Wednesday Bible Study: What Jesus asked, finale

 

So we have reached the end of Matthew's journey- and we will pause the study of Jesus's questions here.  Today I have Jesus's last question- but before that, the one Pilate asked.

Mat 27:15  Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted.
Mat 27:16  And they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas.
Mat 27:17  So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, "Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?"

Facts here:  Barabbas, who may or may not have had the first name Jesus (Yeshua) as well, was a rebel (in Rome's eyes), a robber and a murderer.  In a way, our Jesus was much like this:  He was a rebel to the priestly system, He was robbing them of the legitimacy of their ill-gotten gains, and He was about to kill their entire false belief system.  And Barabbas?  Ironically, the name means, "Son of the Father", a name equally applied to Jesus.  Here, I discovered, my e-Sword program made a mistake on what's loaded in on it's Strongs Concordance translation- or, did it?

If you go on line- and I believe this is correct- Strongs makes no more definition than "Son of the Father".  But, on my e-Sword, it gives us...

Of Chaldee origin ([H1347] and G5 (Greek)); son of Abba; Bar-abbas, an Israelite: - Barabbas.

The g5 is merely the 'abbas', or father. But instead of the 'bar' section, that "Chaldee origin H1347" gives us this:

gaw-ohn'
From H1342; the same as H1346: - arrogancy, excellency (-lent), majesty, pomp, pride, proud, swelling.

Which, by accident or design, gives us "Father of arrogance"- a fairly good definition of Satan.  Imagine this:  Pontius Pilate- a man who just moments before (John 18:38) gave Jesus the battle cry of the modern agenda driven news reporter, "What is truth"- is telling you you have a choice between Jesus and Satan- and that if you choose wrongly, it's all on you...

Mat 27:24  So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves."
Mat 27:25  And all the people answered, "His blood be on us and on our children!"

As for Jesus's last question, it came in His cry from the Cross:

Mat 27:46  And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Which the evil of the crowd, who knew well what He was quoting, pretended they didn't:

Mat 27:47  And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, "This man is calling Elijah."
Mat 27:48  And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink.
Mat 27:49  But the others said, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him."

What He WAS quoting was, of course, David's vision of the Crucifixion in Psalm 22:

Psa 22:1  To the choirmaster: according to The Doe of the Dawn. A Psalm of David. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? 

 

We talked last week about the many prophecies in this Psalm fulfilled in Jesus's death. But as you go seeking the answer to Jesus's cry, you come to this verse:

Psa 22:21  Save me from the mouth of the lion! You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!

Here is the turn of things- God did save Jesus by the resurrection- which saved all of us.  Now the lion is pretty easy to figure out, thanks to Peter...

1Pe 5:8  Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

But once again, I had some fun with the "wild Oxen"...

From H7213; a wild bull (from its conspicuousness): - unicorn.

In fact, the word is translated 'unicorn' in many translations, in many spots in the Old Testament; but according to Pliny's description of the word, we are actually looking at a rhinoceros:

 According to Pliny (m), the monoceros, or unicorn, is the fiercest of wild beasts; in its body like a horse, it has the head of an hart and feet of an elephant, the tail of a bear, makes a great bellowing; has one black horn rising up in the middle of the forehead, of two cubits long; it is denied that it was ever taken alive...

And should you look up that H7213, you find it means 'to be lifted up', or in other words we have again found the arrogance of Barabbas.

It could take a sermon series to explain why Jesus felt abandoned at this point; but that isn't the choice before us.  You feel you don't want to choose Jesus?  You should be warned how God sees that choice. First, it is the arrogance that damned Satan, and you will follow in it.  Second, there is no one to blame but yourself.  And third, you won't be taken alive, that is, to life in heaven.