Throughout the first half of the gospel of John we find Jesus performing a series of signs—seven in total. For example, Jesus is at a family wedding, and they run out of wine. What would you do? A father’s son becomes ill, everyone is concerned whether the child will live. A man who has been paralyzed for 38 years, confined to a mat, has no one to assist him, and lower him into a pool, where he hopes to find healing. A crowd of 5000 people find themselves stranded on a hillside, without food. Twelve men fear for their lives when they are caught off guard by a ferocious storm that whips up. A man, born blind at birth, becomes the butt of a ruthless religious debate. For whose sin was he paying—his own sin or his parents? Two sisters have to lay their dear brother to rest in a tomb.
There isn’t anything extraordinary about these occurrences. Our faith must grow in smaller things before it grows in bigger things. You trust God in some social circumstance, then maybe in your finances, then with every increasing need. You trust God through life’s storm, maybe with a loved one’s health crisis (a child even), or your own. You trust God at the loss of a dear loved one. Your faith will grow over time.
Several years back I was preaching about matters of life and death. A young lady bristled that I’d talk about such a negative subject. “Ugh. Death, Death, Death.” She also bristled at the mention of the cross. “Ugh. Blood, Blood, Blood.” One day we will have to trust God in the biggest thing of all—through our very own life and death. In John 11:25-26 Jesus declares, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” If we don’t grow our faith in the smaller things, will we be ready for the really big things?
In the same way Jesus grew the disciple’s faith from little things to big things, I think he grew their faith from physical matters to spiritual matters. Our physical needs are so tangible. We need food, water, health, strength, life. But we need Jesus infinitely more spiritually than we could ever conceive.
I think of Jesus statement to Nicodemus in John 3:5-6, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit.” It echoes John 6:63, “The Spirit is the one who gives life. The flesh doesn’t help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” Our greatest need isn’t for a preservation of flesh and blood—our flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. No, we are trusting God to be utterly reborn, spiritually!
I think of other statements Jesus made. In John 8:24 he says, “Therefore I told you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.” John 3:36, “The one who believes in the son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the son will not see life; instead, the wrath of God remains on him.” John 5:24, “Truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not come under judgement but has passed from death to life.”
If you’re concerned about physical life and death, how much more should you be concerned about your spiritual life and death? We’re trusting Jesus to cleanse us of our sins, his blood to cover us from God’s wrath, his very life to shield us from God’s judgement. I was thinking of John 5:25-29. Jesus tells us that every single person is going to be resurrected. “Truly I tell you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he has granted to the Son to have life in himself. And he has granted him the right to pass judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done good things, to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked things to the resurrection of condemnation.” We don’t all wake up with the sun shining in our face. Some awake to condemnation! John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 6:40, “For this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
This morning we’re in John 18-19. It’s in these chapters that we begin to realize the profound significance of Christ’s death, as it relates to us.
First, Jesus Dies a “Sacrificial Death” For Us. When Jesus is betrayed by Judas, and about to be arrested, we read these ominous words in John 18:4—that Jesus knew “everything that was about to happen to him.” For example, Jesus knew all the humiliating things the soldiers were about to do to him—not just taking his life, but crowning him, stripping him naked, mocking him. In fact, it’s right after the seventh sign—after the resurrection of Lazaraus—in John 12—that Jesus begins forecasting his cruel crucifixion. He says just like a grain of wheat must fall to the ground and die in order to produce fruit—so the hour was coming for the Son of Man to be cast down and die. Whoever loves his life will lose it; the one who hates his life will keep it for eternal life. John 12:27-28 Jesus says, “Now my soul is troubled. What should I say—Father, save me from this hour? But that is why I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” John 15:13, “No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.” If you knew what humanity most needed, not just physically but spiritually, would you lay down your life for them? Jesus embraced death with his eyes both physically and spiritual wide open. He knew death for him would spell life for us.
Second, Jesus Dies an “Inaugurating Death” For Us. One of the great ironies of John 18-19 is that while the Jewish and Roman officials are mockingly inaugurating Jesus “King of the Jews” on earth… little do they realize … that Jesus is undergoing an actual heavenly coronation. As they press a crown of thorns unto Jesus head, God is crowning Him the King of Kings and Lord or Lords. As they fitted him in a purple robe, God was clothing Jesus in glorious splendor. As they raised Jesus unto the cross, Jesus had already begun his ascent to his throne in heaven, to the right hand of God. They were caricaturing spiritual realities. In John 18:36 Jesus declares, “My kingdom is not of this world,” “If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, so that I wouldn’t be handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”
Third, Jesus Dies a “Substitutionary Death” For Us. There is such incredible irony in John 18-19. The Jewish officials are bending over backwards not to break their traditions about the Sabbath, or Passover, or ceremonial cleanliness. They didn’t want to overstep their authority so as to raise issues with Pilate, Herod, or Caesar. They were straining gnats while crucifying the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Great I AM, the One and Only Son of the Living God! They imagined themselves sinless and Jesus guilty—but in reality, Jesus was sinless and they were the most guilty of all. In John 19:11 Jesus reminds Pilate, “You would have no authority over me at all,” Jesus answered him, “if it hadn’t been given you from above. This is why the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.”
But John wants us to know there is something much more profound occurring in Jesus death. First, he reminds us how the High Priest Caiaphas uttered an ominous prophecy. In John 18:14, “Caiaphas High Priest had advised the Jews that it would be better for one man to die for the people.” Second, John calls our attention to a legally binding exchange that occurs. In John 18:40, a certain revolutionary named Barabbas, guilty of crimes against Rome and sentenced to death… is set free while the truly innocent (but falsely accused) revolutionary Jesus is retained. Little did Caiaphas realize that the righteous was dying for the unrighteous. That Jesus was taking upon himself the curse of death to forever free humankind from sin’s penalty, God’s condemnation and wrath. “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.” He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. John 11:49-52, “One of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said, “You know nothing at all! You’re not considering that it is to your advantage that one man should die for the people rather than the whole nation perish.” He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to unite the scattered children of God.”
Last, Jesus Dies an “Invitational Death” For Us. John makes it very clear that Jesus spoke openly to the world. John 18:20 he says, “I have spoken openly to the world.” John 18:37, “I was born for this, and I have come into the world for this: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Earlier in John 12:48 Jesus warns that the word he has spoken will judge all men on the last day.
Jesus died not just that we would trust him in the tangible stuff of this life, but that we would trust him for the eternally consequential stuff of the next. The cross of Jesus is an invitation. Do we trust what Jesus said. Do we trust that by his death Jesus has made a way through death unto eternal life?
Pastor Alistair Begg was talking about the thief on the cross. He says, “I can't wait to find that fellow one day to ask him how did that shake out for you because you were cussing the guy out with your friend you've never been in a bible study you never got baptized you didn't know a thing about church membership and yet and yet you made it… how did you make it? On what basis are you here?” The thief on the cross will have only one answer, “the man on the middle cross said i can come.”
Now that is the only right answer. By his death, Jesus has done all that is needed to prepare the way for us. The only thing left for us is to heed Jesus’ invitation. Believe. Trust in Me. John 6:40, “For this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”