July 09 2025

Wednesday July 09

The Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus

Luke 23

1 Then the whole multitude of them arose and led Him to Pilate. 2 And they began to accuse Him, saying, "We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, saying that He Himself is Christ, a King." 3 Then Pilate asked Him, saying, "Are You the King of the Jews?" He answered him and said, "It is as you say." 4 So Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowd, "I find no fault in this Man." 5 But they were the more fierce, saying, "He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee to this place."

Today we are moving on to a new chapter, Luke 23. This chapter tells us about the trial of Jesus and His crucifixion and death on the cross. We believe this is one of the great chapters of the Bible, along with the other Gospel accounts of Jesus giving His life on the cross for you and me. This is the climax of human history where God Himself literally goes to a cross and pays the payment for our sins. Several things stand out as we look at this chapter.

To understand the setting, let's remember Jesus has been up all night long. On Thursday, Jesus prepared for the Passover meal with the disciples. That evening, they observed and ate the Passover meal in the Upper Room. In John 13 through John 17, Jesus is talking to His disciples, preparing them with some last words, giving them the comfort of the Holy Spirit who will come after He has ascended to heaven. So many things are taking place. Judas goes out into the night to get the temple guard to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Then after Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper, they sing a hymn.

Jesus goes deeper into the Garden, and there He prays those three prayers: "Not My will but Thine be done." He says, "Take this cup from Me." That cup, we believe, represented the sins of all humanity, and Jesus would become sin for us. In the middle of the night, Judas shows up at the garden with a guard from the temple and arrests Jesus. They take Him to Annas's house, then to Caiaphas's house, and finally, as the sun rises and Peter has denied the Lord three times, they take Jesus to the Sanhedrin, where He is tried unfairly for the third time by the Jews.

Now here in Luke 23, we read that in the early morning hours, after the Sanhedrin condemns Him, they take Him to Pilate. We know that Jesus was crucified at the third hour, which would have been 9:00 in the morning. At the sixth hour of His crucifixion, three hours into the cross, the sun refused to shine. It went dark. For the next three hours, until 3:00 in the afternoon, the sun did not shine. We’re convinced that during those hours, Jesus paid the full payment for our sins. Over all six hours, Jesus is paying the price on the cross. We'll talk about the seven sayings of Christ later, but here we see Jesus paying the full price for our sin, being the propitiation for them, satisfying the wrath of God against the sins of humanity.

Jesus fulfilled the law as the innocent Lamb of God and fully paid for our sins, declaring in His last words on the cross, "It is finished." All this begins at 9:00 in the morning when Jesus is crucified. What we read now in Luke chapter 23, as He goes before Pilate for three different trials, happens somewhere between the early morning hours of the Sanhedrin trying Him and His crucifixion at 9am.

Can you imagine how physically, emotionally, and mentally worn-out Jesus must have been during this time? Yet, because of the strength He received in the garden praying and the angel that came and ministered to Him, Jesus stands strong and gives glory to God by His courage and His willingness to submit to the will of God.

Oh, what a Savior! When we study this chapter, we will see both the evilness of men and the goodness of God. I can’t help but think about that tree in the Garden of Eden, called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which God forbade Adam and Eve to eat from. When they ate of it, they brought sin into the world. Now we are reminded of that tree again because Jesus will die and be hung on a tree—a tree that represents the knowledge of good and evil.

There we see the great love of God, the goodness of God, the mercy of God, the wonderful sacrifice of God at that cross. At the same time, we see evil men crucifying the most innocent, precious, sinless, blameless, stainless Son of God on that cross. Oh, what a scene. As we look at Luke chapter 23, I trust you’ll read it through several times and take into your heart all that Jesus did for you and me.

God bless!