Matthew 27:35-37

THE DEATH OF CHRIST
Crucifixion and accusation

TEXT: 27:35-37

35 And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments among them, casting lots; 36 and they sat and watched him there. 37 And they set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

a.

Why remove Jesus-' clothes? Only to leave Him naked on the cross?

b.

Why would soldiers even want the second-hand clothing of a condemned man? Are not these pretty meager spoils?

c.

Do you think the soldiers were deliberately crass to roll dice for Jesus-' clothes?

d.

Do you think David intended to prophesy the sufferings and death of Jesus in Psalms 22 or was he merely describing his own sufferings caused by his own enemies? On what basis do you answer as you do?

e.

What do the prophecies about Jesus-' death tell us about its meaning?

f.

Why would Matthew, who cited so many fulfillments of prophecy in the life and ministry of Christ, suddenly abandon this method during the crucifixion scenes, when so many noteworthy fulfillments were available? Would not his readers appreciate his bringing them up?

g.

Why do you think Pilate formulated the accusation on the cross in precisely those words? Was he expressing his personal contempt toward Jesus or toward the Jews or both?

h.

How do you account for the differences between the Gospels as to the correct reading of the inscription on Jesus-' cross? Did the sign say different things? Or did it say only one thing? Decide!

i.

Matthew hardly describes the act of crucifixion itself: the nails, the size and configuration of the cross, the ropes, the raising, etc. What does this suggest about his purpose or view of the matter?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

At Golgotha the soldiers crucified Jesus and, along with Him, the two criminals, one on His right hand and the other on His left. Jesus was in the center. He prayed, Father, forgive these people, because they do not know what they are doing.
Pilate also prepared the written notice, indicating the charge against Him and had it put on the cross over His head. The title read: THIS IS JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. Many Jews read this sign, since the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city of Jerusalem, and the sign was written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek. This is why the chief priests protested to Pilate, You should not write, -The King of the Jews,-' but, -This guy said, I am the King of the Jews.-'
What I have written, Pilate answered, is going to remain that way.
After nailing Jesus to the cross, the soldiers distributed His clothes in four parts, a share for each soldier, rolling dice for them to determine who should receive what. However, His tunic was seamless, woven all the way from the neck down. So they talked it over, Rather than tear it, let us roll the dice for it to decide who will get it. This resulted in the fulfillment of Scripture, which says, They divided my garments among them, and rolled dice for my clothes. This is exactly what the soldiers did.
It was about nine in the morning when they crucified Jesus. Then they sat down to guard Him there.

SUMMARY

On the central cross between two criminals they crucified Jesus who prayed for the forgiveness of His tormentors. Pilate's statement of the charge irritated Jewish sentiment but remained the unchanged declaration of Jesus-' Kingship. The platoon in charge of Jesus divided His personal clothing by rolling dice for it, then relaxed on the ground as they guarded Him.

NOTES
... THEY HAVE PIERCED MY HANDS AND MY FEET. I CAN COUNT ALL MY BONES: PEOPLE STARE AND GLOAT OVER ME THEY DIVIDE MY GARMENTS AMONG THEM

AND CAST LOTS FOR MY CLOTHING. (Psalms 22:16 b - Psalms 22:18)

Matthew 27:35 And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments among them, casting lots. With great simplicity Matthew omits the ugly details of the crucifixion. But an understanding of his hideous form of capital punishment will explain the contempt and aversion early Christians faced as they preached Christ crucified. (Cf. 1 Corinthians 1:18 ff.; Galatians 5:11.) Study these texts of Jesus-' contemporary:

Illustrations of crucifixion: Ant. XI, 1, 3; 4, 6; XX.6, 2; Wars II, 5, 2;

Matthew 12:6; Matthew 13:2 Crucifixion's brutality: Ant. XII, 5, 4; Wars I, 4, 6; V.11, 1; II, 14, 9; VII, 6, 4

Crucifixion perpetrated by Jew against Jews: Wars I, 4, 6

Release from crucifixion: Josephus-' Life, 75

Interest in the painful details is not totally dwarfed into insignificance by the moral issues that were resolved at Calvary, because (1) other Gospels record more of these details, and (2) the details themselves render far more vivid the cost of our salvation. This hideous death involved painful wounds, forced immobility, difficult breathing, exposure to the elements, insects, taunting by enemies, all contributing to a slow, agonizing death. However, in contrast to the commentaries, the spartan brevity of the Gospel writers turns the attention away from these physical tortures to the spiritual issues at stake here. Jesus-' suffering was unique in that He who had known the closest possible comradeship with God must submit to the torments of the damned.

First they stripped Jesus of His clothes. Next came the actual nailing Him to the cross. This was done while it was yet lying on the ground. The belief that Jesus carried only the horizontal cross-member while the vertical pole awaited Him on Golgotha raises other questions: would Jews permit the upright poles of crosses, normally a Roman method of execution, to remain permanently erected so near the Holy City, near a public road? If so, how many? It is simpler to see that His entire cross was brought from the Praetorium. (See on Matthew 27:32; John 19:17.) Some anatomists believe that the nails were driven through His wrists rather than through the palms, because the body weight would have pulled against the nails and torn out away before long. But was the nailing of the hands to keep them in place or to support the body? A wooden support on which the crucified could sit seems to have been the only other relief (Alford, I, 293; Farrar, Life, 639). Apparently Jesus-' feet were not merely bound to the cross, but also nailed (Luke 24:39).

Then the cross was raised and dropped into a hole dug to receive the lower end of the upright timber. The height of the erected cross needed to be only slightly taller than a man. Disputes about the form of the cross are futile, as the Romans would probably spend little effort to build this rude wooden device not intended for beauty or comfort but for disgrace and death. However, its form permitted the affixing of the accusation above His head (Matthew 27:37). The fine, polished-wood beams of crosses today represent the reality about as unconvincingly as our lives reflect that of Him who died there.

He made intercession for the transgressors (Isaiah 53:12)

No sooner had Jesus been nailed to the tree than He prayed His unforgettable Intercessory Prayer: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34; cf. Isaiah 53:12). Here the soldiers first experience a direct, personal contact with Jesus-' magnanimity. Not an outburst of fury against them but a pained prayer of pardon for them! His spirit found an excuse for this outrage perpetrated against God, not only by the soldiers who were simply following orders, but especially by those who turned Him over to them (John 19:11), and generally everyone whose sins put Him there. They did not dream that they were crucifying the Lord of Glory (1 Corinthians 2:8), killing the Author of Life (Acts 3:15-17) and fulfilling the prophets (Acts 13:27). Because the Son's suffering was a crime against the majesty of God, He begged the Father to hold back His wrath, lest the divine purpose be compromised by an untimely rescue. If God were ever tempted to stomp the world out of existence and rescue His dear Son, this was the day! (Cf. Stephen's expression: Acts 7:60.) By His own readiness to forgive, He cleared His own heart of all vindictiveness. This was no blanket pardon that ignores each man's attitude toward God. Rather, because individual pardon is not given without personal repentance, His prayer is tantamount to asking God to give men a merciful opportunity to repent.

They parted his garments among them, casting lots. That Jesus was stripped completely is a shamefully real possibility. Nakedness would disgrace Him in His suffering. (Cf. Revelation 16:15.) However, Edersheim (Life, II, 584), believed that every concession would be made to Jewish custom, and we may thankfully believe that on the Cross He was spared the indignity of exposure. Such would have been truly un-Jewish.

The garments of the condemned became the meager spoils of the four soldiers ordered out on this crucifixion detail. In Jesus-' case the royal garment and the crown of thorns were now gone (Matthew 27:31). He had only His own five articles of clothing to divide among four soldiers. After His belt, sandals, cloak and head-gear, all of approximately the same value, had been distributed, one valuable article remained: Jesus-' one-piece, continuously woven tunic (chitòn: tunic, shirt). Since this could not easily be divided without ruining it, the men decided that a decision of chance would determine its new owner. Casting lots is the normal way of obtaining something by a means completely out of human control (Luke 1:9; Acts 1:17, cf. Matthew 27:26; 2 Peter 1:1). By turning Jesus-' garments over to new owners, they treat Him as a criminal as good as dead. However, shocking to the Psalmist or us, these soldiers-' deed was but their normal practice, hence not intentionally malicious toward Jesus personally. In fact, the clothes of the two robbers were not unlikely distributed in the same manner. But even this crude bit of official business attended to by dice-rolling military men was foreseen in the divine purpose (Psalms 22:18). The prophecy's literal fulfillment is the more remarkable because it was executed by men totally unaware of its existence. Unintentionally, they too point to Jesus as the Man intended by the prophet.

Mark notes the hour of crucifixion as the third hour when they crucified Him (Mark 15:25), or nine o-'clock a.m. as the Jews reckoned time.

Matthew 27:36 And they sat and watched him there. Although this squad of soldiers can now relax somewhat, their purpose for being there was not only to attest to the death of the crucified but also to guard against any last-minute attempts to rescue any of the crucified (watched - guarded, etéroun). Perhaps even at this point when the physical exertion of the crucifixion was completed, they took a break for a drink and, as a crude joke, toasted the health of the King of the Jews, deriding Him (Luke 23:36 f.).

Pilate's revenge

Matthew 27:37 And they set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS. Because the crucifixion was a public affair, its purpose was to discourage the spectators from crimes against the state. The crudely lettered accusation was borne to the cross either as a placard around the neck of the condemned or carried by one of the soldiers. Specifying the crime for which the condemned is executed, it drove home a grim warning to others who might be tempted to make the mistake of committing a similar crime. This argues that accusations were probably nailed to the thieves-' crosses too. To give the inscription the widest publicity possible, it was written in the common languages of the era, Greek, the universal tongue, Latin, the official language, and Aramaic, the local dialect.

There is no contradiction between the Gospels over the exact reading of the title's inscription, because

1.

The basis of each version may be a free rendering by each author as he translated it out of Hebrew, Greek or Latin. Perhaps the title varied somewhat in each of the three languages. Should the Gospel writers be blamed for these variations?

2.

Matthew calls it his accusation written; Luke, an inscription and John, a title. Pilate's wording may have expressed the accusation even more fully than the composite of all the Gospel writers-' summaries.

3.

Even if each language repeated all the elements verbatim, our authors preserved the essential message unchanged in meaning. There is no contradiction where no author denies the wording of the others, and when each seeks only to quote the substance of the accusation without quarrelling over details given or omitted by the others. They simply do not tell all they know. Even with minor variations, the central message can correctly be recovered: This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.

Since this ambiguously expressed title was dictated by Pilate himself, some see it as the ironic expression of the haughty prefect's cynicism. Certainly an accusation per se was no mere second thought by the wily Roman, especially if such titles were common practice. Pilate may have ordered it nailed to His cross to clear his record with Caesar, since the basic charge of blasphemy for claiming to be the Son of God would not interest Roman jurisprudence. In theory, it named Jesus-' crime. In reality, its wording gave Him a title. No crime whatsoever is indicated. Admittedly, Pilate was crucifying the Nazarene, but he nonetheless ennobled Him to the rank of king! He had cleverly transformed the accusation into a vindictive insult to those who had forced him to authorize the execution of this innocent man.

Because Jesus had interpreted for Pilate the true meaning of His claim, the latter comprehended the unpolitical nature of Jesus-' Kingdom. Against this spiritual King of the Jews the charge of political insurrection remained unproven. So, the governor's inscription, which unconditionally affirms His kingship, becomes Jesus-' definitive clearing of the political charges. This accusation was Pilate's final protest of Jesus-' innocence and, by reflection, his public exposure of the rulers-' bitter jealousy. For Pilate to crucify Him with two malefactors does not negate this view, because this guilt by association is not intended by Pilate to humiliate Jesus, for He must die anyway, but to embitter the Jews in their moment of victory.

Although Pilate could not have intended it this way, the official title, the King of the Jews, when considered as a phrase in Matthew's Gospel, even if unexpectedly and subtly yet truly and profoundly reflects the divine purpose. How little they knew: He was not merely King of the Jews, but the Lord of the universe and King over all men (Matthew 28:18; Revelation 17:14). Even so, He arose out of Israel and rules over all who become part of the true Israel of God (Romans 9:5; Galatians 6:16). It is not improbable that Jewish readers of Matthew would notice the not insignificant coincidence that the Gentile wise-men asked, Where is He that is born king of the Jews! and the Gentile governor proclaimed: THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS. These two astonishing facts with which the amazing life of the Nazarene begin and conclude become unexpected signposts leading one to take the evidence for His identity seriously. Was Israel blind to its true King? (Cf. Matthew 27:54.)

FACT QUESTIONS

1.

Describe the crucifixion, using all the facts available in the Gospels. How was Jesus crucified? Who actually did it? Who was with Him? Who were the spectators? Where did they stand or sit?

2.

Describe the division of Jesus-' garments among the soldiers.

3.

What prophecy was fulfilled in the peculiar disposition made of Jesus-' clothes?

4.

Why did the soldiers sit down and watch Jesus? In what sense watch Him?

5.

For what purpose was the sign attached to the cross?

6.

Quote the inscription Pilate ordered attached to the cross above Jesus.