Bible Commentaries

Pilate

Matthew 27:2

The councils and kings, the orators and lawgivers of Rome, tower out in the backward look of history, when men nearer us in time are lost in the haze. But there is one Roman who shall outlive them all. He held only a petty post in an obscure corner of the Empire, but he sat as judge on Him who shall one day judge the world, and he delivered unto death the Prince of Life. The name of Pontius Pilate, the governor, shall be remembered when every other Roman name may be forgotten.

Pilate, like all men of culture and thought, had ceased to believe in the cruel and licentious gods of Paganism. And with that disbelief had come the usual disheartening conviction that nothing in all the spiritual world could in certainty be known. For in the moment when a man's spiritual world has vanished like a dream or a mirage of the desert, when the credulities of a young and ardent youth have been proved to be false, when he sees the men around him living only for things seen, what is there left for him but a sad and melancholy mental despair? "What is truth?" asked Pilate in the climax of his interview with Jesus, and Bacon tells us he jested. If he did jest, it was a bitter jest. It was the partly impatient, partly contemptuous, partly despairing word of a man who flings out a question to which he conceives there is no answer at all. And when we look at this well-read, widely thought, bewildered, and gloomy-minded Matthew 27:4

The state and history of Judas have, as we humbly trust, through the infinite mercy of God, no exact parallel amongst ourselves.

Judas, we must fear, had already passed into a reprobate state, when he said, "I have sinned". For years he had allowed, and systematically pursued, with a show of charity and piety, that sin which God calls the worst, and places the last, in the whole scale of wickedness. He had, probably, some secret hope that Christ might assert His power, and His sovereignty; and that he himself, after all, might have a high place in that temporal kingdom, which they all expected.

I. The Cry of Despair—Disappointed everywhere—remorse and horror, as they are wont, taking the place of passion—the evil spirit that had lured him on now became, first tormentor, and then instigator to despair. Driven by his evil conscience, Judas sought refuge everywhere, and found it nowhere. Not in his money—what could that do? "He cast down the thirty pieces of silver," with perfect indifference, "on the floor of the Temple;" and the coldblooded priests, to whom he looked in his misery, said, "What is that to us? See thou to that." Not, assuredly, in his own breast. Not in God: he had not sought it there, and though it was not too late to find it, he saw it was too late to seek. And Judas, "departed, and went and hanged himself," that he might go to his own place!

II. A Heartless Acknowledgment—What was the worth of his "I have sinned" at such a time? The Greek word for "sinned" is "missing the mark". It conveys a great deal of important and affecting teaching. But Judas meant probably only the literal, without the spiritual, signification of the word. "I have made a mistake; I have missed the mark." "I have sinned, in that I have betrayed innocent blood."

III. No Touch of Spiritual Truth.—His "I have sinned" was only the acknowledgment of a worldly error. It stands for no repentance. It never touched one spiritual truth.

References.—XXVII:4.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii. No113. XXVII:4 , 24.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Matthew XVIII-XXVIII. p299. Cox, "The Son of Loss," Expositions, vol. i. p348. French, "Pontius Pilate," Sermons New and Old, p134. "Conscience," Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv. p554. John Ker, "Judas and the Priests; the end of evil association," Sermons (1Series), p282. Parker, Ark of God, p54 , and Inner Life of Christ, vol. iii. p238. Cox, "A Day in Pilate's Life," Expositor (2Series), vol. viii. p107. Jacox, Traits of Character, etc, p350. Kitto, Daily Bible Illustrations, vol. vii. p426. W. M. Taylor in Three Hundred Outlines on New Testament, p32; and see his Contrary Winds, p37. A. B. Evans, Sermons, p377. C. J. Vaughan, Sermons (1853), p81. Pusey, Sermons, vol. ii. p276. Simeon, Works, vol. xi. pp575 , 583. Bishop Hacket, Sermons, p483. Bishop Fleetwood, Sermons, p444.

Matthew 27:5

When an opponent at Gainsborough falsely accused George Fox of claiming to be the Messiah, the Quaker declares, "I called the accuser Judas, and was moved to tell him that Judas's end would be his; and that that was the word of the Lord and of Christ, through me, to him. So the Lord's power came over all, and quieted the minds of the people, and they departed in peace. But this Judas went away, and shortly afterwards hanged himself, and a stake was driven into his grave."

References.—XXVII:5.—C. Holland, Gleanings from a Ministry of Fifty Years, p287. XXVII:7.—H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year, p76. XXVII:11.—R. H. Heywood, Sermons and Addresses, p37. R. C. Trench, Sermons New and Old, p134. H. A. Smith, A Book of Lay Sermons, p3. XXVII:11-26.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Matthew XVIII-XXVIII. p310.

The Two Wills

Matthew 27:12-14; Matthew 27:20-23

Never was tragedy so awful or so swift as that which St. Matthew recounts in the chapter from which these verses are taken. And this is because the two elements of all tragedy, the Will of God and the Will of Matthew 27:16

I. We need not go beyond the New Testament for the history and character of Barabbas.

1. His name is the first significant thing about him. He is Barabbas, "the son of the father," or master. His father was a teacher of the Jewish law, and an expounder of its precepts. He belonged to the religious aristocracy of the Jews. He had been trained in the traditions of Hebrew history, and had been taught that to be a member of the commonwealth of Israel was the proudest privilege a man could enjoy. His childhood and youth had been spent amid the influences of a home whose chief interests were the things of God, whose dominating ambition was the steadfast advancement of His kingdom. He was as nearly as possible in the position of a son of the manse.

2. The second significant thing which we are told about him Matthew 27:18

That quiet, simple sentence in this condensed report of Christ's appearance before Pilate always arrests the mind. It is the statement by the evangelist of the inner judgment of Pilate. He had discerned the motives which lurked behind the air of justice on the part of the chief priests and elders. He knew the men with whom he had to deal. The sight of Christ, and the short interviews he had with Him, convinced him, not only of Christ's innocence, but of His spiritual majesty. But he was a man caught in the trap of his own past. Had his past been unstained, his action might have been different. He discerned the character of Christ He was awed and touched by His greatness. "He knew that for envy they had delivered Him."

I. Let us first inquire what envy is. Envy must be distinguished from other passions which are sometimes confounded with it. There is a wise and commendable emulation which is far from envy.

Envy must also be distinguished from jealousy, although the one word in common speech is often interchanged for the other. Jealousy is the child of love—love that believes itself wronged, injured, robbed of its due.

Envy is the child of hate. Envy does not long to run in the race and claim fellowship with those who excel. Envy does not seek the love and the well-being of the person envied. Envy is a gnawing hate, an inward grief, a wasting impatience of spirit, the souring of the heart, the distemper of the soul, "a rottenness of the bones".

There is in the Chapel of the Arena, at Padua, a significant fresco, by Giotto, of "Envy". Giotto's representation is that of a man of mean, misshapen figure, with crouching shoulder, and craning neck. He stands in profile in the picture with lean cheek, sunken, averted eyes, one hand clutching a wallet of gold, the other stretched out with fingers shaped into claws. The ears are large, unshapely, distended. Out of the mouth there plays a serpent, whose fangs are striking Envy himself on the brow. Around the feet there leap up flames of fire. A master conception this of this passion of envy! Take one or two of the features. These large, distended ears are meant to signify that envy is on the alert for every babble of slander. The serpent in the mouth points to the poisonous insinuations, the fabricated stories which the tongue of envy is eager to tell. The hands, clawed like a vulture"s, set forth the tearing motion and the clutching greed of the envious spirit; and the flames of fire round the feet mark the torture and despair in which envy lives—a torture and despair which are of hell. When we look at Giotto's picture, and read the story of the trial before Pilate, we no longer wonder at the quiet sentence, "He knew that for envy they had delivered Him". We understand that envy is no excusable resentment, no trifling meanness of the spirit, no transient passion, but a deep-seated, over-mastering, indwelling spirit of evil, which reaches its final expression when it hales its victim to his cross.

II. Let us now, in the second place, watch the consequences of envy.

1. Its simplest effect is to blind the mind; that is part of its confusion and evil work.

2. It also poisons the heart. As a poison strikes through the body and fevers the blood, so envy galls and fevers the heart.

3. The climax of evil consequence is reached when envy crucifies Christ.

III. But let us consider the remedy for envy. Envy may often visit the heart without reaching the climax of its consequence. There is no one who has not had a touch of envy at times. The man of saintly character and assured faith has found the subtle passion slipping into his heart, in some unwatchful moment, and troubling his peace. In one of the most thoughtful and uplifting of the Psalm this experience is detailed, and the sin and its remedy are disclosed. "My feet were almost gone, my steps had wellnigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." And the Psalmist tells us the doubts that troubled his mind, and the darkness that fell upon his spirit. But he recovered. "When I went into the sanctuary of God, then understood I their end." Standing in the sanctuary he was illumined, the vision of God was given him again; the baseness of the things he had envied was borne in upon him; the manner of his envious desire stood clearly forth, and in God's light he saw light clearly.

—W. M. Clow, The Day of the Cross, p71.

Matthew 27:18

Another of Badman's sins, "among the foulest villanies... rotting the very bones of him in whom it dwells," was envy. Bunyan quotes Matthew 27:18 to show what he means: "For he knew that for envy they had delivered Him". It is a certain malignant hatred of good, the lowest conceivable depth of wickedness. Its root is ignorance. For this we are usually held not to be accountable, but to Bunyan, whether we are accountable or not, was not worth debate. It was "ignorance" which preferred Barabbas to Jesus.

—Mark Rutherford, John Bunyan, pp183 , 184.

Reference.—XXVII:18.—J. Parker, City Temple Pulpit, vol. ii. p156.

Pilate's Wife—Moral Influence of Women

Matthew 27:19

Of Pilate's wife nothing is known but the bare fact, recorded by St. Matthew alone, that she interceded with her husband in favour of a prisoner who, for some reason unknown to us, had aroused her sympathetic interest.

Tradition says that her name was Claudia Procula, and that she was a Jewish proselyte. The Greek Church has canonized her, and she ranks among its saints.

The fact that this Roman lady felt so deeply about Jesus that she risked offending her husband by interposing in a matter which lay beyond her proper sphere is of many-sided interest.

I. It serves to illustrate in an undesigned way the profound impression made by our Lord upon women in every case where they came under the spell of His influence.

II. The incident may be used in illustration of the common remark that womanly instinct sometimes hits the mark while masculine calculation goes astray. So far as we know, the sole protest against the counsel and deed of those who forced on the tragedy of Calvary was the protest of a woman.

—J. W. Shepard, Light and Life, p72.

Pilate's Wife

Matthew 27:19

Every religion may be tested, ethically and practically, by its appeal to womanhood. That faith which outclasses every other in its power to meet the needs of woman, and uplift her to moral beauty, will stand every other test of the truth of God. When Christ came with His meekness and lowliness, His searching and uncompromising hostility to sin, His compassion for weakness, and His great cross of love and atonement, womanhood fell down at His feet in a surpassing loyalty, and Christ placed a crown on her head. It was a man of Macedonia whom Paul saw in his vision, but it was a woman who listened by the river-side, and first made response to Christ. And to this day the voice of Christ finds its clear echo in women's hearts, and both gentle and simple are found reaching their noblest and highest when sitting at His feet.

It is then precisely what would have been expected, that amid the sad scenes of the tragedy of Christ's last day on earth, there should be told us this idyll of Pilate's wife. The story shines on the page like a strong gleam of sunshine on a winter day. It is a word of radiant prophecy in the record of a history laden with sorrow.

I. The first thing I remark about Pilate's wife was the sorrow and shame of her life. There is no doubt but that a tender love subsisted between Pilate and his wife. This cruel and worldly man had this redeeming virtue left him, as such men sometimes have. The altar flame of love had not gone out. The proof of this mutual love lies in the fact that she accompanied him to Jerusalem. A Roman governor was forbidden by law to take his wife with him to his province, very much for the same reason as a ship captain is forbidden to take his wife to sea. That law could be broken only by a strong personal appeal. But in that imperial age, hastening with swift strides to an unspeakable corruption, husbands were only too willing to be freed from a wife's watchful eyes, and wives were as willing to be left to live their butterfly lives amid the gaieties of a profligate Roman world. But Pilate's wife was more than eager to face the loneliness of a life among an alien people. Love broke even a stern Roman law. But how far apart had these two drifted—although their love still persisted. The young Pilate whom the woman had idealized, whose face had flitted through the dreams of her youth, whose career she had so hopefully anticipated, had deteriorated into this sordid, cruel, vengeful, murderous man. The women of Jerusalem who saw Pilate's wife looking out from her lattice, and caught the flash of the gems on her white hands, and marked the pride of her patrician face, and envied her ease and state, never guessed how wistfully she looked upon them, and how constant was this cloud of sorrow and of shame, because she knew herself to be the wife of a dishonourable man.

II. The second thing I remark about Pilate's wife is her service to her husband. "When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man." It was a deed of singular daring. It was the last resource of a loving heart making one more appeal. To send a message with the attempt to sway the mind of the judge while he sat upon the seat of judgment was a punishable offence, and only the awfulness of the deed she saw about to be done could have moved her to it. Pilate may have smiled at her dream, but her words stung his conscience, and had there been any way of escape for this hardly pressed Matthew 27:22

I. We may crucify the Saviour in many ways when we do not seem to be crucifying Him. That is the very subtlety of the devil's temptation. There would not seem to be any wickedness in not forgiving a man who had injured you very much and who had prayed for your pardon. If any soul has ever asked you to forgive him, that soul supplied you with the greatest opportunity of being a Christian that ever was supplied during your whole experience To plead for mercy and not to receive it, the case being between two human hearts, that would stab the Saviour with a sixth wound.

There is another thing you can do with Christ: you can admire Him. Many persons admire Him, and get their livelihood out of Him: paint His portrait, surround His head with haloes, give His mother a nimbus, and give Himself as a Babe an aureole; all that you can do, but that is nothing. I have great fear of those who have not passed beyond the point of admiration. Jesus Christ came not to be admired, but to be believed, received, served. He is all, or nothing, and less than nothing.

There is a third thing you can do: you can adore Jesus. Now you are coming to higher ground. You can fall down before Him, you can offer Him your gold and frankincense and myrrh, not of mere gold and material, but of real reverence and love and faith, so that He shall be fairest among ten thousand and altogether lovely; not in form, but in the poetry of His meaning, in the ideality of His desire.

There is a fourth thing you can do: you can serve Him. What is "to serve Him?" It is to suffer for Him. Do we serve Him? is His service a delight? if our lives were deprived of His service would they go down in music, in quality, in hope, in force? If you can say, Yes, then you are in very deed serving the Christ.

II. There are three things you cannot do with Christ.

1. You cannot get rid of Him. Some men may think they have dismissed Him, but they have not. It is Christ's habit, as it always has been from resurrection time, to appear unto some in "another form".

2. You cannot mistake Him for some one else. That is curious. The uniqueness of Christ is one of the greatest arguments in Christian apologetics. There is none to compare with Him.

3. You cannot change the terms of discipleship. They are severe terms. He never admits anybody easily into His kingdom. What is the way into the kingdom? The Cross is the only way. What is the object of discipleship? The Cross is the object of discipleship. Can I not have some ornamental cross, some ivory crucifix, and place it on my breast and say, Behold my tribe and my Master? No, this must be a heart-born Christ, this must be a cross that throws its shadow, yet its light, over the whole life. "If any man would be My disciple, let him take up his cross daily and follow Me."

—Joseph Parker, City Temple Pulpit, vol. v. p184.

Matthew 27:22

Last year about this time our Lord was, as it were, upon the Mount of Olives. He rode, as it were, triumphantly at the head of a small party to the market-cross of Rutherglen, and many cried "Hosannah to the Son of David," for a few days after. But since the22nd of June, 1679 , how many have cried out, "Crucify Him, crucify Him, away with Him: we will have no more to do with Him. Christ is too dear a Lord for us. These field-meetings of His are too costly for us. We wish there had never been any of these field-meetings in Scotland!"

—From a Sermon by Richard Cameron

References.—XXVII:22.—S. H. Kellogg, The Past a Prophecy of the Future, p144. W. Howell Evans, Sermons for the Church's Year, p102. V. R. Lennard, Passion-Tide and Easter, p45. T. Teignmouth Shore, The Life of the World to Come, p125. R. Baldwin Brindley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxviii. p136. David Purves, ibid. vol. lxx1906 , p70. T. Waugh, The Cross and the Dice-Box, p201. C. Perren, Revival Sermons in Outline, p164. A. Goodrich, British Weekly Pulpit, vol. ii. p189. C. Stanford, The Evening of Our Lord's Ministry, p256. XXVII:22-50.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxix. No2333.

Pilate Washing His Hands

Matthew 27:24

I. The first point to notice is the vain plea for wrongdoing.

Pilate excused himself to himself on the ground that policy and self-defence forced him to his act. He could say "I am innocent" because he said, "I am obliged to connive at this crime". Though in his case the plea is for a gigantic sin, and in our case it may be for a comparatively small one, the same sort of thing is being said by us continually.

There is nothing necessary for a man which he can only get or keep by tampering with conscience. There are two things needful for us: God and righteousness; and there is no third.

And in another way, the pleading of compulsion from without, as an excuse for evil, is evidently vain; because no man and no thing can force us to do wrong. We know, in each specific case, that, however strong the temptation may have been, we could have resisted it if we would, and that therefore the yielding to it was our act and ours only.

II. Notice here the possibility of entire self-deception.

This man had managed to persuade himself, on a very rotten plea, that he was entirely free from guilt in his act. And the fact that the man who did the most awful of crimes—though perhaps he was not the most guilty—could do it with the profession, to some extent sincere, of innocence, may teach us very solemn lessons.

You can persuade yourself that almost any wrong thing is right, if only you desire to do so. Inclination can silence conscience. The rush of passion can silence conscience. The very stress of daily life tends to weaken the power of pronouncing moral judgment on the things that we are doing. We all have sins altogether unsuspected by ourselves. There are plenty of us that do just as Pilate—who condemned himself in saying, "I am innocent of the blood".

III. Notice how here we get an illustration of the impossibility of wriggling out of responsibility.

It is very interesting to observe how the parties concerned—the conspirators, if I may say so—in this great tragedy try to shuffle the blame off their own shoulders and to place it on others. If there is anything a man's own, of which he cannot get rid, it is the burden of responsibility for his Matthew 27:29

It is so easy to be orthodox in creed and statement; so safe to rest in a merely traditionary belief, that many a decorous Christian fails to perceive the sure though invisible connexion between the life-confession and self-denial of a merely outward profession, and the broader form of denial by which all such profession is derided. Yet between Christ mocked and Christ rejected there is but a step; who shall say how easily it is taken, or how quickly we pass from the hollow homage, the "Hail, Master!" which mocks our Lord, to the smiting and buffeting of open outrage? When Christ is invested with but the show of sovereignty, the reed placed in His hands will be quickly taken, as by the soldiers, to smite His head. This reed is nominal Christianity, a strange slip of a degenerate vine, beneath whose blighting shadow a poison-growth of unbelief never fails to root itself.

—Dora Greenwell.

The whole history of Christianity shows that she is in far greater danger of being corrupted by the alliance of power than of being crushed by its opposition. Those who thrust temporal sovereignty upon her treat her as their prototypes treated her Author. They bow the knee, and spit upon her; they cry "Hail," and smite her on the cheek; they put a sceptre in her hand, but it is a fragile reed; they crown her, but it is with thorns; they cover with purple the wounds which their own hands have inflicted on her; and inscribe magnificent titles over the cross on which they have fixed her to perish in ignominy and pain.

—Macaulay on Southey's Colloquies.

References.—XXVII:29.—G. H. Morrison, The Return of the Angels, p34. W. H. Brookfield, Sermons, p216. C. Jerdan, Pastures of Tender Grass, p304. B. D. Johns, Pulpit Notes, p25. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xx. No1168; vol. xlix. No2824.

Matthew 27:31

A month before his death, on "Sabbath, 21September," says Dr. M"Crie, "Knox began to preach in the Tolbooth Church, which was now fitted up for him. He chose for the subject of his discourses the account of our Saviour's crucifixion, as recorded in the twenty-seventh chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew 27:33

That spiritual beauty and spiritual truth are in their nature communicable, and that they should be communicated, is a principle which lies at the root of every conceivable religion. Christ was crucified upon a hill, and not in a cavern, and the word Gospel itself involves the same idea as the ordinary name of a daily paper.

—G. K. Chesterton.

References.—XXVII:33 , 34.—G. Body, The School of Calvary, p26. XXVII:33-44.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. li. No2942. XXVII:33-50.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Matthew XVIII-XXV1II. p317.

The Unconscious Service of Christ

Matthew 27:34

The drink offered to Jesus was a narcotic. It was offered in mercy and it was offered by those opposed to His doctrines. It was given by the Roman soldiers with a view to mitigate His pain.

I. The act is deeply suggestive. It is an act of friendship performed by antagonists. We are in the habit of dividing the world into Christians and non-Christians. To which of the two classes did these Roman soldiers belong? They were certainly not followers of Jesus; but neither were they against Him. I am told that at the Day of Judgment those will be on the right hand who gave Him drink, and those on the left hand who did not. But here on earth, He has received drink from those apparently on the left hand. Roman soldiers have sought to assuage His sufferings!

II. Is it not the same still? We are so fond of sharp divisions that we forget the intermediate shades; but God does not. There are men among us who at this hour are helping Jesus, and who yet profess to yield no allegiance but to Caesar. They are numbered among the legions, not among the saints. Yet, wherever the Son of Man is crucified, they are there.

III. Wherever humanity is heavy-laden, wherever souls are sad, wherever bodies are burdened, wherever days are darkened, wherever man is mastered by the physical, you will find them there. In the den of poverty, by the couch of pain, at the bed of languishing on the track of fallenness, you will find them there. Where Noah combats the waters, where Abraham journeys homeless, where Jacob lies on a stair, where Joseph weeps in a dungeon, where Moses mopes in a desert, where Elijah hides in a cave, where Job pines in an infirmary, where the Son of Man fasts in a wilderness, you will find them there. They see not the vintage and the gold; but they bear the vinegar and the gall.

—G. Matheson, Messages of Hope, p249.

The Endurance of Pain

Matthew 27:34

In the reports of the Passion preserved for us in the Gospels, we are told that at three different times on that first Good Friday was a draught offered to our Lord; and if we read the narratives with care, we shall observe that these draughts were not only offered Him under entirely distinct circumstances, but that His attitude with reference to them was distinct in each case.

I. Let us take first what St. John tells us. All things being now accomplished, we read that Jesus cried out in His agony that He was athirst; and some of the soldiers in tardy mercy took pity upon the patient Sufferer, and offered Him a draught of the sour wine provided for their own use. And Jesus received it, and crying out, "It is finished," bowed His head, and breathed out His spirit.

"All things were accomplished." He had done that for which He had come. And so He no longer keeps back the cry, "I thirst". The lesson is this, that pain, as pain, is of no moral value at all. To suffer a useless pain—that had no place in the economy of redemption; and it has no place in the life of redeemed humanity. When all things were accomplished, Jesus accepted the bracing draught.

II. But yet pain of a sort, of a bitter sort, comes to us all. How are we to meet it? Let us carry our thoughts back to another and earlier scene at Calvary. "And the soldiers," says St. Matthew 27:36

Jesus Christ's death on the cross was not only a sacrifice for our sins, but was also part of His great example. He there taught us how to suffer. Let us listen to the few words which came from those patient and holy lips, that we may learn something of the spirit in which, when our hour of suffering comes, we ought to take it.

I. We may very possibly have to suffer through the fault of others; or, when we are suffering, it is possible that others may be hard or unkind to us. When those trials and temptations come, let us stop and think of Him Who was nailed to the cross. What were His first words when the nails had pierced His hands and feet, when the cross was set up, when the malice of His enemies had at length compassed what it sought, when the cup of agony was full? Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. Jesus forgave the murderers who crucified Him. Jesus made an excuse for their cruel malice.

II. When we suffer, we generally think only of ourselves. We think that we have enough to bear without troubling ourselves about the wishes or sorrows of others. But watch Jesus Christ on the cross. Watch Him after that long morning of racking agony to nerve and to spirit. Wearied, worn, exhausted, dying, He sees His mother, and the disciple whom He loved. In His own bitter suffering, He sees how they are suffering; He thinks of them; He thinks of what would be a comfort and support to them. Woman, behold thy Son!... Behold thy mother!

III. Nor did He think only of those who belonged to Him—His mother and His disciples. There was a poor wretched criminal, a murderer and a robber, the outcast and the offscouring of society, hanging at His side, hung there to do Him greater dishonour— to show Him to the world as worthy to die with the vilest malefactors. Yet, in the midst of His own torments, amid the jeers and brutal mockery of this miserable man's companion, He was willing to receive and be favourable to this poor creature's petition. How should we like, in moments of pain, in the hour of death, to be asked to consider the wants, and to minister to the comfort of an outcast, friendless soul, all its lifetime abandoned to hardened sin? We dare not answer for ourselves. We dare not think what we should do. But we know what the Redeemer did. We know that He did not grudge him words that the greatest saints would have hailed with rapture—Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.

IV. To most of us, pain and sickness seem to bring a release from ordinary duties. We feel ourselves free from the obligations which lie on us in health. We think we need not be so strict. It is one of the great trials of suffering, that it makes us indifferent to what becomes of us, careless of our duties, and of other people who depend upon us. But in those times, think of Jesus Christ on the cross. He thought of fulfilling to the uttermost all that was appointed Him. It had been said of Him that He was to drink the vinegar, so He asked for it. He said, I thirst. He did not put it from Him as a needless, useless interruption in the midst of racking pain and faintness. He would not go till He could say, It is finished.

V. There is one strange and awful sentence of those which He spoke on the cross which we must sometimes have wondered at. My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Surely those are not the words of despair and distrust. What they fully mean, it would be dangerous to ask, for they are the words of the Incarnate Son of God in man's nature. But no more comforting words than they to our poor, weak, fainting nature, were spoken on the cross. On the cross Jesus Christ utters the same cry as His weak and fainting creatures. He takes David's words in the twenty-second Psalm and makes them His own; not to teach us to cry out against God; not to teach us to distrust God; not to encourage us to give way to hard thoughts of our Father in heaven; but to give us comfort, that if we have such feelings rushing into our minds sometimes, they need not be wrong ones, unless we make them so by our impatience and repining and want of faith.

VI. Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit, and having said this, He gave up the ghost. There He has taught us how to die. Say what we will, death is an awful parting. We love life, and it is hard to take leave of it, hard to lay it down. But here is our lesson. Let these words of Jesus Christ ever be in our hearts while we are in health, that they may be ready to come to our lips when we are dying. We must learn to say them from our hearts, in the hours of pain and sickness, that we may learn to say them as Christ said them when the spirit is almost gone. "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit."—R. W. Church, Village Sermons (2Series), p133.

References.—XXVII:36.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Matthew XVIII-XXVIII. p325. Cosmo Gordon Lang, Christian World Pulpit, vol. Matthew 27:42

These are true words, but they were spoken by men who did not know how true they were. They describe the situation with exactness.

I. Looking back over the life of Jesus, as it is set forth for us in the Gospels, we see that, at every stage of His life, at every new departure in His work, these two alternatives were somehow set before Him—If He is to save Himself, He cannot do His work; if He is to do His work, He cannot save Himself.

From the tempter at the outset of His ministry, from His mother and His brethren during the course of it, from His disciples and Peter as it drew near its close, from the chief priests, elders, and scribes while He hung on the cross, and from the thief, who desired Him to use His Messiahship for His own benefit and theirs, from friend and foe alike, came the suggestion that there was an easy, a less costly way of accomplishing His work. From first to last, from whosoever the suggestion came, Jesus resolutely and steadfastly set it aside. Nor was it merely from those who thus presented the alternative to Him that the thought came. In the agony of the garden He asked if it were possible for the cup to pass? "Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me." With strong crying and tears He asked if it were possible to find a less costly way of doing His work.

II. We should miss the strength and comfort which should come to us from the devout study of our Lord's life, if we did not realize that all these suggestions which we have enumerated called Him to a real decision, and led Him to a greater victory. It was a real situation which always met Him, and at each step there was a possible parting of the ways, and He always had to make a real choice; and He chose the upward, thorny path which led to the agony of the garden and the death on the cross.

III. In our way and in our measure, we are also ever called on to make a similar choice. To each of us a mission has been given, a task has been assigned, and a work has been given to do. Each of us has only one life to live, one place to fill, one work to do. It can only be accomplished if we have a clear vision, a pure heart, a good conscience, and a resolute will.

—J. Iverach, The Other Side of Greatness, p18.

Matthew 27:42

Sauve qui peut, Bonaparte is said to have exclaimed at Waterloo, along with his routed army. At all events this was the rule by which he regulated his actions, in prosperity as well as in adversity. For what is Vole qui peut! but the counterpart of Sauve qui peut!... What an awful and blessed contrast to this cry presents itself, when we think of Him of whom His enemies said, He saved others; Himself He cannot save! They knew not how true the first words were, or how indissolubly they were connected with the latter, how it is only by losing our life that we can either save others or ourselves.

—Julius Hare.

References.—XXVII:42.—J. W. Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliii1893 , p390. W. Scott Page, ibid. vol. lxii1902 , p418. J. Baines, Twenty Sermons, p139. W. Hay M. H. Aitken, Mission Sermons (2Series), p169. C. W. Furse, Sermons Preached at Richmond, p32. XXVII:43.—C. E. Jefferson, The Character of Jesus, p135. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiv. No2029. XXVII:45.—H. E. Manning, Sin and Its Consequences, p201. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxii. No1896. XXVII:45 , 46.—Frederic Watson, The Seven Words from the Cross, p54.

The Cry of Dereliction

Matthew 27:46

What do these words mean?

I. We cannot explain that cry as a momentary failing of human courage or human conviction. Every line of the Gospel forbids us to do so.

Think of His Name and why He bore it. "He shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins." He Who was "in the form of God "could not be happy in heaven while the cry of the world which He had created was beating upon His ears. He had spoken often and not in vain, through Prophets and Psalmists and holy men, and now the time had come for the last supreme appeal, the sovereign proof that what He bade His people be He was Himself. And therefore He went forth and took upon Him the form of a servant and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He went forth and He went down. He could save; but only by going down, with His Divine Nature upon Him, into the very depths of the world; by getting under all the evil, and lifting it up with the strength of His own shoulders, and the suffering of His own body, soul, and spirit.

II. Now how far did He go down? He had suffered whatever man can suffer, betrayal by a friend and disciple, denial by the chief of His Apostles, degrading insults and bodily anguish, such as we shrink from putting into words. And now at the last came those jeering priests. And He must have asked Himself, What are these men? and where are they? And beyond the indifference of the ignorant and careless, beyond the cowardice of timid friends, beyond the animal cruelty of rough soldiers, beyond and below all this, He must have seen and entered a lower depth still—the mind of those who knew or ought to know, who had read their Bibles, who thought themselves the chosen people of God, and yet could crucify their Christ, and then could mock and jibe with the vilest; of the vile at the foot of the cross—the mind of those who are in the outer darkness, hating the light. For one black moment He became as they, that He might be able to save even them.

Then came that loud cry—was it "Father, into Thy hands I commit My Spirit"? was it "It is finished"?—a loud triumphant cry. God is the Father again, the horrible vision has passed, and the end has come.

III. It is horrible; and yet it is the condition of power and success. For what is the horror? It is the sense of God's absence, the feeling of abandonment in the outer darkness. And who can feel that except those who know what God's presence means? Only those who have tasted of love, joy, and peace can understand what evil is. Others may see the outward symptoms of evil, the squalor, the vice, the hopelessness; they alone know the root of the disease, and therefore the way to cure it. Doctors tell us that you cannot cure symptoms. You can alleviate them, and it is a duty to do that, if you can do no more. But to cure you must get down to the cause, and is not that the absence of God? and can you make men understand that unless you know all that it means?

Let this mind be in you, says St. Paul in the Epistle, which was in Jesus Christ Go down like Him and suffer and learn, in His name and in His strength.

—Charles Bigg, The Spirit of Christ in Common Life, p274.

The Fourth Word From the Cross

Matthew 27:46

I. We are told in the Bible that there was a great darkness over all the land, from the sixth hour till the ninth. And in the midst of this outward darkness it would seem that our Lord remained quite silent till at last He uttered these words, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Why was this darkness? Was it to point out our Saviour as the Light of the world? When He was born at Bethlehem a bright star appears; when He dies the sun veils His face. Let us catch from it this certain truth, He was the true Light. Jesus is come to be a new light to Matthew 27:46

They are the words of the greatest Commentator on the Old Testament that the world has ever known. When Christ presents the Passion Music of the twenty-second Matthew 27:46

We remember how our Blessed Saviour was withdrawn into a deep silence for some considerable time before He spoke these words. There is very much to be learned from the silence of Jesus Christ. It teaches us how we may most fittingly bear the chastisements of God.

Two things we notice about this mysterious cry of the stricken Saviour. First of all, that it is a question, the only question, which, so far as we are told, was ever uttered to the Father by His lips: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" And the Blessed Son of God seems to put Himself, as it were, with those holy men of old who at different times and stages of Israel's history pleaded with God concerning His judgments.

And yet, in the second place, how strange it is that to that question there is no reply, as if to teach us of the mystery of God's dealing with men. What an unspeakable mystery is the Atonement of Christ! We see enough to satisfy our reason to some extent; we see enough to reassure our aching heart, but we cannot fathom the mystery of what Jesus did upon the cross. Religion does not profess to give us cut and dried answers to every futile or unreasonable question that we may ask. All we know Matthew 27:46

This I would term the Word of Agony. The word of Tender Care and the word of Agony come close together, but it is significant.

In the cry "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" our Lori goes back to the Syriac, His old vernacular. You have heard people who are in a great agony going back to their old language: it often happens. So our Lord goes back to His old vernacular, and cries "Eli, Eli,..." which being interpreted Matthew 27:46

Such words may not have been uttered, but such despair has been felt by preachers, reformers, and prophets of old time and of all time—by Matthew 27:47

In His work for man it is the constant fate of God to be misunderstood.

—Rothe.

References.—XXVII:47-50.—W. Pulsford, Trinity Church Sermons, p119. Parker, Inner Life of Christ, vol. iii. p248. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxii. No1869. J. Keble, Sermons for Holy Week, p264. T. R. Stevenson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. v. p328. A. P. Stanley, ibid. vol. xvii. p193. G. Macdonald, Unspoken Sermons, p163. R. M. McCheyne, Additional Remains, p183. Preacher's Monthly, vol. i. p294. C. J. Vaughan, Lessons of the Cross and Passion, p150. Clergyman's Magazine, vol. ii. p153; vol. iv. p89. Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i. p60. W. H. Aitken, Mission Sermons (2Series), p169. XXVII:48 , 49.—W. V. Mason, Short Addresses for Holy Week, p32. XXVII:50 , 51.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiv. No2015. A. G. Mortimer, One Hundred Miniature Sermons, vol. i. p239. XXVII:50-53.—Spurgeon Sermons, vol. xxxiv. No2059. XXVII:50-54.—Ibid. vol. xxxix. No2311. XXVII:51.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Matthew XVIII-XXVIII. p341. XXVII:52 , 53.—R. M. Benson, The Life Beyond the Grave, p43. XXVII:54.—R. W. Hiley, A Year's Sermons, vol. iii. p136. S. W. Skeffington, The Sinless Sufferer, p93. XXVII:55.—H. R. Haweis, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi1899 , p24. XXVII:55 , 56.—A. F. Winnington Ingram, Addresses in Holy Week, 1902 , p30. XXVII:56.—B. D. Johns, Pulpit Notes, p78. XXVII:57-60.—T. A. Gurney, The Living Lord and the Opened Grave, p1. XXVII:60.—V. R. Lennard, Passion-Tide and Easter, p107. XXVII:61.—T. A. Gurney, The Living Lord and the Opened Grave, p19. R. M. Benson, The Life Beyond the Grave, p12. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiv. No1404. XXVII:63.—E. Fowle, Plain Preaching to Poor People (2Series), p39. XXVIII.—R. Steer, The Words of the Angels, p72. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xliii. No2518.