I edited a small portion of the previous study. I was not happy with it. I encourage you to look up the scripture verses that I am citing. It is impossible to catch the discussion that I am making unless you have a photographic memory. Read the scriptures, that is the purpose of this study!
Life has dealt my family a difficult blow in the past week. My mother-in-law fell and had to have hip replacement surgery. Studies have been slowed down because of that. Thanks for the prayers that have been said for her.
Matthew 27:27-31
Jesus was beaten and assaulted a third time. The Roman soldiers made a cruel game of harassing Jesus for being the King of the Jews. They created for Him a crown of thorns, then handed Him a staff to symbolize a scepter. Upon their creation of this image they took the staff from Him and drove the crown of thorns deeper into His head. As noted earlier a Roman cohort consisted of 600 soldiers. The scriptures indicate that the “whole cohort” was involved in this incident.
Jesus was beaten with fists and rods by the religious people, whipped by the Romans, and now beaten and mocked by a large group of soldiers. It is as if the devil was determined to destroy Jesus before He made it to the cross. It seemed that all the evil intentions of the universe were focused upon destroying Jesus both physically and mentally. The bloodlust was short lived. The soldiers had their fun with harassing the new prisoner and now led Yeshua away to be crucified.
This was one of the darker aspects of the crucifixion. Imagine though, an entire group of six hundred men were involved in mocking Jesus. Pilate had declared him to be clean and innocent of no wrongdoing. They were abusing Yeshua against the wishes of their commanding officer. Why did they do it? A large part was demonic. Yet, there is another possibility. These men were Gentiles. The Jewish people laid hands on Yeshua at the trial earlier that evening. Now the Gentile people were laying hands on Yeshua. Let’s look at the practice of the scapegoat from Torah. The process of transference of sin to the scapegoat was made by laying on of hands:
Leviticus 16:21–22 (NET)
21 Aaron is to lay his two hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the Israelites and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins, and thus he is to put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man standing ready.22 The goat is to bear on itself all their iniquities into an inaccessible land, so he is to send the goat away in the wilderness.
There is a difference though. The scapegoat was led away and released into the wilderness. Jesus was led away to be crucified (Matt 27:31). The bloodlust of the soldiers was a part of the transference of sin from the Gentile nation to the head of the Messiah. The symbolism of transferring sin for atonement takes place with both the Jew and the Gentile at this point. The Jewish people did this at the beating after the night trial. The Gentile people placed their hands on the head of Jesus after Pilate allowed him to take the place of Barabbas.
Matthew 27:32
Jesus was so weak at this point that it was a major undertaking to try to carry the cross Himself. A Gentile was forced into service to aid Jesus in carrying the cross. Think about that for a moment, a Jew wasn’t forced into service or a Roman, it was a Gentile from a foreign nation.
It is incredible that Jesus is still walking at this point, after all the beatings and whippings that had been done, Jesus was beaten to within an inch of His life. Matthew lists three sets of beatings to this point. A normal man would have given up the will to live and died, but Jesus knew that the cross was where redemption would take place. Remember, all the beatings, judgments and actions took place between sundown on Friday and sometime in the late morning on Saturday.
Matthew 27:33
The place of the skull, or Golgotha was a hill that resembled the shape of a skull. There are many images readily available for this site with a quick internet search.
Matthew 27:34
A Bible word study does not reveal much regarding the “gall” that was mixed with the wine. If you look at the literal translation, it would be likened to drinking poison. There is a better concept of this found in Rabbinical tradition. In order to relieve the pain of execution, it was a custom of the day to produce a sedative which consisted of wine mixed with myrrh. Prophecy indicated that the Messiah would be given vinegar to drink laced with gall (Ps 69:21). Psalm 69 is a Messianic Psalm that looks forward to the crucifixion. It is good to read through the entire Psalm for context. Take particular note of verse 39 where it refers to “May your salvation…” The word for salvation in the Hebrew is the word “Yeshua” which is the literal name of Jesus.
Yeshua lived a sinless life. He refused to allow His system to be compromised with a drug which would dull the effects of the crucifixion. We are not looking at a situation where Jesus is wanting to “feel” the torture that is to come. It is deeper than that. What we are seeing is Yeshua demanding holiness in His life. He lived a sinless life. At the point where He was going to be crucified as a Passover Lamb, He remained sinless to death. Yeshua refused to have his body drugged. That is the point of the refusal. It was not “so that he could experience the full pain”. His blood was shed either way. If He had compromised one time, He would no longer be a spotless lamb worthy to take on the sin of the world.
Matthew 27:35
Matthew gets right to the crucifixion, leaving off a lot of the details that the other gospel writers included in their accounts. In this verse, he talks about how that they had divided His garments among them by casting lots, this is also a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies:
Psalm 22:16–18 (NET)
16 Yes, wild dogs surround me— a gang of evil men crowd around me; like a lion they pin my hands and feet. 17 I can count all my bones; my enemies are gloating over me in triumph. 18 They are dividing up my clothes among themselves; they are rolling dice for my garments.
Matthew 27:36-37
The Romans stood guard over the prisoners while they waited for them to die. The delivery of punishment in the sentence of crucifixion was placed upon the Roman soldiers. This was also prophesied in Psalm 22 as mentioned above.
Pilate wrote an interesting sign that was hung over the head of Jesus. It was written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek (John 19:19-22). This sign brought grief to the chief priests because of an immediate acronym that the words made in Hebrew.
Pilate may have been a weak leader, but he was not a fool. He demanded that the sign be placed over Jesus’ head identifying Him as King of the Jews. If it were transliterated literally into English, the Hebrew states “HaYhudim vMelech HaNazarei Yeshua”. Now take the letters right to left in the order of reading Hebrew. You have the acronym “YHVH”. This is the acronym that spells out the unpronounceable name of the God of the Old Testament. The chief priests saw this immediately and wanted the wording changed. Pilate refused.