[0:00] So shall we turn for a little to the chapter part of which we have read, the 19th chapter of the Gospel according to John. The 19th chapter of the Gospel according to John and the fifth verse.
[0:21] John 19 at verse 5, at the end of the verse, I'll express unto them, behold the man. It may seem strange, perhaps, to take a tip, for words spoken by a pagan.
[0:38] And of course, Pilate was a pagan. And yet Pilate said a number of few things. Sometimes things that were rather fewer than he himself realised.
[0:53] He said, for example, I find no power simple. Well, of course, he understood that. In so far it means, as it was, a judicial verdict.
[1:05] Again, the words that he put onto the cross. The very first words that someone has said, the very first words of the New Testament, the Father, as you know, it is, the very first words that Jesus, the King of the dreams, that he understood only vaguely.
[1:27] And then this word, behold the man. Now, I'm quite curious, if I'm aware of the word, is capable of a much deeper meaning than Pilate ever imagined.
[1:39] Otherwise, I don't think that John will have taken the trouble to record it. John is very practical. He knows why he records certain things.
[1:51] Now, some represent Pilate, who quite evidently was impressed by Jesus. Jesus, who was extremely few, not the response.
[2:05] They think, they imagine that Pilate was directing the eyes of the Jews, to risk the noblest specimens of their race.
[2:19] In the midst of all the clarity of his presence, stood there in all his dignity. Every imps a man.
[2:33] But you know as I even asked if I was looking the other night, and gave for a few words from man, and the Pilate meant that, he might have said that with truth, but if that's what he is meaning to say, I don't think he'd have used the particular words that he did use.
[2:51] No other words that he used, was other very general words. It includes just mankind. It's nothing really distinctive about it.
[3:03] And after all, was the word not of focus, in the case of Jesus. Because Jesus was our man, and not only our man, but he was our representative of mankind.
[3:21] He was standing there. Are you new human beings? Are you real human beings? Indeed here was man, as man ever should be.
[3:33] He was a true man. He is God and man, but the true God and man, in true distinctness, he remains fully God, even when he is dying in the death.
[3:45] But he is also fully a man. He has not only a human body, he has a human body, he has a human body, but he is also fully a man. He has not only a human body, he has a human mind, a human spirit.
[4:07] Remember that's how we treat in an ancient creed. God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not man. God of God, not man.
[4:21] Who for us men and for all salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Ghost, of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
[4:37] Jesus was sent into this world. Jesus was sent into this world, Jesus was sent into this world, to make rest the peace, for the failures of man.
[4:55] He was sent into the world, to make a new creation, to be the head of our new human race. He was sent into the world to make a new creation, to repair the habit, that was made by the human race, initially in the failure of the first Adam.
[5:15] Jesus Christ is sometimes called the second Adam, the beginning of our new humanity. Well, ask that we do the mind. And, may Pilate, call us to the grieve, we are in the creation to ask, to behold this man.
[5:33] For in this man, is the heart of the message that we preach. And you and I will be done, according to our attitude, to this man.
[5:45] First of all, then let us mark this, that Jesus exposes the sin of man. As a sinless one himself, he exposes the sin of our human race.
[6:03] He exposes as his chattelps. He came to fall into the world in the likeness of sinful flesh. He became unwell to all the distress and pain that sin brought upon man.
[6:21] You can see him here before us, in the Highly Judgment Hall, he naked with the jargon blood, stained, clad in mock royal robes.
[6:33] And you see then, what sin has done. Not all sin of God, but human sin. You see sin, reflected in the disagreement of a sinless one.
[6:51] You see sin as a rejection of God's own Son. Because that's what sin is. Sin is a rejection of God.
[7:03] Sin is a mockery of God. That's brought out. In sickening people, Sir Jesus brought out clad in mock royal robes.
[7:15] Sin gets to rock. Sin, the same says, that it not only disobeys God, it mocks God. It mocks God. Remember the progression in the first time.
[7:35] Blessed is the man that walketh not in the council of the ungodly, that must take us in the way of sinless, that must take us in the seat of the scarlet. That's as low as we can get, isn't it?
[7:49] It's a mockery of God. You know, you and I talk about sin, and all that are many of them, and our grudges.
[8:03] And we flatter our skills that we haven't committed to that's the worst of them. But we shouldn't be thinking of our particular sins.
[8:15] But of the sins we take care of all in fact. The sins of rejecting God, of saying no to God, and breaking his commandments, and ultimately, mortifying God.
[8:31] And that was the sins that brought Jesus Christ, the sinless one, to the cross. Man set aside all his sins from his own self and once again, and crucify the Son of God.
[8:47] You know, we see yourself as a king all around us, every day. You see how it's, for the suffering of these men and women. You get in the daily news stations.
[8:59] Men and women about their lawful business, killed or maimed for life because of a bomb is implanted in a hotel where they're killed. husband, wives, homily, immorally, because of the ruthlessness and violence of man.
[9:17] God on a smaller, more homily say, how often do we see the home of a blanked script of everything, except a wooden, except a wooden table and stool, and what a wife and family living in daily part of, of a man who is supposed to be the head of that home, that was part of the doll right to that position.
[9:33] You see the drug addicts, loafing selflessly around, turning his mask, and turning his mask, and turning his mask, and turning his mask, and turning his mask, and turning his mask, and turning his mask, and turning his mask, turning his mask, and turning his mask, and turning his mask, and turning his mask, and turning his soul for that thing which is, to swallow his body.
[10:07] It's to see it! This too skin in all the pain and destitution that we deplore around us, and then try to work out the reason for all the miseries in the world, and they just will not see, or close their eyes to the fact.
[10:21] all stems from sin. And sin affects every one of us. And so on a purely human level, you see the results of sin upon the sinner himself and upon those affected by him. And very often the comparatively innocent suffer more of pain and shame and sin than the more against the past. But above all, you see what pain and shame, all sin implicated, all sin implicated upon the only sin that one ever lived, Jesus Christ. And you'll notice that I said our sins because they're all implicated. The whole community is implicated in the humiliation of Jesus. The civil and religious leaders, yes, of course they were, but also the masses of people, proud and submissive by these self-same leaders. Yes, even the followers of Jesus, even the disciples of Jesus.
[11:40] They're seeking to get eternal honor. There were a few women who followed him right to the end in their loyalty and in their devotion. But they weren't helpless to do anything. They couldn't help in that situation.
[11:58] They couldn't help in that situation. They couldn't help in that situation. They couldn't help in that situation. And so when Jesus went to the cross, they weren't there alone. No one, no one, no one, he took a single word from his defense.
[12:11] You see, we can sin, and we often do sin, just by doing nothing, by saying nothing. He's called into silence by a body of men. He failed to raise our voice for God and for righteousness. When God and righteousness are despised.
[12:39] One thinks of the over, or the almost six million Jews who were killed by the Nazis in Germany. You may blame the leaders, and of course the leaders were mainly to blame, but what about the mass of the German people?
[12:57] Oh, they say they didn't know. I suppose they didn't know the full extent of what was happening. Perhaps some of them didn't know anything about it. But a very great number of them, I'm sure, knew something about it.
[13:11] And yet, let's not be hard on the German people. We, many in this country, knew what was happening. We didn't say much about it. And if the same thing were to happen in this country, what would we do?
[13:30] We didn't just say, oh, we don't know anything about it. In other words, we don't want to know anything about it.
[13:41] You see the point is this. If we are all involved in this thing. We see Jesus in Pilate's judgment hall, suffering and excruciating in mind and body.
[13:56] Jesus is suffering, right? The sin of the Jews know that. But don't let it forget. It's all for your sins. And mine, the breath and death.
[14:13] You know that means the spiritual, where you were when you crucified my Lord. I can remember the first time I heard that son, I can remember how it hit me. Yes, of course, I was there and you were there.
[14:35] Then we see this suffering that sin brings to human beings. It ought to bring the evil of sin home to us. But how much more do we realize the horror of sin when we see what is good and die to the Son of God?
[14:55] And surely we can understand. We can understand your wrath against human sin. That wrath, that wrath, unless we repent and yield to Jesus Christ, will bring us at last eternal sin and ruin.
[15:16] And yet what we see before us here, what we see before us here, is rather the compassion of God. The compassion of God, who desires not the death of a sinner but rather than his anger and wickedness and lives.
[15:33] We see Jesus even in his wickedness and evil. We see Jesus even in his wickedness and anger, feeling not so much for himself, but for those poor wrecks that were bringing all this evil upon him.
[15:48] Do you remember how, as he went to the cross, he said to the women who were the best of intentions of our colony and their tears dropping to the ground, Weep not for me, but weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
[16:05] And then as you hang on the cross, you remember, he said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what to do. Because he's too in a sin. The sinner doesn't know really what he's doing.
[16:21] In the moment he sins at least, his mind is so besogged by the strength of his desires, by the strength of his temptation, that he just doesn't have time to sin.
[16:34] But that doesn't alter the fact, and that doesn't alter the guilt of his sins. But more than, more than having pity for the sins of those people, he reckoned himself among them.
[16:57] He bore the sin of many. He became man, and becoming man, he took responsibility for man.
[17:10] He became a surety for man. And you know, a surety, if you go surety for anyone, for the sum of money, whatever it is, then you render yourself liable. For all that's required is the person for whom your surety should fail.
[17:32] Jesus took him upon himself, a surety for, surety for fallen man. He knew what was involved. He knew man had failed.
[17:43] And he knew all that was involved in the redemption of man, in the setting of man, he once again. And so Jesus saw the sins of these people as if they had been his own. He felt their guilt as laid on himself, although he had never committed sins.
[18:06] And he did it all without a murmur. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her, a spirit is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
[18:21] And so secondly, as we behold this man, we see Jesus suffering the condemnation of man.
[18:32] We saw how he exposes the sin of man. But we see he suffers, and suffers to the full, the condemnation that sin brought upon man. You see, in quite a literal sense, Jesus stood condemned in the presence of a very august court.
[18:52] A court that represented the great Roman Empire. Sentence had not yet been passed, but it was as evident as daylight, the sentence that was going to be passed.
[19:03] The Jews wouldn't have it any other way. The same thing is, there never was a verdict in the case of Jesus, except the verdict of not guilty.
[19:16] I find no fault in this man. And yet, overpowered by the crowd, Pilate condemned this man whom he himself had declared innocent.
[19:28] To the most cruel, ignominious, painful, lingering death. Never was there a greater travesty of justice.
[19:41] And that injustice was perpetrated by the Romans who were famous for their justice.
[19:55] In this act, in this act of condemning Jesus, the human race condemned itself.
[20:13] The human race stands condemned. As far as that's concerned, most people would now agree. Yes, even many Jews are willing to agree.
[20:25] That they did wrong in condemning Jesus. Even that they brought a reproach upon themselves by so doing. Now you may ask, why didn't God intervene to prevent his tragedy?
[20:39] Well, for one thing, very often God does not intervene in human affairs. He's in control of human affairs. But he doesn't intervene, he very often doesn't intervene to save us from the results of our own folly.
[20:55] He rather lets us work out the folly to its end so that we may see how foolish it is. But that's only one reason.
[21:09] There is a deeper reason. As is put by Peter, he was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.
[21:21] God himself is in this act. God the Father had sent his Son into this world to be the Savior of his people. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, accepted the position and became man's representative.
[21:39] Man's purity. Knowing all that would be involved in that. The wages of sin is death and these wages would have to be paid.
[21:52] Because man has sinned. But then we see here. It's not just one man standing before Pontius Pilate.
[22:06] But rather we see the whole human race which has condemned itself. Personified in this man, arraigned before the judgment bar, not just of Pontius Pilate, but for the judgment bar of God.
[22:25] And the human race in him condemned. And this man accepted it upon himself. He had come to represent sinful man.
[22:38] He accepted it all without complaint. He took upon himself the judgment of Almighty God. The judgment of Almighty God upon human sins and was inflicted upon himself.
[22:56] He bore the guilt, he bore the shame of our sins. And he did it willingly. It wasn't as if we can't, as it were, distinguish between God the Father and God the Son as if God the Father were putting his Son into it.
[23:13] No, God, the Godhead was working in complete harmony. And when we see Jesus suffering death upon the cross, we see him in human, we see God.
[23:25] But God in human nature suffering there for your sake and for mine. And he suffered to the very bitter end.
[23:38] Even to that climate in which he cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Because after all that is the ultimate result of sin. Being forsaken by God.
[23:50] That's what hell itself means. A place where God, where, a place where there's no knowledge of God. No communion with God.
[24:03] And so that leads us thirdly to think, or to see here, how Jesus secures the vindication of man. The sentence as we know was executed.
[24:15] He was obedient to death. He bore our sins upon, right up to and upon the trees. He suffered all that was due by the law of God.
[24:31] The law of God could exact no more. The law of God will expect no more from us if we put our trust in him.
[24:42] And Jesus rose again from the dead. In token that the work is complete. That justice is satisfied. There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.
[24:57] The prison doors are open. We can go out free. If only we believe the message of the Gospel. If only we will take advantage of the salvation that Jesus Christ has procured for us.
[25:13] Behold the man. Behold the man. We see in him man as God meant him to be.
[25:26] He surely fills us with shame. That we see what man has made of himself. That we see man also.
[25:38] As by the grace of God he can become. And if only we are found in Christ we will become. We will become like him. Behold the man.
[25:49] Behold the man. We see him suffering. Uncomplaining. For our sake. As the Apostle Peter put it.
[26:00] You remember. Jesus Christ suffered. Jesus Christ suffered.
[26:14] He did no sin. Neither was guile found in his mouth. Who when he was reviled. Reviled not again. When he suffered. He threatened not. But committed himself. To him that judges righteously.
[26:26] Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree. That we being dead to sin should live unto righteousness. By whose stripes.
[26:37] Ye were healed. Did you believe that he suffered there for your sins? He suffered there for the sins of God's people.
[26:48] And you and I are commanded to believe in him. And if we believe in him we know that we are among the people of God for whom he died. And we can say bearing shame and scoffing rude.
[27:00] In my place condemned he stood. Healed my pardon with his blood. Hallelujah. What a savior. Then behold the man.
[27:11] Now risen again from the dead. To whom all authority in heaven and earth has been committed. Who is able to save to the uttermost. All who come unto God by him.
[27:23] And if only you and I believe in him. We find that there is power in that blood. To cover all our sins. He is able to save to the uttermost.
[27:36] Save from the guilt of sin. Save from its power. Save from its corruption. Sin after all is a defeated foe. There is a great deal of liberty yet.
[27:48] He is permitted to tempt us. To tempt yes. To tempt even God's people yet. And he takes full advantage of it as we know. But still we know that he is defeated. And he will not triumph in the end.
[28:01] Behold the man who was in all points. Tempted like as we are. Yet without sin. And come to him in every hour of our trial and temptation.
[28:13] Behold the man suffering such pain. Such indignity. Is he not a living proof of the words of Isaiah?
[28:24] Isaiah. In all our afflictions. He was afflicted. In all our suffering. In all our suffering. We know that he knows all about him.
[28:36] And we can bring all our needs and our cares to him. God said to the children of Israel. I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry by reason of their cast masters.
[28:50] And I know their son. That he knows how as well. Though we can say yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
[29:01] I will fear no evil. For thou art with me. Well friends. Will you behold this man? Or are you by any chance avert in your gaze from him?
[29:19] It's too powerful. It's too condemning. Oh no doubt the sight should humble us in the dust. Showing as it does how deeply we have fallen into sin.
[29:34] But the sight should also exalt us to heaven. Reminding us that God cared for us. That God looked upon us in our low state when we had no thought of him. God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners.
[29:50] Christ died for us. God has dealt with sin. God has dealt with sin fully. He has dealt with sin fully. He has received full and free pardon. And reconciliation with himself for all who put their tracks in Jesus Christ.
[30:11] Now vengeance has been taken on all the foes of man. And Christ doth end in triumph the conflict he began.
[30:23] Sin, death and hell and Satan. Their mighty victor own. And man should stand forgiven before his father's throne.
[30:37] Say to the prayer. Oh Lord, we bless thee for Jesus Christ. We bless that we are met in his name.
[30:48] And we bless thee that he who was found in the midst of sinners. And who died in the midst of sinners when he was here on earth. Is in our midst now.
[31:01] May we hear him say, Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden. And I will give you rest. And thou give us faith that we may rest in him.
[31:14] We ask for his sake. Amen.