9
A Preview of Messianic Suffering
(Mark 10:32–34)
They were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking on ahead of them; and they were amazed, and those who followed were fearful. And again He took the twelve aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to Him, saying, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles. They will mock Him and spit on Him, and scourge Him and kill Him, and three days later He will rise again.” (10:32–34)
One of the false claims critics and skeptics make in an attempt to discredit the Lord Jesus Christ is that His death was an unplanned, unexpected misfortune. Some maintain that Jesus, though His intentions were good, badly miscalculated the people’s willingness to tolerate His teaching and went too far. Others see Him as a misguided nationalist, whose attempts to ignite a revolution against Rome ended in disaster. To others, He was merely another religious fanatic who, swept away by His own popularity, entertained delusions of grandeur. In any case, they charge the way things turned out was certainly not the way He had intended.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Opposite from being caught by surprise, Jesus knew from the beginning what would happen to Him. Every aspect of His death was prophesied seven centuries before His birth:
Behold, My servant will prosper, He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted. Just as many were astonished at you, My people, so His appearance was marred more than any man and His form more than the sons of men. Thus He will sprinkle many nations, kings will shut their mouths on account of Him; for what had not been told them they will see, and what they had not heard they will understand. Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due? His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet He was with a rich man in His death, because He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth. But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; by His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the booty with the strong; because He poured out Himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors. (Isa. 52:13–53:12)
Before Jesus was born an angel told His father, Joseph, that Mary “will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). Anticipating the cross, Jesus said, “Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour? But for this purpose I came to this hour’” (John 12:27). Jesus alluded to His death throughout His ministry:
And Jesus said to them, “While the bridegroom is with them, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot fast, can they? So long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.” (Mark 2:19–20)
But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished! (Luke 12:50)
And He said to them, “Go and tell that fox [Herod Antipas], ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I reach My goal.’ Nevertheless I must journey on today and tomorrow and the next day; for it cannot be that a prophet would perish outside of Jerusalem.” (Luke 13:32–33; cf. vv. 34–35)
But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. (Luke 17:25)
On three occasions in the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus provided specific details of His death to His disciples (Mark 8:31; cf. Matt. 16:21; Luke 9:22; Mark 9:31; cf. Matt. 17:22–23; Luke 9:44). The present passage and the parallel accounts in Matthew and Luke (Matt. 20:17–19; Luke 18:31–34), relate the last of those three predictions.
The reason Jesus was able to make specific and accurate predictions concerning His death is twofold: First, because He knew the Old Testament perfectly, and second, because He possessed perfect divine knowledge. Jesus’ teaching on this occasion may therefore be examined under two headings: prophetic Scripture, and personal omniscience.
PROPHETIC SCRIPTURE
They were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking on ahead of them; and they were amazed, and those who followed were fearful. And again He took the twelve aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to Him. (10:32)
This lesson took place while Jesus, accompanied by a large crowd (cf. Matt. 20:29), was on the road going up to Jerusalem via Jericho. They had left the Jordan River, where they had crossed back into Israel after traveling south from Galilee through Perea (the region east of the Jordan) to avoid passing through Samaria (cf. John 4:9). Jesus was walking on ahead of them, going willingly to His death. With resolute conviction, He walked ahead of everyone, pulling His anxious, confused, hopeless followers along with Him by the sheer force of His presence. The Twelve in particular were amazed, fearful, even fatalistic (cf. John 11:15), since they had, as noted above, already received instruction from the Lord about what was to take place. But even the rest of those who followed were fearful. They were confused as to why the one they fervently hoped was the Messiah was walking into the deadly danger that faced Him in Jerusalem.
To help prepare them for what lay ahead, Jesus took the twelve aside and began to tell them once again what was going to happen to Him. As it happened, they had a difficult enough time coping with His betrayal, arrest, trials, crucifixion, and death. Had they not been forewarned, the level of doubt and fear they would have experienced would have been far greater. But when those events took place, the knowledge that things were unfolding just as Jesus had predicted reassured them that God was in complete control.
The Twelve were familiar with the Old Testament, because it was read and taught in the synagogues all their lives. But under the influence of the bizarre, mystical teaching propounded by the Pharisees and scribes, they lacked a true understanding of the revelation. Throughout His ministry Jesus had challenged the rabbinic misinterpretation of the Old Testament (e.g., Matt. 5:21–48; 15:2–6; Mark 7:8–9; cf. Titus 1:14; Mark 7:7). Now, with His death imminent, the Lord intensified His instruction of the disciples.
Luke records that He spoke to them about “all things which are written through the prophets about the Son of Man [that would] be accomplished” (Luke 18:31). His death was promised in the Old Testament, not in vague, general terms but very specifically.
For example, the sacrificial system, which was initiated (Gen. 3:21) and mandated (Leviticus) by God, of necessity pointed to one final sacrifice, as the writer of Hebrews makes clear:
Both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience. (Heb. 9:9)
For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year. (Heb. 10:1–3)
By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God. (Heb. 10:10–12)
Jesus would surely also have pointed out that Psalm 22 graphically described the details of His death on the cross—even though crucifixion was unknown in Israel at the time that psalm was written. The psalm opens with the words our Lord spoke on the cross, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (v. 1; cf. Matt. 27:46). Verses 6–8 predict the scorn and mockery heaped on Jesus by His enemies:
But I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the people. All who see me sneer at me; they separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying, “Commit yourself to the Lord; let Him deliver him; let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.” (cf. Luke 23:35–39)
Verse 16 says of His tormentors, “They pierced my hands and my feet”—an obvious reference to crucifixion.
Verses 14–17 describe the physical suffering the Lord endured on the cross:
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; and You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me; a band of evildoers has encompassed me; they pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me.
This remarkably accurate prediction even records the detail that His executioners would divide up Jesus’ garments: “They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots” (v. 18; cf. Luke 23:34).
Surely He spoke of that greatest prophecy of His birth, life, death, resurrection, and glory—Isaiah 53. The Old Testament also predicted numerous other details of Jesus’ life and ministry, including
His triumphal entry (Zech. 9:9; Matt. 21:4–5)
His enemies’ rage against Him (Ps. 2:1–3; Acts 4:25–28)
His desertion by His friends (Zech. 13:7; Matt. 26:31)
His betrayal for thirty pieces of silver (Zech. 11:12; Matt. 26:15)
His being lifted up (a reference to His death by crucifixion [Num. 21:8–9; John 3:14])
That none of His bones would be broken (Ex. 12:46; Ps. 34:20; John 19:31–37)
That He would be given vinegar to drink (Ps. 69:21; Matt. 27:34)
That His side would be pierced (Zech. 12:10; John 19:34, 37)
That though His grave would be assigned to be with wicked men (as was common with crucified criminals), He would actually be buried in a rich man’s tomb (Isa. 53:9; Matt. 27:57–60)
That He would rise victorious over death (Ps. 16:10; Acts 2:25–31)
That He would ascend to the place of honor at the Father’s right hand (Ps. 110:1; Acts 2:34–35)
Jesus “was determined to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51) to fulfill all that the Old Testament predicted concerning His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. After His resurrection, He would go back through all the Old Testament prophecies to explain again the predictions with their fulfillment (Luke 24:26–27, 32, 44–47). It was then that His disciples really understood because they had experienced the truth and because “He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45).
saying, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles. They will mock Him and spit on Him, and scourge Him and kill Him, and three days later He will rise again.” (10:33–34)
In addition to the Old Testament teaching noted above, Jesus had knowledge of the events surrounding His death that only one who knew the future could possess. That is yet another display of His divine omniscience (cf. His knowledge of people’s hearts [John 2:24–25; cf. Luke 6:8; 11:17]; the precise location of where Peter would find a fish with a coin in its mouth [Matt. 17:27; cf. John 21:5–6]; that a woman whom He had met for the first time had had five husbands [John 4:18]; where the colt He would ride in the triumphal entry would be located and what its owners would say when the disciples took it [Luke 19:30–34]; that the disciples would meet a man carrying a pitcher who would show them the place where they would eat the Last Supper [Luke 22:10]; and that Jerusalem would be destroyed four decades later [Luke 21:20]).
This prediction of His death provides added perspective on the magnitude and intensity of our Lord’s suffering. The Twelve knew, of course, that they were going up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. What they did not yet fully grasp was that Jesus would be the Passover Lamb, the ultimate and acceptable sacrifice that alone would satisfy God and bring to an end the symbolic sacrificial system. One reason that Jesus needed to explain those truths to them in advance is that the concept of a dying Messiah was completely foreign to what they had been taught all their lives (cf. Luke 9:44–45). The nineteenth-century historian Emil Schürer summarized the Jewish people’s expectations regarding the coming of Messiah and the establishing of His kingdom as follows: First, the coming of Messiah would be preceded by a time of tribulation. Second, in the midst of the turmoil an Elijah-like prophet would appear heralding Messiah’s coming. Third, Messiah would establish His glorious kingdom and vindicate His people. Fourth, the nations would ally themselves together to fight Messiah. Fifth, Messiah would destroy all those opposing nations. Sixth, Jerusalem would be restored and made new and glorious. Seventh, the dispersed Jews scattered all over the world would return to Israel. Eighth, Israel would become the center of the world and all the nations would be subjugated to the Messiah. Finally, the Messiah would establish His kingdom, which would be a time of eternal peace, righteous, and glory (A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ [New York: Scribners, 1896], 2:154–78). Such a perspective on Messiah’s coming left no room for a dead, or even a risen Messiah.
The messianic title Son of Man (Dan. 7:13–14), emphasizing His incarnation, is Jesus’ favorite designation of Himself, used by Him eighty-one times in the Gospels. The nature of His suffering as a man may be examined under five headings.
First, the Son of Man suffered disloyalty. He was betrayed and delivered to the Jewish religious leaders by one of the twelve men who were closest to Him. While Psalm 41:9 predicted that the Messiah would be betrayed by a friend, only Jesus knew that Judas Iscariot would be the betrayer (John 6:70–71). Judas betrayed Christ to the Jewish authorities for a mere thirty pieces of silver, just as the Scriptures predicted (Zech. 11:12). Cynically, with feigned respect, he pointed out Jesus to His captors with a kiss (Luke 22:47–48).
Second, Jesus suffered rejection by Israel (John 1:1; cf. Isa. 53:3) from first of all the chief priests and the scribes. The chief priests included the high priest and all living former high priests, the captain of the temple, who served as an assistant to the high priest, and various other high-ranking priests who oversaw the work of the rank-and-file priests. The scribes were the experts in the rabbinic and Old Testament law. Most were Pharisees, although some were Sadducees. Together, they made up Israel’s religious aristocracy. The people also rejected Christ before Pilate, screaming “Crucify Him!” (Matt. 27:22). Even the men closest to Him temporarily abandoned Him when after His arrest, “all the disciples left Him and fled” (Matt. 26:56). But most profoundly, Jesus was rejected by the Father, causing Him to cry out on the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46; cf. Ps. 22:1).
Third, Jesus suffered injustice. After a series of illegal, unjust, mock trials, Israel’s leaders would condemn Him to death and would hand Him over to the Gentiles. After another series of trials before the Gentile rulers Pilate and Herod, Jesus, despite being repeatedly declared not guilty by them (cf. Luke 23:4, 14–15, 22; John 18:38; 19:4, 6), would be sentenced to death (Mark 15:15). The holy, just, and righteous second person of the Trinity was falsely accused of sin (John 9:24), sedition, insurrection (Luke 23:13–14), and blasphemy (Matt. 9:3; 26:65; John 10:33). And His trials were monumental demonstrations of injustice at every point.
Fourth, Jesus suffered ridicule. The sinless Son of God, in whom “all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Col. 2:9), was mocked and mistreated and spat upon by those holding Him in custody during His Jewish trials (Luke 22:63), members of the Sanhedrin (Matt. 26:67–68), Herod and his soldiers (Luke 23:11), and Pilate’s soldiers (Matt. 27:27–31). The ridicule continued even while He was on the cross; “the rulers were sneering at Him, saying, ‘He saved others; let Him save Himself if this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One’” (Luke 23:35). The soldiers also mocked Him, coming up to Him, offering Him sour wine, and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself!” (vv. 36–37). Even one of those crucified alongside Him “was hurling abuse at Him, saying, ‘Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!’” (v. 39). The reviling and abuse that He had faced throughout His ministry (cf. John 9:28; 1 Peter 2:23) intensified at His death.
Fifth, Jesus suffered bodily injury. He was beaten multiple times while in custody. Then, shortly before His crucifixion, the Romans would brutally scourge Him with a whip with multiple thongs, at the end of which were tied pieces of glass, bone, rock, or metal. So severe was the damage from scourging that many died from it.
Finally, Jesus’ enemies would kill Him. He would be executed, in the most horribly cruel manner imaginable—crucifixion. Frederic Farrar wrote,
For indeed a death by crucifixion seems to include all that pain and death can have of horrible and ghastly—dizziness, cramp, thirst, starvation, sleeplessness, traumatic fever, tetanus, publicity of shame, long continuance of torment, horror of anticipation, mortification of untended wounds—all intensified just up to the point at which they can be endured at all, but all stopping just short of the point which would give to the sufferer the relief of unconsciousness. The unnatural position made every movement painful; the lacerated veins and crushed tendons throbbed with incessant anguish; the wounds, inflamed by exposure, gradually gangrened; the arteries—especially of the head and stomach—became swollen and oppressed with surcharged blood; and while each variety of misery went on gradually increasing, there was added to them the intolerable pang of a burning and raging thirst; and all these physical complications caused an internal excitement and anxiety which made the prospect of death itself—of death, the awful unknown enemy, at whose approach man usually shudders most—bear the aspect of a delicious and exquisite release. (“The Crucifixion A.D. 30,” in Rossiter Johnson, Charles F. Horne, and John Rudd, eds. The Great Events by Famous Historians [Project Gutenberg EBook, 2008], 3:47–48)
So intense was the Lord’s suffering that the New Testament frequently refers to them in the plural (e.g., 2 Cor. 1:5; Phil. 3:10; Heb. 2:10; 1 Peter 1:11; 4:13; 5:1). And centuries before they happened, Isaiah 53 described them in detail, as noted earlier in this chapter. The sinless Son of God suffered and died so that His people might have eternal life. In the words of the apostle Peter,
You have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls. (1 Peter 2:21–25; cf. 1:18–19; 3:18; Matt. 20:28; John 10:15; Rom. 5:8–10; Eph. 5:2, 25; Titus 2:13; 1 John 3:16; Rev. 1:5; 5:9)