Matthew 27

CHAPTER 27THEME: Events surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus; Sanhedrin delivers Jesus to Pilate; repentance of Judas; trial before Pilate; release of Barabbas; crucifixion, death, and burial of Jesus; the tomb sealed and a watch setWe have come to the central fact of the gospel message: the crucifixion of Christ. When Paul defined the gospel to the Corinthians, he said, “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures” (1Co_15:3, italics mine). We have now come to the record of that tremendous event. We will see that Matthew does not give a record of the actual crucifixion. In fact, no Gospel writer does that. They merely tell what went on around the Cross. I know that there are men who depict in graphic terms how the nails were driven into the quivering flesh and how the blood spurted out, but that is not in the Bible. In the inspired record it is as if God placed the mantle of darkness over the last three hours of the life of Jesus on the Cross and said, “This is something you cannot look at. It is beyond human comprehension. The suffering cannot be fathomed.” It was a transaction between the Father in heaven and the Son on the Cross. The Cross became an altar upon which the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, was offered. The simple statement of Matthew is, “And they crucified him.” This chapter begins with the morning after Jesus had been arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, after He had been brought before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, after false witnesses had testified against Him, after He had been beaten and ridiculed, and after Peter had denied Him.

Matthew 27:1

THE SANHEDRIN DELIVERS JESUS TO PILATEThey have formulated a charge against Jesus and will take Him now to the supreme court. They think they have a case which will stand up before the Roman court.

Matthew 27:2

Pilate had a palace in Jerusalem, although his headquarters were in Caesarea on the Mediterranean Sea. He was in Jerusalem at the Passover season because the city was crowded with Jews who had come to the feast, and generally there were riots on such occasions.

Matthew 27:3

You see, the Lord Jesus was there when Judas came. As the chief priests and elders were leading Him through that hall to take Him to Pilate, here comes Judas. Why doesn’t Judas turn to the Lord Jesus and ask forgiveness? Instead of doing that, he addressed the religious rulers

Matthew 27:4

In other words, “You did the job, and it’s over with. We have the One we were after. We have paid you off, and we have no need of you any further.”

Matthew 27:5

This man leaves the temple area, goes out, and hangs himself. He could have turned to the Lord Jesus and would have been forgiven!

Matthew 27:6

How pious they are! They can’t put it in the temple treasury because it is blood money.

Matthew 27:7

This was a remarkable fulfillment of prophecy

Matthew 27:9

You will find this prophecy alluded to in Jer_18:1-4 and evidently quoted from Zec_11:12-13. It is credited to Jeremiah simply because in Jesus’ day Jeremiah was the first of the books of the prophets, and that section was identified by the name of the first book. The significant thing is that Jesus was present when Judas returned with his thirty pieces of silver. In fact, Jesus was on His way to dieeven for Judas. Our Lord had given him an opportunity to come back to Him there in the Garden of Gethsemane, and He had said, “Friend, wherefore art thou come?” And even at this eleventh hour, Judas could have turned to the Lord Jesus and would have been forgiven.

Matthew 27:11

PILATE QUESTIONS JESUSYou see, the religious rulers wanted to get rid of Jesus because of what they considered blasphemy. You remember that when the high priest put Him on oath and asked Him if He was the Christ, the Son of God, Jesus said that He was. And further He said, “Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven” (Mat_26:64). To the religious rulers that was blasphemy, and they would have stoned Him on that charge, but Rome did not allow the Jews to carry out the death penalty. So they had to deliver Jesus to Pilate with a charge that would stick in a Roman court. Treason would be one that would stick, and so Jesus was charged with claiming to be the King of the Jews. The answer of Jesus to the charge was, “Thou sayest"or, “It is as you say.”

Matthew 27:12

They made certain false charges against Him, and our Lord didn’t bother to answer them.

Matthew 27:13

He was the Lamb of God, you see, who before the shearers was dumb (see Isa_53:7).

Matthew 27:15

Matthew does not give us the byplay that took place. All the other Gospel writers add a great deal to this account, but Matthew simply states the bare facts. Obviously, Pilate felt that the religious rulers had no basis for requesting the death penalty. Jesus had not incited rebellion against Rome. Others had, but Jesus had not. Pilate had a problem on his hands. He wanted to please the religious leaders in order to maintain peace in Jerusalem, but he felt that he could not arbitrarily sentence the Lord Jesus to death. So he hit upon a solution to the problem. Since it was his habit to release a Jewish prisoner during the Passover celebration, he would offer the crowd a choice: Jesus; or a very notorious prisoner called Barabbas, who was guilty of murder, robbery, treasonthe whole bit.

Matthew 27:17

Pilate thought that the crowd would certainly ask that Jesus be releasedthe contrast between Him and Barabbas was so evident.

Matthew 27:18

Pilate was a clever politician. He could see what was taking place, and he was sure that the crowd would ask for Barabbas to be crucified and Jesus to be released. This would give him a happy “out” to this situation.

Matthew 27:19

Pilate’s wife was as superstitious as could be. Perhaps she was tied up in a mystery religion, and this sort of thing could have been satanic. I do not believe that this warning came from God. If she had been a just woman, she would have investigated Jesus and found out more about Him. She did not, however. She was simply superstitious and asked her husband to have nothing to do with Him.

Matthew 27:20

You see, the religious rulers were clever politicians themselves. They circulated among the crowd saying, “Ask that Barabbas be delivered and Jesus be destroyed.”

Matthew 27:21

Pilate was taken aback. He had not known how low religion would stoop.

Matthew 27:22

Imagine a Roman judge asking a crowd what he should do with a prisoner! Pilate was the judge, and he should make the decision. The Gospel of John tells us that Pilate repeatedly called Jesus inside the judgment hall and questioned Him privately. His thought seemed to be, “Jesus, if You will cooperate with me, I can get You out of this, and it will get me off this hot seat I’m on!” But the Lord Jesus would not defend Himself. When we analyze this mock trial, we come to the conclusion that Pilate was the one on trial and, actually, that Jesus was the Judge. Pilate had to make a decision relative to Him; so he asked the crowd, “What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?” The answer came back to himit was flung in his face"Let him be crucified!”

Matthew 27:23

A mob never has a reason.

Matthew 27:24

Pilate called for a basin of water and washed his hands, declaring that he would have nothing to do with the execution of Jesus. But it was not that easy. He had to make a decisionevery man does. It was John Newton who wrote: “What think ye of Christ?” is the test, To try both your state and your scheme; You cannot be right in the rest, Unless you think rightly of Him. Although Pilate washed his hands, the bitter irony of it is that in the oldest creed of the church stand these words: " …crucified under Pontius Pilate." The blood of Jesus was on his hands no matter how much he washed them.

Matthew 27:25

Unfortunately, that has been the case, and it can be so demonstrated.

Matthew 27:26

Pilate was willing to stoop this low himself. He had to make a decision, and his decision, of course, was one of rejection.

Matthew 27:27

The soldiers were free to do with Him as they pleased. He became a plaything for this brutal, cruel crowd.

Matthew 27:28

It is frightful what they did to Him

Matthew 27:30

The soldiers took this opportunity to have their fun with Him before He was crucified. Since He was going to die anyway, they could mutilate Him and do anything they wished with Him. They played a cruel Roman game known as “hot-hand” with their prisoners. All the soldiers would show the prisoner their fists. Then they would blindfold the prisoner, and all but one would hit him as hard as they could. Then they would remove the blindfold, and if the prisoner was still conscious, he was to guess which soldier did not hit him.

Obviously, the prisoner could never guess the right one. They would continue this until they had beaten the prisoner to a pulp. I believe that the Lord Jesus was so mutilated that you would not have recognized Him. “As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men” (Isa_52:14).

Matthew 27:31

Jesus was subjected to abject humiliation and untold suffering. We are given the impression here that He was too weak to carry His cross because of the ordeal to which the soldiers had subjected Him.

Matthew 27:33

THE CRUCIFIXIONThat place can be identified, I believe, as Gordon’s Calvary (named for General Gordon who selected it as the probable site of Golgotha). I have looked around that area. After all these years and the things that have happened to the city Jerusalem, it is difficult to make a judgment, but certainly the topography of Gordon’s choice is close to the biblical description of Golgotha. It is a place that resembles a skull.

Matthew 27:34

This is a fulfillment of Psa_69:21: “They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”

Matthew 27:35

The prophecy is from Psalms 22, which presents a graphic picture of death by crucifixion: “They part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture” (Psa_22:18).

Matthew 27:36

In my opinion it is here that we see humanity which has reached its lowest depth. You don’t need to go to skid row or to a prison to see man at his lowest, you can see him here"sitting down they watched him there." I believe that in this crowd was Saul of Tarsus. Later on when he wrote to Timothy, he called himself the chief of sinners (see 1Ti_1:15), and I believe he called himself that because he was the chief of sinners.

Matthew 27:37

“If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.” Notice that they raise the doubt"If thou be the Son of God …" Little did they know that since He is the Son of God, He will not come down from the Cross. He doesn’t have to prove anything at this point. He is now dying for the sins of the world.

Matthew 27:41

You would think that after this pack of bloodhounds had succeeded in getting Him on the Cross, they would go home and let Him die in peace, but they didn’t. They stayed there taunting Him while there was still life in His body.

Matthew 27:42

That is a true statement"He saved others; himself he cannot save." If He were to save you and me, He would have had to die on that cross. If He had come down from the Cross, you and I would have to be executed for our sins. We deserve it; we are hell-doomed sinners. Christ was taking our place there. As surely as He took the place of Barabbas, He took our place. “Let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.” Would they have believed Him? I don’t think so.

Matthew 27:43

You can see that the crowd understood that Jesus claimed deity.

Matthew 27:44

Matthew calls our attention to the thieves who were crucified with Him and the fact that they joined with the religious rulers in mocking Him. He does not call our attention to the fact that one of the thieves finally turned to Jesus. The Kingdom presented in Matthew will be on this earth, and the thief who repented went with Christ to paradise that very day.

Matthew 27:45

Our Lord was put on the Cross at the third hour, which would be nine o’clock in the morning. By twelve noon, man had done all he could to the Son of God. Then at the noon hour, darkness settled down, and that cross became an altar on which the Lamb who taketh away the sin of the world was offered.

Matthew 27:46

We find the answer to that question in Psalms 22. It opens with these words: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?” Then we read the answer in verse Psa_22:3: “But thou art holy …” (Psa_22:1, Psa_22:3, italics mine). When my sin is put upon Jesus, God has to withdraw. Our Savior had to be executed if He were going to take my sin and yours.

Matthew 27:47

Why? To fulfill prophecy"They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink" (Psa_69:21).

Matthew 27:49

Notice how He died: He “yielded up the ghost"that is, He dismissed His spirit. As a pastor I have often heard the death rattle, the gasp for that last breath which we all want so badly. Our Lord didn’t go that way. He dismissed His spirit. He went willingly.

Matthew 27:51

INCIDENTS CONNECTED WITH HIS DEATHAt the death of Christ several very notable things took place. One was an earthquake. Another was that the veil in the temple, the curtain which separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple, was torn in two Notice that the veil was torn, not from the bottom to the top but from top to bottom. It was rent by God, not by man. The veil symbolizes the body of Jesus. When His body was rent upon the Crosswhen He had paid the penalty for your sin and my sin in His own bodythen the way was opened into the presence of God. Therefore, you and I don’t have to have a priest or a preacher go into the presence of God for us; we can go directly to the throne of God through Christ. Let’s emphasize that the only way to the Father is through His Son. “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1Ti_2:5).

Matthew 27:52

This is an event that is mentioned only by Matthew. We wish more had been told. I can only say that I believe it happened just the way Matthew tells it and that those who arose were part of that great company who went to heaven when Christ led captivity captive at His ascension (see Eph_4:8-10). The earthquake mentioned in verse Mat_27:51 was an intelligent quake, not haphazard, because the graves were opened by it, and “many bodies of the saints which slept arose"just certain ones. “And [they] appeared unto many.” There were many witnesses who saw these certain folk because, according to Matthew, they “went into the holy city and appeared unto many.” There is a very excellent treatment of this, and the other miracles which occurred at this time, in a little booklet entitled The Six Miracles of Calvary, written by Bishop Nicholson. If you are interested in pursuing this study, I recommend it to you. It is a rich little book.

Matthew 27:54

In Mark’s account it says this: “And when the centurion, which stood over against him, saw that he so cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God” (Mar_15:39). Apparently, that Roman centurion, who was in charge of the actual crucifixion, stood beneath Christ’s cross. As he witnessed some of the miraculous events during this time and as he saw the Lord Jesus dismiss His spirit, the fact was confirmed to him that this was the Son of God. I believe that the centurion became a saved man. He probably did not know a great deal; he had never read Strong’s theology or Hodges’ theology, nor Augustine’s City of God, nor any of my books, but he knew enough to take his place beneath the Cross of Christ. And that is all that God asks of any sinner.

Matthew 27:57

JESUS BURIED IN JOSEPH’S TOMBWe did not know that he was a disciple until this event. It is interesting to see that the very thing which caused the apostles to scatter seems to have drawn into the open others who, up to this time, would have been called secret disciples. Joseph of the town of Arimathaea stepped out and declared his faith.

Matthew 27:58

Joseph went to Pilate on the basis that he was a disciple of Jesus.

Matthew 27:59

John tells us that Nicodemus worked with Joseph in preparing the body of Jesus for burial"And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury” (Joh_19:39-40). These two men, who apparently had been in the background, now came out in the open as the disciples of Jesus. It is interesting to note that only loving hands touched the body of Jesus after His death.

Matthew 27:60

Note this one tender incident in connection with the death of Jesus. Several women were faithful and stayed at the cross. They were loyal when the apostles had fled. Near the hill, which we designate as Gordon’s Calvary, is a tomb which is pointed out as the tomb in which Jesus was buried. It is called the Garden Tomb. We have no way of knowing if this was the tomb of Jesus; frankly, I have my doubts. There are many sepulchres in that area, and it could have been any one of them. I feel sure that His tomb is in that area, and the Garden Tomb is as good a choice as any of them. But to determine the exact location of Golgotha and of the tomb and to make them sacred shrines is not Christ’s intention.

I saw a woman go into the tomb and on hands and knees kiss the floor where the bodies were placed! That has no value. What our Lord wants us to do is to believe the gospelthat He died for our sins, was buried, and rose againand to take that good news to the whole world.

Matthew 27:62

THE SEPULCHRE IS SEALED AND THE WATCH SETThe zeal of the enemy actually gives a confirmation of Jesus’ resurrection! If they had gone off and left that tomb as it was, their later explanation for the tomb’s being empty might be plausible. But, my friend, when you’ve got a tomb that is sealed and a Roman guard around it watching it, their claim that the apostles stole away the body of Jesus sounds pretty silly. The enemies of Jesus went to a lot of trouble to make the sepulchre sure, and that fact furnishes a marvelous confirmation of His resurrection. Another interesting point is that when our Lord had told His disciples that He would rise again the third day, they had told a great many people, and the religious rulers got word of it. As soon as they could get another audience with Pilate, they said, “Look, Jesus made the statement that He would rise again the third day, and we want to make sure His body stays in that tomb.” Of course, they did not believe He would be resurrected, but neither did the apostles believe that He would come out of that tomb alive.