The murder of Jesus

218 Pages·2010·1.11 MB·English

The Murder of Jesus
The Murder of Jesus
A Study of How Jesus Died
BY
JOHN F. MACARTHUR JR.
THE MURDER OF JESUS: A STUDY OF HOW JESUS DIED
Copyright © 2000, 2004 by John F. MacArthur Jr. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
by any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except
for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
All Scripture quotations in this book, except those noted otherwise, are from the New King James Version,
© 1984 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Quotations marked NASB are from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971,
1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1988, and 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, and are used by permission.
Quotations marked NIV are from The Holy Bible: New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984
by the International Bible Society. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.
Quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.
ISBN 0-7852-6018-8
Printed in the United States of America
04 05 06 07 08 PHX 5 4 3 2 1
To Joe and Georgia Aleppo
beloved friends whose
tireless labor for the cause of
Christ is a constant
encouragement to me, and
whose passion for the truth
has knit our hearts together.
Contents
Introduction
1 The Plot to Kill Jesus
The Conspiracy Is Born
Christ Is Anointed for His Burial
The Traitor Makes His Deal
2 The Last Passover
The Last Passover Prepared
The Feast Eaten
The Evil Deed Foretold
The Traitor Unmasked
A New Feast Instituted
3 A Warning against Over-Confidence
The Disciples’ Insufficiency
Christ’s Perfect Sufficiency
4 The Agony in the Garden
His Sorrow
His Supplication
His Submission
5 The Kiss of the Traitor
A Mob Approaches
The Evil Deed Is Done
A Slaughter Is Averted
The Disciples Flee
6 The Kangaroo Court of the High Priest
A Cowardly Nighttime Trial
Solicitation of False Testimony
A Desperate Attempt to Get Jesus to Incriminate Himself
A Predetermined Verdict
Ruthless Cruelty
7 Peter’s Denial
The Groundwork for Failure
Spiritual Defeat
Repentance
8 Crucifixion Morning
The Strategizing of the Sanhedren
The Suicide of Judas
The Sanctimony of the Temple Authorities
9 What Shall I Do with Jesus?
The Crowd’s Accusation
Pilate’s Verdict
Jesus’ Silence
Pilate’s Predicament
Herod’s Turn
The Crowd’s Hostility
The Governor’s Acquiescence
10 Murder at Golgotha
The Mockery
The Shame
The Curse
The Pain
The Humiliation
11 The Seven Last Sayings of Christ
A Plea for Forgiveness
A Promise of Salvation
A Provision for His Mother
A Petition to the Father
A Pleading for Relief
A Proclamation of Victory
A Prayer of Consummation
12 All Creation Groans
The Sun Darkened
The Veil Torn
The Earth Shaken
The Dead Raised
The Centurion Saved
The Drama Ended
Scripture Index
About the Author
Introduction
THE WORLD has recently been drawn to the death of Jesus through the movie, The
Passion of the Christ. It depicts the single greatest event in history more
graphically than anything ever has before. Since the film only covers the
eighteen hours of Jesus’ life from His agony in the garden to His horrific death,
the audience is left with the tormenting question of how He could have been
treated so cruelly. Whatever motivated people to do what they did to Jesus?
Seeing the film leaves many in a state of trauma, searching for some way to
understand why Jesus was treated so unjustly and made to suffer so greatly.
Perhaps this was also your response to the movie, which is the reason you are
reading this book. I’m glad about that, because the search for the true
understanding of Jesus’ death will satisfy more than mere curiosity for you; it
will literally open the way to heaven.
Long before the advent of cameras in the courtroom, it was clear that the
finest courts of earthly jurisprudence sometimes convict the innocent or
exonerate the guilty. Take, for example, the case of Randall Dale Adams, who
was convicted and sentenced to death in 1977 for the murder of a Texas
policeman. A 1988 documentary, The Thin Blue Line, raised troubling questions
about law enforcement’s handling of his case and helped win him a new trial just
hours before his scheduled execution in 1988. A year later he was released from
prison when the prosecutor in the case dismissed all charges against him,
acknowledging the lack of any real evidence to convict him. An even more
disturbing case was that of Kirk Bloodsworth, sentenced to death for rape and
murder in the 1980s. After nearly a decade on death row, Bloodsworth was
released in 1994 when sophisticated DNA tests proved beyond question that he
was innocent of the crimes he had been condemned to death for.
More recently, a Los Angeles police officer admitted that he and his partner
shot a man they had in custody, leaving him permanently paralyzed. They then
planted a weapon in order to frame the man on an assault charge. The victim,
Javier Francisco Ovando, was convicted on the basis of that false testimony and
sentenced to twenty-three years in prison. He served three years before the truth
was discovered. He was released from prison in 1999 when one of the offending
officers confessed, but Ovando will be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of
his life.
We’re rightly appalled and outraged by such cases, and yet they do not appear
to be diminishing in number. Nearly every week, it seems some new, gross
miscarriage of justice is dissected on 20/20, 60 Minutes, 48 Hours, or similar
network news magazine programs. Americans’ confidence in their criminal
justice system may be at an all-time low.
Modern society’s concern about justice gone awry is nothing new. Notorious
cases of innocent victims who were imprisoned or executed wrongfully litter the
pages of history, from the bibli cal account of Naboth, who was framed and
executed by Ahab in ancient Israel, to the witchcraft trials of medieval history,
right down to the present age. On the other side of the ledger, history is also
replete with accounts of guilty people let off scot-free by so-called courts of
justice, ranging from ancient aristocrats who routinely got away with murder, to
modern organized-crime bosses who use bribery and intimidation to manipulate
the system in their favor.
Clearly, real justice has often been elusive in earthly courts. Innocent Joseph
languished in a dank prison while his false accuser, Potiphar’s wife, lived in
Egyptian luxury. Nero set fire to Rome for political purposes and falsely accused
Christians of the crime; then he enlisted Roman courts to perpetrate a slaughter
against innocent believers, punishing them for an act he himself committed.
Medieval clergy lived lives of wanton profligacy while the Church’s office of
the Inquisition approved the torture and killing of godly people accused of
“heresy.” With the Supreme Court’s sanction, modern abortionists routinely kill
infants at birth, while government bureaucrats spend billions to protect snail
darters and silverspot butterflies.
Human courts have an uncanny knack for turning justice completely on its
head. The wicked frequently prosper while the righteous suffer wrongfully.
Nowhere is this seen more graphically than in the arrest, trials, and crucifixion
of Jesus Christ. No victim of injustice was ever more innocent than the sinless
Son of God. And yet no one ever suffered more agony than He did. He was
cruelly executed by men who openly acknowledged His faultlessness. Yet at the
same time Barabbas, a murderous, thieving insurrectionist, was summarily set
free. It was the greatest travesty of justice the world will ever see.
Consider the facts: Jesus Christ was the only truly sinless individual who ever
lived—the most innocent, blameless, virtuous man of all time. He “committed