Soteriology Lesson 26 - The Trials, Beatings, Mockings, and Death of the Messiah

Thinking on Scripture with Dr. Steven R. Cook

What Jesus Suffered by Men

Jesus loved the Father (John 14:31) and submitted Himself to do the Father’s will (Matt 26:39-44; cf. Rom 5:19; Phil 2:5-8), which included enduring the illegal trials of His accusers, as well as the eventual mockings, beatings, and crucifixion. All that Jesus suffered was prophesied in Scripture (Gen 3:15; Psa 22:16-18; Isa 50:4-7; 52:14; 53:3-12; Mark 10:32-34). God the Father was in complete control of the circumstances surrounding the trials and crucifixion of Jesus (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28). Though unjustly attacked, Jesus knew He was doing the Father’s will (John 6:38; 10:14-18; 12:27; 18:11) and did not retaliate against His attackers (1 Pet 2:21-23). The four Gospels record the arrest, trials, mocking, crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Matthew, Mark and Luke refer to events taking place according to Jewish time in which the day ends at sunset; whereas John relies on Gentile time in which the day ends at midnight. A brief chronology of Jesus’ trials, mockings, beatings, crucifixion and burial is as follows:

1. Jesus was arrested during the night—perhaps around midnight—and faced six illegal trials, three religious and three civil.[1] The trials must have happened relatively early, as they concluded “about six in the morning” (John 19:14 CSB).[2]
2. During the religious trials, the chief priest and Sanhedrin tried to secure false testimony about Jesus so they might have grounds to crucify Him (Matt 26:59).
3. Jesus was beaten in the face and mocked during His Jewish trial (Matt 26:67-68).
4. After Pilate agreed to the demands of the mob (Matt 27:17-25), he had Jesus scourged (Matt 27:26a), and then “handed Him over to be crucified” (Matt 27:26b).
5. Jesus was mocked and beaten by Roman soldiers (Matt 27:27-30), and then was led away to be crucified (Matt 27:31).
6. Jesus was crucified by 9:00 AM (Mark 15:25).
7. Jesus was judged by the Father and bore our sins on the cross from 12:00 to 3:00 PM (Matt 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44).
8. Jesus died about 3:00 PM (Matt 27:46-50; Mark 15:34-37).
9. Jesus’ body was placed in the grave before 6:00 PM (i.e. sunset) because the Jews did not want His body on the cross for the Sabbath (John 19:31, 38-42).[3]

The Jewish trials declared Jesus guilty, whereas the Gentile trials found Him innocent. Jesus was crucified by Gentiles because of the pressure of the Jewish leadership. The crucifixion of Jesus was physically horrendous and involved not only great physical pain, but also psychological anguish and social humiliation. According to William Hendriksen, crucifixion included “severe inflammation, the swelling of the wounds in the region of the nails, unbearable pain from torn tendons, fearful discomfort from the strained position of the body, throbbing headache, and burning thirst (John 19:28).”[4]

What Jesus Suffered by the Father

As previously mentioned, Jesus was not a helpless victim, but willingly laid down His life for us. Jesus said, “I lay down My life for the sheep” (John 10:15), and “No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative” (John 10:18). Scripture reveals that God the Father sent His Son “as an offering for sin” (Rom 8:3), and once Jesus was on the cross, made Him “to be sin on our behalf” (2 Cor 5:21a), and was “smitten of God, and afflicted” (Isa 53:4), as “the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him” (Isa 53:6), and “the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself as a guilt offering” (Isa 53:10). Thieme states:

• "At the third hour of crucifixion, noontime, ordinarily the brightest period of the day, an impenetrable “darkness fell upon all the land” (Matt 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44). For the following three hours, so intense was the suffering of Jesus Christ that the Father hid the Son’s face from view. Jesus had borne in silence the scourging, the ridicule, and the agony of crucifixion (Isa 53:7; Acts 8:32–35), but the anguish of bearing the sins of the world caused Him to scream out again and again, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt 27:46; Mark 15:34; cf. Psa 22:1). The Father had to turn His back on the Son in order to judge Him on our behalf (2 Cor 5:21)."[5]

Geisler adds:

• "At the center of Christianity is the Cross; it is the very purpose for which Christ came into the world. Without Him salvation is not possible, and only through His finished work can we be delivered from our sins (Rom 3:21–26). Jesus suffered unimaginable agony and even separation from His beloved Father (Heb 2:10–17; 5:7–9); anticipating the Cross, His “sweat became as it were great drops of blood” (Luke 22:44). Why the Cross and all this suffering unless there is a hell? If there is no hell to shun, then the Cross was in vain. Christ’s death is robbed of its eternal significance unless there is a hellish eternal destiny from which sinful souls need to be delivered."[6]

Jesus Died Twice on the Cross

There are different kinds of death mentioned in Scripture. Biblically, death means separation. Three major kinds of death are mentioned in Scripture, and these include: 1) spiritual death, which is separation from God in time (Gen 2:16-17; 3:1-7; Rom 5:12; 1 Cor 15:22; Eph 2:1-2; Col 2:13-14), 2) physical death, which is the separation of the human spirit from the body (Gen 35:18; Eccl 12:7; 2 Cor 5:8; Phil 1:23-24; 2 Tim 4:6; Jam 2:26), and 3) the second death (aka eternal death), which is the perpetuation of physical and spiritual separation from God for all eternity (Rev 20:11-15). Spiritual and physical death were introduced into God’s creation when the first human, Adam, sinned against God. God told Adam, “from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die” (Gen 2:17). Adam’s sin instantly brought spiritual death (Gen 2:15-17; 3:1-7), but not immediate physical death, as he tried to hide physically from God (Gen 3:8-10). Later, Adam died physically at the age of nine hundred and thirty (Gen 5:5). Though Adam was made spiritually alive again (Gen 3:21), his single sin introduced death, in every form, into the world (Rom 5:12-14; 1 Cor 15:21-22). Except for Christ, all are born in Adam (1 Cor 15:21-22), inherit his original sin (Rom 5:12), and are spiritually dead and separated from God in time (Eph 2:1-2). Those who reject Jesus as Savior will experience the second death in the lake of fire.

Because all humanity experiences spiritual and physical death as consequences of sin, it seems that if Jesus is to be our Savior, then He must experience the same kind of death that that we experience. Both physical and spiritual death relate to Jesus’ humanity and not His deity. In His humanity, Jesus’ fellowship with the Father was temporarily broken during the three hours He was being judged for our sin. This was while God the Father poured out His wrath upon His Son who paid the penalty for our sins. Jesus’ spiritual death should not be understood to mean that there was a break in the essence of the Trinity, for that is not possible. In the hypostatic union, Jesus is undiminished deity and perfect humanity, and it was only His humanity that bore our sin, not His deity, for sin cannot be imputed to deity, for that would contaminate and corrupt God Himself. The writer to the Hebrews cites the words of God the Son as He was about to enter the world, saying, “Therefore, when He comes into the world [in hypostatic union], He says, ‘Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, but a body You have prepared for Me’” (Heb 10:5). Because animal sacrifices under the OT law code could never take away sin, a perfect and sinless body was prepared for Jesus, so that by His personal sacrifice, our sins could be atoned for. Peter tells us that Jesus “Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross” (1 Pet 2:24). Jesus’ spiritual death meant His humanity was—for three hours—disconnected from the Father while He was on the cross bearing our sins. Geisler states, “Death is separation, and spiritual death is spiritual separation from God.”[7] W.E. Vine adds, “while the physical death of the Lord Jesus was of the essence of His sacrifice, it was not the whole. The darkness symbolized, and His cry expressed, the fact that He was left alone in the Universe, He was ‘forsaken.’”[8] According to Thieme, “Separated from God the Father, the humanity of Christ died spiritually, and this was the price paid to redeem fallen mankind from the penalty of sin (Rom 6:23a).”[9] Arnold Fruchtenbaum states, “The Righteous One suffered and died in place of unrighteous ones, in order to bring them to God. The Messiah died a violent physical death, and He also died a spiritual death.”[10] J. Dwight Pentecost states:

• "The penalty for disobedience to God was death (Gen 2:17). This death was the separation of the sinner from God—that is, spiritual death—and physical death was the result of prior spiritual death. Therefore if Jesus Christ was to satisfy the demands of God’s holiness, righteousness, and justice to provide salvation for people who are dead, He would have to experience the same death that separated them from God. He must enter into spiritual death, as anticipated in the prophetic 22nd Psalm where the sufferer cried, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Psa 22:1)…Since only that kind of separation or spiritual death could satisfy the demands of a holy, just God, Christ could not have been praying that He would be spared that which was essential."[11]

Paul Karleen adds:

• "Jesus actually died twice. He was first forsaken by the Father during His time on the cross. This is described in Psa 22:1–21, especially v. 1, the cry of dereliction He quoted on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46). This separation from the Father was spiritual death, experienced for others as He was “made” sin (2 Cor 5:21)…The father/son relation had been broken for a few hours as sin was being dealt with…That period of forsaking, involving spiritual death, was what actually paid for sins."[12]

Jesus’ physical death occurred afterwards, when “He said, ‘It is finished!’ And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit” (John 19:30). When Jesus died physically, there was a separation of His human spirit from His body. To prove He was physically dead, Scripture records that a Roman soldier “pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out” (John 19:34). William Hendricksen notes:

• "In order to insure that not the slightest possibility would exist that any life had remained in the body of Jesus, one of the soldiers with his lance or spear pierces the side of Jesus. If the spear was held in the right hand, as is probable, it was in all likelihood the left side of Jesus that was pierced. Immediately there came out blood and water. John enlarges upon this fact, devoting no less than four verses to it. He must have had a purpose in doing so. It is altogether probable that he was trying to tell his readers that Christ, the Son of God, actually died (according to his human nature). The death of Jesus was not a mere semblance; it was real. The apostle had been there himself, and had seen the blood and the water flowing from the side of the Lord."[13]

There is great complexity and mystery in the suffering of Jesus on the cross. The complexity of the issue is that Jesus is fully God and man. Sin cannot be imputed to deity, as that would corrupt His divine nature. Yet, without corrupting His divine nature, Jesus somehow “bore our sins in His body on the cross” (1 Pet 2:24) and died in our place, “the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God” (1 Pet 3:18). Jesus died physically when “He bowed His head and gave up His spirit” (John 19:30). Our ability to reason these things takes us only so far, as our minds are woefully inadequate to grasp the infinitude of the matter. Here, faith must rest in what God has revealed through His written Word.

Dr. Steven R. Cook

[1] Jesus’ religious trials: 1) Annas (John 18:12-24), 2) Caiaphas (Matt 26:57-66), and 3) the Sanhedrin (Matt 27:1-2). Jesus’ civil trials: 1) Pilate (John 18:28-40), 2) Herod Antipas (Luke 23:6-12), and 3) Pilate (Luke 23:11; John 19:1-16).

[2] This CSB assumes John calculates events using Roman time (where the day begins after midnight) rather than Jewish time (where the day starts at sunrise). The ESV and NAU translate the Greek literally, “about the sixth hour,” whereas the NET and NIV translate it, “about noon.” If the sixth hour is calculated by Roman time, then it would be about 6:00 AM, and if calculated by Jewish time, it would be about 12:00 PM. This author favors the CSB translation.

[3] After His death, Jesus was resurrected on the third day and appeared to numerous persons over a period of forty days (Matt 28:1-10; John 20:10-29; 1 Cor 15:5-7). Afterwards, Jesus ascended bodily into heaven (Acts 1:9-12). It is recorded that God the Father “raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places” (Eph 1:20).

[4] William Hendriksen and Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of the Gospel According to John, vol. 2, New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1953–2001), 427.

[5] Robert B. Thieme, Jr. “Cross and Crucifixion”, Thieme’s Bible Doctrine Dictionary, (Houston, TX., R. B. Thieme, Jr., Bible Ministries, 2022), 50.

[6] Norman L. Geisler, Systematic Theology, Volume Four: Church, Last Things (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2005), 336–337.

[7] Norman L. Geisler, Systematic Theology, Volume Three: Sin, Salvation (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2004), 126.

[8] W. E. Vine, Merrill F. Unger, and William White Jr., Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Nashville, TN: T. Nelson, 1996), 149.

[9] Robert B. Thieme, Jr. “Cross and Crucifixion”, Thieme’s Bible Doctrine Dictionary, (Houston, TX., R. B. Thieme, Jr., Bible Ministries, 2022), 50.

[10] Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, Israelology: The Missing Link in Systematic Theology, Rev. ed. (Tustin, CA: Ariel Ministries, 1994), 999.

[11] J. Dwight Pentecost and Ken Durham, Faith That Endures: A Practical Commentary on the Book of Hebrews, Rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2000), 96.

[12] Paul S. Karleen, The Handbook to Bible Study: With a Guide to the Scofield Study System (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 264–265.

[13] William Hendriksen and Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of the Gospel According to John, vol. 2, New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1953–2001), 437.