblance of what the Lord wrote on the human heart and where we see justice still desiring. There still is that here, isn't there? Verse five says that Jesus came out wearing a crown of thorns and the purple robe and Pilate presents him, behold the man, here he is. The judgment hall in Pilate's praetorium was constructed in such a way that it faced the street. So, what you had here, it would be similar to a raised patio or terrace, where it would be out on the main street, and the people would gather around for these great moments of Pilate sitting down and rendering his judgment, and then they would listen to the cases, and Pilate would put on his royal apparel, and he would sit down and bring the accused out, and once the charge had been done, he would render the verdict. So here we are in a public forum, public street. He's brought Jesus to his accusers. He's brought him out and says, is this enough? Behold the man. Pilate's also mocking. Pilate's also mocking. And Pilate brings him out, and you could imagine the sight here. He's covered with blood. He has on his head a crown of thorns and a robe of mockery. They say that with the scourging, many people could barely hold themselves up, which makes sense that he couldn't carry the cross and needed help. You can imagine the mob in this case. And we know what mobs are like. We've seen that in action. All the religious leaders, the Pharisees, the scribes, and the multitudes of the people. And what do we expect at this moment? Well, we expect mercy. I mean, if any of us love the Braveheart movie, we know that when he's taking it and dying, the crowds all yelled out, Mercy! Give him mercy! Nothing. Look at this man. Did I do enough for you Jews to satisfy your desire of hatred against him? Won't you show some pity? i already released barabbas the notorious thief i flogged him and i've dressed him up which really was an act i said of mockery roman law required that capital sentences be accompanied by scourging the decision to scourge jesus first before he made it he made that decision before the determination of the case before he would be crucified says exactly what Pilate's doing here. This enough? This enough? And the ominous words come back from all the multitudes of the people. Crucify him. Crucify him. Not enough, Pilate. We want you to give him the most painful death possible. We want you to nail that body with those big nails to the cross that's put up for criminals and you keep him there until he suffers the long, slow death of the cross. I believe John is really taken by this. Jesus is pure. Never lifted a finger to hurt anyone, did he? Spoke only the truth. Never sinned. Think about the testimony of Scripture. Never once sinned. Never abused anyone made in God's image. God so loved the world that he gave a gift. And this is what they did. After the flogging, after the beating, after the mockery, the rage was so fierce, all they could say was, crucify him. Get rid of him. Now, Pilate needs a charge. It's the second point. He's looking for the charge. Verse 7 says, The Jews answered him. As he's seeking a charge, that we have a law, and according to our law, he ought to die. This is a new interjection. We know this from John's gospel. Now it comes out here in the midst of the arraignment and trial. We have a law. We ought to crucify him. He ought to die because he made himself the son of God, which is exactly what they were struggling with the whole time. They knew what Jesus was claiming of himself. This was John 10. We don't want to stone you for a good work. We want to stone you because you make yourself out to be God. They knew exactly what Jesus was claiming. They knew exactly what was being said. Pilate hears that, and all of a sudden, you could see his face change. That one scared him. It's an interesting moment here. That one scared him. Pilate had no real knowledge of the true God. He was a Roman, and of course, the Romans had a pantheon of gods, and what they believed was often that one of the things that Romans believed was that in a mysterious way, and a strange way, that one of the sons of the gods would come down pretending to be beggars among the people. very superstitious was Pilate very superstitious in fact Pilate was concerned about something else Matthew tells us I just put this together to help you a little bit while he was sitting on the judgment seat his wife sent to him saying have nothing to do with this just man for I've suffered many things today in a dream because of him well we listen to our wives don't we pilot's wondering who this is who is this he looks like a beggar he doesn't look like anything but the way he's answering pilot's smart enough to know something's off here pilot is smart enough to know something's off maybe this is one of the sons of the gods who've come down I don't want that blood on my hands. So Pilate returns to the praetorium and then begins to interrogate Jesus again. Where are you from? I want to know. I command you. You tell me where you're from. What a chilling moment when we read, but Jesus gave no answer. Sometimes Jesus answered. Sometimes Jesus didn't. What a choice moment not to answer. When he could have told him, who are you? Silence. Do you not know? Do you know who you're talking to? Do you know who is addressing you? Do you not know that I have the power and the authority to crucify you and the power to release you? You better answer me. And Jesus responds to that one. Jesus responds to that one. you have no power given to you. Listen, you need to understand something. You would have no power at all given to you unless it had been given to you from above. Therefore, the one who gave you over, delivered you over to me has committed the greater sin. It's really Judas and then the chief priests. This man's not even defending himself. Who does that? Oh, if you were put on trial and you were accused of things you didn't do, can you imagine the lawyers you'd call in and everything you would do to try to stop this and you would give them everything you could to get out of this. Silence. This is a big moment in the Gospel of John. The point is, it's over for Pilate. He does not want to touch him. And the Jews level the final charge that could not be avoided. In verse 12, the Jews cry out, you let this man go, you're not Caesar's friend. Whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar. That was it right there. That's all they needed to do. That was it. At that moment, what they were saying is, Pilate, if you release him, it's going to get back to Caesar. We're going to tell him you're sanctioning a rebellion against him that would prove your disloyalty to the emperor. And you're in this position to stop this stuff. You're not stopping the insurrectionist. Even though Pilate believed he was completely innocent. Again, verse 38. When it comes to political gain, you'll notice that truth often takes a back seat, doesn't it? We experience that today all the time. So here's a scene. Jesus is wearing the curse. He's been flogged for our sin. His blood has been shed, split, spilled. Our shame he is wearing, we're going to come back tonight. And there's something that happens on the cross that is so important for you to understand. In verse 13, the verdict happens. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, He brought Jesus out and sat down. Here's the great moment. Put on his royal clothes and he sat down in the place called the pavement in Hebrew, Gabbatha. It's the place of judgment. It's the judgment seat. The scriptures don't want you to miss. This is the judgment seat. This terrace is now facing the public street, the public street where all the people are. And it's a similar moment to, you know, the judge so-and-so has entered the room, all rise until he seats and you know he's in his official capacity to render the judgment. Pilate renders it. He says, behold your king. They cried, away with him, away with him, crucify him. Shall I crucify your king? The chief priest answered, listen to this statement. Of all the long history of Israel, of all the things that God had done for Israel over all the years, all the way back from when he had been their king and they had asked for Saul. Here's the culmination of it. We have no king except Caesar. To which you say, are you kidding me? How could you say such a thing? It's the worst thing you could say. and the marvels God had sent his king. And what are they doing to him? We read in Matthew that Pilate took water and washed his hands right before the crowd. I'm innocent about what I'm about to do. All the people answered, listen to this, his blood be upon us and our children. To think today, God just put water on us and our children. Pilate renders the judgment. Even though it's not stated here, it goes like this. Because this Jesus from Nazareth has set himself up as the king of the Jews, as a seditious rebel against the crown, I sentence him to the death of the cross, that he be punished and hanged on the cross as a rebel. even though he didn't believe it. He did it. And now Jesus goes to the cross. Now, to close with a meaning of all this here, I think it's evident what the meaning is, but we need to spend just a moment here to think about it. John has told us to look at everything with spiritual eyes, hasn't he? And God is telling us what we did to his son. God is telling us what we did to his son. You see, all the way back in Isaiah chapter 53, we've read this our whole lives. The Jews read it their whole lives. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was laid upon him. God did that for you. God used sinful men to strike down his son for your salvation. When he wears the crown of thorns, you can't help but to think of the curse that when God spoke of those thorns, he spoke of death. Christ is wearing the curse because he's become it for you. if you're a believer today, this is your judgment day. This is what is so remarkable about John studying this today. Pushed back in history for you in AD 30, the month of Nisan, on a Friday. Remember what Adam did when he went into the garden to keep the parallels all the way back from John 18? He ran as fast as he could the other way and hid himself from the presence of the Lord who had come forth in judgment. It wasn't a casual stroll in the garden. Hebrews says, There's no creature hidden from his sight. All things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. Here he is not guilty. For our sake, this is one of the most glorious truths in all the Bible, beloved. For our sake, he made him who knew no sin to become sin for us think about that great truth him to be sin who knew no sin so that we in exchange might become the righteousness of god in him now you see what's happening the scourging he's wearing a crown of curse he's openly shamed he's ridiculed, he's exposed, and he shuts his mouth. Why? Because he loved you. You were given to him by his father, and he's willing to take all this so you never have to. He's your savior becoming one of us. He's being flogged for your sin. You know all those stupid sins you keep doing and are careless about? He's paying for it. He's feeling the bone tear in his body, all of which outwardly is telling us he's facing the wrath of God upon his soul. And then the shame of it. He's going to be stripped naked on the cross. All of it for you. All of it for you. And God's going to make sure we understand this. God is going to make sure we understand this. That's why we have preaching. He is put on trial by a civil judge to make sure we understand the real truth of this. As our Heidelberg says, it was his judgment that won our freedom. We did this with lawless hands. He was innocent, but God's judgment was righteous upon us. and instead he gave it to Jesus. Crucify him. Crucify him, we said. But I find no fault in him. You getting the message? There's no fault in him. There never was. The whole scene is greater than an earthly one. The scene we have here is the Lord stepping into our place, him standing before his father who loved him that never stopped loving him. Who took the seat of judgment and in our place he wore the shame and he took the lashes and he endured the cross and he suffered the torments of hell right then and there so that you never would. Is it significant, says the Heidelberg, that he was crucified instead of dying some other way? Oh yeah. By this, I am convinced that he shouldered the curse which lay on me since death by crucifixion was cursed by God. Why did Christ have to suffer all the way to death? Because God's justice and truth requires it. Nothing else could pay for our sins except the death of the Son of God. That's the marvel to close today. The marvel that's captured in the text that Jesus was silent about. The very same charge the devil made against God in the garden, the devil said, listen, if you eat of this fruit, you'll become as your own God. We've all tried to be our own gods. That's what the whole world's doing right now. And what did we do to God? We took the Holy and the Just One and we crucified Him. We ended him, we thought. When Peter preached in Acts 2 and 3, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate when he had decided to release him. But you denied the holy and the righteous one and asked for a murder to be granted to you and you killed the author of life. Can you feel that? Whom God raised from the dead. What a message. What an announcement. You got rid of God to be your own gods and then God raised his son and seated him above every name that is given. that's the message of christianity this is what it's all about when you understand it the proper response is well i suppose it's going to sound first a lot like what happened in acts what must i do to be saved and the answer believe believe on the lord jesus christ on the name of the lord jesus For the promise is to you and to your children, to all those whom the Lord will call. That is the best news ever, beloved. That's what we're studying. God wants you to understand it, not to feel sorry for Jesus, but to understand the depths of his love for his son, for you, so that you'd be thankful and that you'd receive today the joy of your salvation. sorrow comes in the night joy comes in the morning and this is where that joy began for us let's pray Heavenly Father thank you for such a gift what a marvelous passage to study and overwhelming because we see what we deserve we see how serious you take sin we see what we need and we see how it's been answered thank you oh Lord for your faithfulness to your promises you planned and purposed this all the way from the beginning in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3.15 announcing that you would do this and how many years later are we studying this? Fulfillment of your promises no man could make up this story it's your story thank you for including us in it forgive us our sins may we be believing and not unbelieving and may we trust you for as tonight we'll study when Jesus said it's finished it was finished give us the kind of joyful response that this requires in Jesus name we pray Amen