Who bears the blame?
Several weeks later,
Peter was quick to say who was implicated in
the death of Jesus:
“For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom
You anointed, both
Herod and Pontius
Pilate,
with the Gentiles and
the people of Israel,
were gathered
together” (Acts 4:27).
It doesn’t seem
that many people were
left out.
It’s easy to assign
blame for Jesus’
death to a small group
of people—the
religious hypocrites
and civil leaders who
wanted to retain their
positions seem to be
implicated the most.
It’s also easy to lay
the guilt of this
murder on a whole race
of people. And it’s
also true that we can
implicate the ruling
Roman state. But it’s
not as simple as that.
It’s safe to say that
if Jesus would have
come to
any
society and culture
and exposed
it for its failings,
its hypocrisy, He would not
have been accepted. If
Jesus had exposed
any society that was
equally far from its
ideals, they too would
have killed Him.
This is the horrible
truth we all want to
avoid. What the
original followers of Jesus
are telling us is that
no one is innocent
of
this crime.
We
all
were complicit in the
death of Christ. Paul was convinced of his personal guilt: “Here is a
trustworthy saying that deserves
full acceptance:
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of
whom I am the worst”
(1 Timothy 1:15, NIV).
A world unknowing, unaware
Paul, the former
Pharisee, says of himself, “Even though I was once
a blasphemer and a
persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy
because I acted in
ignorance and unbelief” (verse 13, NIV). That’s the
problem. We were
ignorant of all this. Paul tells us that “at the appointed
time,
Christ died for the
wicked” (Romans 5:6, REB). The world just
doesn’t know what it
is doing!
But God does, and one
day we will all know too. It was His purpose
from the beginning.
Jesus came into this world knowing He would be
killed (John 12:27).
Jesus inspired the Old Testament prophets to not
only foretell His
death, but to describe it in graphic detail. The sacrificial
system given to Israel
prefigured the perfect offering that was to come.
Jesus foretold His
death and suffering to His disciples on several
occasions, but for the
most part they refused to accept what He said.
It was far more
comfortable to believe that He would establish His
Kingdom then and
there, and all their worries would be over.
Paul speaks of “the
hidden wisdom which God ordained before the
ages
...
which none of the
rulers of this age knew; for had they known,
they would not have
crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:7-8).
In Acts 3:17 Peter
says, “Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it
in ignorance, as did
also your rulers.” He adds, “But those things which
God foretold by the
mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would
suffer, He has thus
fulfilled” (verse 18).
Don’t remain in ignorance
But God doesn’t want
us to remain ignorant. The crime was so
unthinkable, so
unequaled, that the story just keeps coming back and
we can’t get rid of
it.
Yes, the Jewish
leaders initiated the deed, and the Romans carried
it out. But because
each of us has sinned, He died for every single one
of us. There’s nothing
complicated about that. That’s what He wants us
to see. If we had not
sinned, if
I had not sinned, He
wouldn’t have had
to die. If we weren’t
so hardened, His suffering and death wouldn’t have
had to be so
horrendous. None of us are innocent of this crime. This is
what Peter and Paul
and John are trying to tell us.
We read the account of
the jealousy and hatred toward Christ and we
may silently say to
ourselves,
“I wouldn’t have done
that if
I were there.”
We’re wrong on two
counts.
Is there really a
difference in the way we express jealousy, envy,
greed, anger and
hatred toward others and what those people did to
Jesus? Jesus makes the
point Himself: “Inasmuch as you did it to one
of the least of these
...
you did it to Me”
(Matthew 25:40, 45).
Sin is sin; it doesn’t
matter who the victim is. And if He had not taken
our place in death,
that’s the penalty we would be staring at. So where
does any one of us get
off blaming someone else for Christ’s death, when
all of us had our part
in it too?
Secondly, would we
really have done any better had we been there?
Judas, His ardent
disciple at the beginning, betrayed Him for a sum of
money. Peter, His most
outspoken supporter, denied he even knew Jesus when
Jesus was on trial.
The other disciples, all of whom asserted their loyalty to
Who Killed Jesus?
Among the olive trees of Gethsemane
on the lower slopes
of the Mount of Olives, Jesus
prayed in agony, knowing the
terrible suffering and death
He would soon have to endure
on our behalf.
didn’t just promise
eternal life, He said,
“I am the resurrection
and the
life”
(John 11:25).
What becomes clear is
that
only Jesus is the true
Revealer of the true
God.
There could be no
escaping what people saw. God revealed Him
-
self in such a manner
that there is no easy way out for any of us. We
have to face it
squarely—that Jesus was who He said He was and had
been sent here by His
Father.
There is no such thing
as “many roads that lead to God.” Jesus
declared: “I am the
way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the
Father except through
Me”
(John 14:6). That is
why Peter could courageously proclaim: “There is no salvation through anyone
else; in all the
world
no other name has been
granted to mankind by which we can be
saved”
(Acts 4:12, REB).
God’s purpose from the beginning
God’s plan for
“bringing many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10) includes
the reconciling of
humanity to Himself through Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). Why do we need
that reconciliation? Isaiah 59:1-2 tells us:
“Surely the arm of the
Lo r d
is not too short to
save, nor his ear too dull
to hear. But
your iniquities have
separated you from your God; your
sins have hidden his
face from you, so that he will not hear”
Our sins
have cut us off from
God. Paul speaks of us as enemies in
need of reconciliation
with Him—a reconciliation that comes through
Jesus Christ’s
sacrifice. “While we were enemies, we were reconciled
to God through the
death of his Son” (Romans 5:10, NRSV).
Peter says this death
“was foreordained before the foundation of the
world” (1 Peter 1:20),
and John speaks of Jesus as “the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the
world” (Revelation 13:8). The coming of a Messiah
to be a saving
sacrifice was in the planning from before the beginning
of this present world.
Our first human
parents Adam and Eve sinned. And all humanity has
followed
suit. Yet God would erase the enmity in the minds of human
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