Session 14
Matthew 27:27-31,45-54
Memory Verse: Matthew 27:50-51
Jesus was arrested and tried by both the Jewish Sanhedrin (the nation’s governing council) and Roman authorities (namely, Pilate and Herod Antipas). Then, He was handed over to the governor’s guard for crucifixion. This military cohort used the occasion to mock Jesus. They put a scarlet robe on Him, placed an crown of thorns on His head, gave Him an imitation scepter, and then hailed Him as they would Caesar.
After they had their fun, the soldiers led Jesus to the place of crucifixion. Hanging on a cross as the sacrifice for human sin, He felt abandoned by His Father. The darkness over the land reflected the darkness Jesus felt. When Jesus died, more supernatural events occurred: the temple curtain was torn, an earthquake split boulders, and tombs were broken open. All this led the centurion in charge to confess Jesus as the Son of God.
As you prepare for this final session from Matthew, spend time quietly reflecting on the agony Jesus experienced for humanity. Ask Him to help you avoid taking His finished work on the cross for granted. And identify ways you can lead adults to understand that Jesus endured everything on the cross so that we could have access to God.
Biographers will spend hundreds of pages describing the life of their subjects, but generally limit the pages about their death to just a few. For example, the three-volume biography of Winston Churchill, The Last Lion, by William Manchester and Paul Reid devotes 2,622 pages to Churchill’s life and only three to his death. This is not the case with the Gospel of Matthew’s account of Jesus. Jesus’s death was central, and Matthew devoted seven chapters out of twenty-eight to chronicle the events surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus. (PSG, p. 122)
After Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, He talked with His disciples about His departure, their need to stay connected to Him, and the coming Holy Spirit. Part of this “farewell discourse” took place in the upper room, and part occurred as they walked to Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. Jesus concluded by offering a prayer for Himself, for His disciples, and for future believers (John 14-17).
When they arrived at Gethsemane, Jesus prayed while His exhausted disciples dozed. Soon, Judas arrived with an armed mob sent by the religious leaders (Matt. 26:47). After arresting Jesus, they took Him to Annas, the former high priest. He also was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was the current high priest
(John 18:12-14,19-23). Even though Annas had been deposed in AD 15, he still wielded considerable power since five of his sons, as well as Caiaphas, had served as high priests.
While still night, Jesus stood before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, where witnesses made false accusations against Him (Matt. 26:57-68). Meanwhile, Peter, who had entered the high priest’s courtyard, denied knowing Jesus when confronted by others (vv. 69-75).
In first-century Israel, trials were considered legal only if held during the day. Since Jesus’s initial appearance had been at night, the Sanhedrin reconvened after daylight to convict Him of blasphemy for claiming to be the Messiah and the Son of God (Luke 22:66-71). While the Sanhedrin could convict Him, they did not have the power to execute. So they quickly brought Jesus to the Roman governor’s headquarters. There the Jewish leaders switched accusations from blasphemy-a capital offense for the Jews-to sedition-a capital offense for the Romans-because Jesus claimed to be a king (John 18:28-38).
Pilate, the Roman procurator, could find no grounds for charging Jesus (18:38). But when he learned that Jesus was from Galilee, he sent Him to Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee who was in Jerusalem for Passover. Antipas, the man who had executed John the Baptist, sent Jesus back to Pilate after treating Him with contempt (Luke 23:6-12).
Attempting to release Jesus, Pilate offered to free either Barabbas, a convicted murderer, or Jesus. Sure that the crowd would pick Jesus, Pilate was shocked when they chose Barabbas and called for Jesus’s death (Matt. 27:15-26; Mark 15:6-15).
Pilate made one final attempt to release Jesus, thinking that scourging Jesus would satisfy the Jews (Luke 23:22; John 19:12). Eventually, though, Pilate washed his hands of the whole affair and turned Jesus over to his soldiers for crucifixion (Matt. 27:24-26).
Read Matthew 27:27-31,45-54 in your Bible to gain an understanding of all Jesus went through. (PSG,
p. 123)
EXPLORE THE TEXT
27 Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the governor’s residence and gathered the whole company around him. 28 They stripped him and dressed him in a scarlet robe. 29 They twisted together a crown of thorns, put it on his head, and placed a staff in his right hand. And they knelt down before him and mocked him: “Hail, king of the Jews!” 30 Then they spat on him, took the staff, and kept hitting him on the head. 31 After they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe, put his own clothes on him, and led him away to crucify him.
Pilate, the Roman governor, condemned Jesus. His soldiers were not legionnaires, but auxiliary troops recruited from the surrounding area. The governor’s residence usually referred to Pilate’s official praetorium in Caesarea Maritima. It is not clear where he stayed in Jerusalem. Some scholars assume he took up residence in a luxurious palace formerly belonging to Herod the Great or at the Tower of Antonia, a Roman fortress at the northwest corner of the temple complex.
Whole company literally can be rendered “whole cohort.” A Roman cohort was a tenth of a legion and numbered about six hundred men. Whether the term is exact or not, it suggests a large number of soldiers around Pilate.
Since Jesus had been found guilty of claiming royalty, the soldiers mocked Him as such. They stripped him, a shameful thing for a Jew. Then, they dressed Him in a scarlet robe. The word robe specifically referred to a military cloak worn by officers. Since every king needed a crown, the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head.
Scholars are uncertain as to which thorns were used, but the attempt to mimic a royal diadem is clear. Many works of art portray the thorns as part of Jesus’s physical torture. However, this was humiliation as well. Some speculate that the thorns would have pointed out representing the sun as in Caesar’s image on coins.
Every king also needed a scepter, so they placed a staff in his right hand. The improvised rod was either a flimsy stalk (see Matt. 11:7; 12:20) or, more likely, a substantial measuring stick (Rev. 11:1; 21:15). Only Matthew mentioned this item. Perhaps it was the bamboo cane used for flogging.
Matthew also was the only Gospel writer to mention that they knelt down before him. To mock Him further, they shouted, Hail, king of the Jews! Hail parodies the formal address of greeting for royalty. For example, the Romans greeted the emperor with, “Hail, Caesar!” Pilate had asked Jesus if He were the King of the Jews (Matt. 27:11), and that charge was posted above Jesus’s head at the cross (Matt. 27:37). Little did these soldiers know that their mockery contained profound truths about Jesus.
Eventually, the Romans dropped all pretense and focused on abusing and humiliating Jesus. They spat on him, showing great contempt in a culture where honor was valued highly. They also kept hitting him on the head with the “scepter.” The imperfect tense of the verb shows the repeated nature of this action. Any thorns pointing inward were driven deeper into Jesus’s head. The spitting and repeated blows fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah 50:6 and recalls the treatment of Jesus by the Sanhedrin in Matthew 26:67-68. All of this fulfilled Jesus’s prediction in Matthew 20:19 and Isaiah’s prophecy in Isaiah 53:7-8.
Completing their ridicule, the Romans stripped Jesus of the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then the execution squad, usually four soldiers and a centurion, led him away. As a final shaming, criminals usually were left naked when led to their execution site. That they put Jesus’s clothes back on Him may have been a concession to Jewish scruples-especially at Passover. Verse 35 records that Jesus’s clothes were again removed at the cross, as the soldiers gambled for them.
EXPLORE THE TEXT
45 From noon until three in the afternoon, darkness came over the whole land. 46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Elí, Elí, lemá sabachtháni?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” 47 When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling for Elijah.”
48 Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and offered him a drink. 49 But the rest said, “Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”
Supernatural events accompanied Jesus’s crucifixion. For example, darkness came over the whole land during the brightest hours of the day. From noon until three in the afternoon, the region went dark. The whole land probably refers to Jerusalem and Judea, or perhaps to all of Israel. Some skeptics have suggested the darkness was the result of an eclipse. However, Passover always involves a full moon, and an eclipse can occur only during a new moon.
The darkness recalls the ninth plague on Egypt (Ex. 10:21-29), along with other Old Testament prophecies that describe God’s judgment (see Amos 8:9). Significantly, the Egyptian plague lasted three days, while this darkness lasted three hours. Still, both were associated with Passover, and both occurred over a limited area (Ex. 10:21-23).
But the darkness had deeper meaning. During this time, God dealt with human sin and the atoning sacrifice for it. Figuratively speaking, God, who is too holy to look on sin (Hab. 1:13), turned His back on the sin-bearer (Isa. 53:5,10).
Jesus’s cry of Elí, Elí, lemá sabachtháni represents the first words of Jesus recorded by Matthew since His reply to Pilate in 27:11. Significantly, Jesus uttered this prayer about three in the afternoon, the exact time for the afternoon Jewish prayers (Acts 3:1; 10:3).
The words come directly from Psalm 22:1; and, as recorded by Matthew, are partly in Hebrew and partly in Aramaic. Matthew provided the translation, My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? The Psalm goes on to answer why this abandonment was necessary: “You are holy” (Ps. 22:3). That Jesus cried out with a loud voice indicates that He meant His words to be heard. Since this is the only one of Jesus’s seven cries from the cross that he recorded, we can assume it was significant to Matthew as well.
In its original language, Jesus’s loud cry sounds like the name Elijah, the prophet who was taken to heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2:11) and was predicted to return before the end of time (Mal. 4:5-6). Many also believed that Elijah would come to the aid of those who were suffering if they called to him.
We don’t know if heard this referred to Jewish bystanders or the Gentile soldiers. Likewise, we don’t know who filled the sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and offered him a drink. A sponge was a standard part of a soldier’s supply kit, and even the common people carried sour wine because it was a reliable, inexpensive thirst quencher.
Immediately . . . ran shows this unnamed man quickly responded to Jesus. But Matthew did not explain the man’s motives. On one hand, he may have been acting out of kindness and sympathy. On the other hand, he may have seen this as another way to torture Jesus and prolong His pain by extending His life (see Ps. 69:21). Offered him a drink is written in an imperfect tense, which could indicate that the person was “playing with” Jesus (as a mocking gesture) or that it took him repeated attempts to hit his mark. The stick indicates Jesus was hung at some height above the ground.
And because we don’t know the identity of the man, we also don’t know if the rest refers to the other soldiers or to onlookers. Their wording around Elijah coming to save him includes an admonition for the man to stop because the speakers did not approve of his actions. Comes is present tense and further emphasizes their mocking. It implies that if Elijah was going to come, he had better do it soon. Mark 15:36 clarifies their meaning of to save him was “to take him down.”
EXPLORE THE TEXT
50 But Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and gave up his spirit. 51 Suddenly, the curtain of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom, the earth quaked, and the rocks were split. 52 The tombs were also opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. 53 And they came out of the tombs after his resurrection, entered the holy city, and appeared to many. 54 When the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they were terrified and said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”
This time, Matthew did not record Jesus’s words, only that He cried out again with a loud voice. The statement that Jesus gave up his spirit points to the fact that He voluntarily gave His life.
While darkness occurred as Jesus was dying, the other supernatural signs took place at His death. Scholars debate which curtain in the temple was torn in two: the large outer curtain that everyone could see (Ex. 26:36-37; 38:18-19; Num. 3:26) or the curtain that separated the holy place from the holy of holies, which was visible only to priests (2 Chron. 3:14). Either way, the curtain tearing from top to bottom shows this was God’s doing. Also, since the curtain was torn before the earthquake, it did not cause the tearing.
If this curtain was separating the holy of holies, the symbolism indicated that everyone now had access to God’s presence (Heb. 6:19; 9:12-13; 10:19-20). If Matthew was referring to the outer curtain, the symbolism pointed to the coming destruction of the temple.
The earth quaked, probably causing rocks to split. At the same time, tombs were also opened and saints . . . were raised. An earthquake is a common biblical symbol for God’s activity. A large earthquake would cause the rocks, massive boulders, to split. Many tombs were hewn into the rock, so they also could be opened in earthquake-prone areas.
Fallen asleep is a common euphemism for death. The saints, the “holy ones,” refers to God’s faithful people (Dan. 7:18,21-22; Zech. 14:5). Matthew did not indicate which saints or how many were raised. And he did not share when they had lived.
Scholars question why these saints raised on Friday would not enter the city until after Jesus’s resurrection on Sunday (v. 53). One way to resolve this is to put a period after opened in verse 52. With that, the tombs were opened at Jesus’s death, while the appearance in verse 53 could have happened after
the resurrection.
Many other questions about these saints have been raised, including if they died again or were transported to heaven. For his part, Matthew did not try to satisfy our curiosity. He merely testified to the power of God in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In this verse, Matthew returned to what happened at the cross. The centurion, mentioned here for the first time, and the execution squad saw the earthquake as well as the other supernatural events that took place during the crucifixion. They likely associated these events with Jesus’s loud cries from the cross. Regardless, they were terrified by it all.
What these soldiers meant by, Truly this man was the Son of God, has also raised questions when compared with Luke 23:47. Truly emphasized certainty, and Romans would use Son of God exclusively as a title for the emperor. Even if these words did not have the full meaning of later Christian confessions, making the same confession as the disciples (Matt. 14:33) and Peter (16:16) was significant to Matthew. He intended his readers (including us) to interpret these words in their highest and truest sense.
Review these points from Apply the Text on page 130 of the Personal Study Guide:
Remind adults that Jesus’s death requires a response from each person. Challenge them to take a few minutes to examine their own hearts and to decide if they have made that response to Jesus. If so, encourage them to identify someone who still needs to accept Him and to start praying for them.
Invite adults to read the second set of questions on page 130 of the PSG silently. Urge the group to keep these questions in mind this week as they recall this study of Christ’s crucifixion. Encourage them to invite the Holy Spirit to guide them into deeper understanding of the gospel and a willingness to share it.
Invite adults to bow their heads as you read Matthew 27:50-51 aloud. Invite them to respond aloud as God reveals the impact of today’s passage on their hearts. Close with prayer, thanking Jesus for His death, which provided access to God.
Send adults a group text or email during the week, directing them to read and respond to the first set of questions on page 130 of the PSG. Encourage them to journal their responses and to consider sharing them when you gather for your next Bible study. Remind them that this was the final session in Matthew’s Gospel. Share that the group will be starting a new study in Joshua, Judges, and Ruth.
Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Savior. (See John 1:12-13; Titus 2:14.)
Examine an Old Testament passage to better understand a New Testament truth.
Of Jesus’s seven cries from the cross, the only one Matthew recorded was Jesus’s quote from Psalm 22:1.
Psalm 22 is a messianic psalm that predicted much of what Jesus suffered on the cross. Read and reflect on Psalm 22. Why are these messianic prophecies so important today? Use what you learned from Psalm 22 as a cross reference for deeper study into Matthew 27:33-50; Mark 15:22-37; Luke 23:33-48; and John 19:17-37.