Reflective Bible Study

In our last episode, we looked at the details of Judas Iscariot deciding and agreeing to betray Jesus. For this episode, we’ll jump forward to the night Jesus was betrayed and arrested. While Matthew includes the stage being set for Jesus’ betrayal and the night Jesus was betrayed next to each other, it is likely that these two events were somewhere around a week apart.

Early on in the night Jesus was betrayed, Jesus shares the Passover meal with His disciples, and part way through this meal, Jesus identifies Judas Iscariot as the betrayer in front of everyone, and tells Judas that it is time for him to set out to do what he had been plotting. While the evening progresses from that point, Judas Iscariot is out collecting a mob of people loyal to the priests and religious leaders who will ultimately come to arrest Jesus.

The passage we will be focusing on in this episode is when Judas Iscariot arrives with the mob to arrest Jesus. Our passage is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 26, and we will read from the New Living Translation. Starting in verse 47, Matthew tells us:

⁴⁷ And even as Jesus said this, Judas, one of the twelve disciples, arrived with a crowd of men armed with swords and clubs. They had been sent by the leading priests and elders of the people. ⁴⁸ The traitor, Judas, had given them a prearranged signal: “You will know which one to arrest when I greet him with a kiss.” ⁴⁹ So Judas came straight to Jesus. “Greetings, Rabbi!” he exclaimed and gave him the kiss.

⁵⁰ Jesus said, “My friend, go ahead and do what you have come for.”

Then the others grabbed Jesus and arrested him. ⁵¹ But one of the men with Jesus pulled out his sword and struck the high priest’s slave, slashing off his ear.

⁵² “Put away your sword,” Jesus told him. “Those who use the sword will die by the sword. ⁵³ Don’t you realize that I could ask my Father for thousands of angels to protect us, and he would send them instantly? ⁵⁴ But if I did, how would the Scriptures be fulfilled that describe what must happen now?”

⁵⁵ Then Jesus said to the crowd, “Am I some dangerous revolutionary, that you come with swords and clubs to arrest me? Why didn’t you arrest me in the Temple? I was there teaching every day. ⁵⁶ But this is all happening to fulfill the words of the prophets as recorded in the Scriptures.” At that point, all the disciples deserted him and fled.

In this passage, we discover some amazing details that people who don’t understand what happened that night either ignore or simply don’t believe. While some people think that Jesus was surprised by this event, the only people who were surprised were the disciples who didn’t pay attention to Jesus’ words. If Jesus did not want to be arrested, He could have avoided this event in any number of ways.

Jesus didn’t have to go to a place where Judas would have easily known where to find Him. Jesus was perfectly aware of Judas being the betrayer, and the easiest way to avoid arrest would be to simply go somewhere where Judas would not have known where to find Him. But Jesus chose intentionally to go to a place where He could be found.

Also, when being confronted by the mob, one of the disciples, who other gospels identify as Peter, grabs a sword to defend their group. Jesus, steps in and stops the violence, saying that if He wanted to avoid or stop this arrest, He could simply ask and have thousands of angels immediately appear to defend them. It’s worth contrasting the detail that one angel appearing at the tomb to roll the stone away when Jesus is resurrected makes the hardened Roman soldiers tremble in fear and act like dead men. All Jesus would have needed to avoid being arrested is ask God for one angel to appear to defend them, and the mob would have fled in fear.

When reading the details of Jesus’ crucifixion, everything in each part of the event points us to the truth that Jesus chose the cross. The cross was not something that God the Father forced onto Jesus. The cross was not something Judas surprised Jesus with. Jesus knew the date and location of His death before Judas even knew He would be the betrayer.

Jesus chose the cross because that is what He had inspired the Old Testament writers to predict. Jesus chose the cross to show us God’s love for each of us as members of humanity. Jesus chose the cross to pay the debt we owed God for our sins when there was no way for us to pay this debt and stay alive.

There are those who don’t believe in God, in sin, or in their need for a Savior. Some of these people openly mock those who do believe this. However, one person’s belief or lack of belief doesn’t change reality. For those who believe in God, we see amazing evidence for His existence and we thank Him for what He has done for us. Those who reject a belief in God are left trying to connect the dots of how we are here with only human logic and human ideas. Without God, life has no ultimate purpose, no hope, and a doomed future.

I see more evidence in the world today supporting the existence of God. While evil seems to be growing in the world, and while people are becoming more polarized and hostile towards one another, God is not responsible for this.

Instead, God is giving His people a picture of what life without Him and His protection is like. If sin isn’t given the opportunity to show how truly evil it is, then there will be the chance it could return in God’s perfect new heaven and new earth. God loves us too much to give us eternity only to let it be tainted by sin, and He loves us too much to force us to obey Him.

God’s character is on trial in the world today. From our perspective, it might look to some as though God has abandoned us. However, God is willing to walk with us through the sin, through the challenges, and through all the evil in this world so we can be together with Him for eternity.

God’s character is on trial. God must punish sin in order to remain just. However, instead of punishing those who are guilty, Jesus volunteered to take our place and to take the punishment we deserved onto Himself. While there are plenty of details in this gift that we don’t understand at this point in earth’s history, the big thing to know and remember is that through Jesus, we are offered a free gift, and this gift is Jesus’ perfect life in exchange for our own.

Jesus chose the cross for you and me, and He willingly faced death knowing that through His death, the way would be opened for us to live with God for eternity.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life and decide to accept Jesus’ gift of His life in exchange for yours. Choose to live a life that is allied to God as a way of saying thank You to Jesus for a gift we could never repay. Thank Jesus for choosing the cross when there were countless ways He could have chosen to avoid it.

Also, pray and study the Bible for yourself to learn what God wants to teach you personally through His Word. While a pastor or podcaster can share ideas with you, only through praying, reading, and studying the Bible personally will you be able to discover God’s truth for yourself. Always choose God’s truth over man-made traditions.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

In our last episode, we focused in on Mark’s gospel, and what we can learn from it about Jesus’ time on the cross. Mark’s gospel is very similar to Matthew’s gospel. However, Luke’s gospel, which is the one we will be looking at in this episode, shares a unique event that the other gospels don’t include, and this detail may shed light on why Jesus decided to be crucified on that weekend.

While prophecy pointed to the time Jesus would die, remember that the Godhead could have written prophecy to say whatever they wanted it to say, so Jesus wasn’t acting outside of the Godhead’s plan, nor was He trapped by it. The whole Godhead wrote this particular weekend into prophecy and creation for a specific reason and I believe Luke’s gospel shares what this reason might be.

Our last episode focused on and ended with Jesus receiving insults from everyone around Him, but I hinted at not everyone being so hostile. Let’s read what Luke shares with us, and about one condemned man’s request for a favor from Jesus. Our passage is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 23, and we will be reading from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 32, Luke tells us:

³² Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. ³³ When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. ³⁴ Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

³⁵ The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”

³⁶ The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar ³⁷ and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”

³⁸ There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews.

Pausing briefly here, what we have just read echoes what we see written in Matthew and Mark’s gospel. However, from this point forward in Luke’s gospel, he draws our attention onto the two criminals, and how each one interacted with Jesus. Continuing in verse 39, Luke tells us:

³⁹ One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

⁴⁰ But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? ⁴¹ We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

⁴² Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

⁴³ Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

When we read these last four verses, it is very tempting to shift our entire focus onto Jesus’ promise in the last verse, how immediate this promise sounds, and on how this criminal gets saved at the last possible moment. It is tempting to focus on the “deathbed confessional” and use it as a model or plan for our lives.

However, focusing on these verses in this way is both risky, and it cheapens the gift God is offering to us. We don’t know anything about these two criminals, about what they did, about when they were arrested, about how long they had been in prison, or if they had any previous interaction with Jesus.

It is very probable to conclude that with how famous Jesus was among the people, that these two criminals definitely knew about Jesus, about His ability to perform miracles, and about His love for the least in society, but we don’t have any idea if either had met Jesus before.

Regardless of their past, what we see displayed on the cross from these two criminals is amazing. The first criminal hurled insults at Jesus and he challenged Jesus to save Himself and them. This criminal had a selfish focus and a focus that was only looking at the present world. In an odd sort of way, this first criminal, who may have been thrown in prison for following a messiah who wanted to overthrow Rome now turns to Jesus and challenges Him with the notion regarding Jesus being the Messiah, even though Jesus has never shown any military interests, and He avoided being sucked into political discussion.

However, the second criminal has a different focus. The second criminal focuses not on the present life and present circumstances, but on the future one. I believe that the Godhead chose that weekend for Jesus to die because they wanted this criminal with them in heaven!

But while turning to God at the end of one’s life might seem appealing, it is a very dangerous plan. At the very least, since we don’t know when we will die, or if we will die suddenly or gradually, following a deathbed confessional plan is dangerous because a sudden death means we won’t have chosen God. This plan only works if our life follows a predictable plan, and while some aspects of life are predictable, there are plenty of cases where lives are cut short quickly because of sin.

However, where this criminal is when He comes to Jesus is different than each of us. We have no evidence for this criminal accepting Jesus, then rejecting Him, then coming back to Him here on the cross. It’s possible this is what happened, because God is ready and willing to forgive, but it is also very possible that this criminal had never met Jesus and sharing a cross next to Jesus was the first chance he got to be with Him.

But this conversation while these men were on the cross reveals three amazing things about conversion that we might not realize at first.

First, this conversion demonstrates a fear and respect of God. The criminal opens his mouth by first defending God against the criticism of the other criminal. Verse 40 tells us the second criminal rebukes the first one saying, “Don’t you fear God, since you are under the same sentence?” The second criminal defends God and acknowledges God’s right to judge.

Second, the second criminal acknowledges that he deserves the punishment he is being given. Another way to say this is that this second criminal acknowledges that he is a sinner who deserves to die. At the most basic level, everyone who has ever sinned, and this is everyone who has ever lived except Jesus, deserves death. The second criminal acknowledges that his life and his choices deserve death, by saying in the first part of verse 41, “We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve.”

But thirdly, the second criminal acknowledges that Jesus is innocent and that He is being punished while not deserving this punishment. Verse 41 finishes with the criminal acknowledging, “But this man [referring to Jesus] has done nothing wrong.” This criminal defends Jesus publicly against the ridicule of everyone else present, and he publicly allies himself with Jesus even though they both are facing death.

All three of these themes in these two verses of defense ally this second criminal with God, and the only way this criminal could acknowledge this is if the Holy Spirit had been working on his heart leading up to this moment. Even before asking Jesus for the favor, the criminal displays a relationship with God that shows God has been working on his heart and in his life.

This criminal isn’t doing a 180 turn spiritually while on the cross, but in however long he had been locked up in prison, the Holy Spirit had been working on his heart leading him to realize his sin and his need for a Savior.

The declaration on the cross concludes with a request of Jesus. The criminal asks Jesus in verse 42 to “remember me when you come into your kingdom.” The criminal acknowledges that Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, and that it is of a heavenly nature. The criminal acknowledges the divinity of Jesus in his request.

We could spend an entire other episode talking about the ideas surrounding Jesus’ answer to this criminal’s request and the debates that exist over how immediate Jesus’ promise sounds, but these debates are less relevant than the simple truth that Jesus accepted this criminal and his request. Jesus accepted this criminal’s request because in this request, we see evidence of a changed heart and a changed life, and this sort of change can only come from a heart that has let the Holy Spirit work on it behind the scenes.

Jesus is ready and willing to accept us when we come to Him with a heart that the Holy Spirit has been working on as well. This passage points us to the powerful truth that: Where you finish your life is more important than where you start it – and the only place that is worth ending your life is being allied with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit living in your heart!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Always seek God first and choose today to let the Holy Spirit live in your heart and in your life, and publicly ally with Jesus. While it might be easier to hide your faith, a hidden faith is not valuable to others or to God in the big picture. This criminal displays a faith that is public through his defense of Jesus before making his request. God has called us to defend Jesus and to publicly acknowledge Him before others.

Also, as I regularly challenge you to do, always pray and study the Bible for yourself to grow your personal relationship with Jesus. Prayer and Bible study are ways of bringing the Holy Spirit into your heart and into your life and God is happy to give you the Holy Spirit when you are earnestly seeking to grow towards Him. Intentionally move and grow towards God today through prayer and studying your Bible.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, chicken out of, or fall away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!