WHAT THINK YE CONCERNING THE CHRIST?
Archie D Melville
Matthew 22: 41-46; 3: 16-17; 27: 27-31, 39-43, 54, 57-60, 65-66
The verse that has impressed me in view of the preaching of the glad tidings today is the verse in chapter 22 of this book, “The Pharisees being gathered together, Jesus demanded of them, saying, What think ye concerning the Christ? whose son is he?” Jesus asks, “What think ye concerning the Christ?”
It is as relevant to every one of us here as it was to the Pharisees to whom it was addressed, because depending on your thoughts, your response will determine your eternal destiny. So this is a very searching question, a very serious question that has great application to the preaching of the glad tidings, because Jesus demanded an answer. This is something that we cannot ignore or refuse; we cannot turn this question aside: we must respond to it. So we are faced in the glad tidings with a decision, something that we need to answer, and the question comes from none other than Jesus, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world: “What think ye concerning the Christ?”
Let us first consider what the Father thinks of Christ. That is the reason I read in chapter 3: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”. The heavens opened and the Spirit descended as a dove coming upon Him and a voice out of heaven making this public declaration, a voice that could be heard, the acclamation of heaven resting upon this blessed One. So our hymn says,
The Saviour, Jesus, who is He?
The Mighty God, a Man become!
(Hymn 34)
Well, this was the voice from heaven proclaiming delight in the Person, His beloved Son, His only Son, the One whom He sent into the world to be the Saviour of the world.
So we start from this point of view that God has declared His supreme delight in Jesus. Is there any other name, is there any other man that you could think of, that you could put forward, for whom God the Father would open the heavens upon and declare His supreme delight? Is there any great warrior, any great emperor, is there any great theologian, or any great man amongst men? No, there is not! And we can tell you on the basis of scripture that there is no other name “given among men by which we must be saved”, Acts 4: 12. So let us focus our attention, dear friends, on coming to a conclusion as to what we - in a personal way - will say as to the Christ. Jesus demands of these Pharisees an answer: “What think ye … ?”, and the second question, “whose son is he?”. Both of these questions need to be resolved in each of our hearts.
We turn to Matthew 27 and we find the cross of Jesus. We find the coming together, the meeting together, of wickedness in its extremity, and love in its enormity. The cross displays the wonder of God’s grace and love towards sinners, and it brings out the hatred of man’s heart. Let us consider responses that we see in this chapter.
The soldiers of the governor take Jesus with them to the prætorium and they gather together the whole band. “And having taken off His garment, put on him a scarlet cloak; and having woven a crown of thorns, they put it on His head”. What response do we see here, dear friends? We see the response of persons who, we might say, were quite ignorant. These soldiers were employed by the Roman power, the soldiers of the governor; they would be, perhaps, not even conscious, not even aware of who Jesus was. They were carrying out their part in this scene, as they had done on many other occasions: the crucifixion, they thought, of a malefactor. It meant nothing to them and it is evident that there is no other response from them but mockery, self-pleasure, humiliation of a victim, One unable to do anything in His own defence. They humiliated Him, placing the crown of thorns upon His head, giving Him a reed as a token of authority in His right hand, and then the supreme insult, a universal insult, understood in every country of the world; if a man spits in the face of another it is the final indignity, an insult beyond compare. They took the reed and beat Him on His head, inflicting pain. “And when they had mocked him, they took the cloak off him, and put his own clothes on him, and led him away to crucify”. And it says, “And having come to a place called Golgotha, which means Place of a skull … having crucified him, they parted his clothes amongst themselves, casting lots. And sitting down, they kept guard”. They did their utmost to humiliate and to degrade this blessed One, and completed their insults, offering Him vinegar mingled with gall to drink.
The Saviour, it says, ”having tasted it … would not drink”. The Saviour undertook the sufferings of Golgotha without any mitigation whatsoever. There was nothing to mitigate His sufferings or alleviate in any way. He would not receive this from the hand of the soldiers. In fact, the gall would be bitter and add injury to insult.
But then we find that there is another group of persons here who pass by. “The passers-by reviled him, shaking their heads and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple”. Persons passing by: are you in that category? Are you passing by, and just by the way hear that the Saviour has been crucified, and then make your decision? They said, “Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou art Son of God”. The infidelity of the human mind enters into this speech. Many persons are infidel; in fact the human heart is infidel as to the person of Christ, and they say, “If thou art Son of God”. No belief, no faith just more and more reviling.
And then there is the third category here: scribes and elders and chief priests. Now these persons are the most intelligent persons. They are the persons who had the Scriptures, the Old Testament, who studied them. They were advanced in their study of the Old Testament scriptures. They were not ignorant; they knew what they were saying. They said, “He saved others, himself he cannot save. He is King of Israel”. Dear friend, if you know who Jesus is and you continue to heap insult upon Him, or disregard Him, or make such comment “let him descend now from the cross, and we will believe on him”, you bear the greatest responsibility. The Lord said to another person (in the parable in Luke 16) that even if one came back from the dead they would not believe, v 31. These persons continued in full knowledge of what they were doing and said, “For he said, I am Son of God”.
And then there was a fourth category: two malefactors, two persons who were guilty, who were suffering the just recompense for the deeds that they had done. They cast the same reproaches on him. These are all negative responses and may our hearts be delivered from any such response. But, “What think ye concerning the Christ?”. How wonderful that Luke records the conversion of one malefactor who says, "Lord " to Jesus.
Further down the chapter we find that there is a certain centurion. “And they who were with him on guard over Jesus, seeing the earthquake and the things that took place, feared greatly, saying, Truly this man was Son of God”. Here is a man who expresses his thoughts as to the Christ. He got right to the very crux of the matter, dear friends. He says, “Truly”. To speak truly is that you consider what you are saying. You weigh it up and you take account as this centurion did of what has happened. He feared greatly, the fear of God. “Truly this man was Son of God”. Are you going to truly respond tonight, to recognise who the Saviour Jesus is? That truly, He is the Son of God.
That was denied, vehemently denied, by the religious people of the day. The scribes and Pharisees said, “he said, I am Son of God”. That was one thing that the scribes and Pharisees could not bear - the fact that there was One in their midst who truly was the Son of God. Now here is a man, a centurion, who could have been part with the soldiers who had kept guard. God in His mercy intervenes even among the group of persons who were most ignorant and most unresponsive, and indeed reviling, and He snatches this person from the grip of Satan, and he says, “Truly this man was Son of God”. God can turn this occasion, this solemn occasion of the Lord being crucified into an opportunity of salvation.
It says, “there came a rich man of Arimathæa, his name Joseph, who also himself was a disciple”. He knew who Jesus was. He came alongside in this moment of need and after He was crucified: “He, going to Pilate, begged the body of Jesus”. He was a person who knew who the Christ was. He knew that this was Jesus, the Saviour of the world, and he was His disciple. He going to Pilate begged the body, and Pilate commanded that it be given up. And Joseph got the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his new tomb which was hewn in the rock; having rolled a stone to the door of the tomb he went away. He fulfilled a great service. Indeed it was prophetically announced Jesus would be “with the rich in his death” (Isa 53: 9), and this man, a rich man, stepped forward at this moment and owned his allegiance to the Christ and provided a new tomb in which to lay the body of Jesus. Joseph was the one who fulfilled this service in a tender and caring way. There was no mockery; there was no hint of disregard in the service of Joseph of Arimathæa. He laid the body in the new tomb which he had hewn in the rock, and rolled the stone there to the door of the tomb. And he went away, his service completed.
There were also women who came to the cross, and they aligned themselves with Jesus. They made their decision, and they came to the cross and stood by, Mary of Magdalene and the other Mary. They were there, and Jesus spoke to them. He spoke to John that he should take care of his mother (John 19: 26, 27), to demonstrate to our souls that on the one hand man in his wickedness did his worse, God in His mercy did His best.
It says, “Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”. There were none who could follow there. Some of those who stood there when they heard it said He called for Elias. Very few persons understood; very few really were sympathetic. The psalmist tells us that he sought sympathy and he found none, Ps 69: 20. The wonder of the matter is that this whole crucifixion, the going into death, the dying and the rising again was all accomplished in order that man, you and I, might come to a right conclusion as to who the Christ is in His own Person, who He is and what He has done.
Think of these sufferings unfathomed. We can see the sufferings in an outward way, we can see the things that would melt our hearts in grief and sorrow and in sympathy. We can see the injustice; we can see the mockery of this trial. Pilate had desired to wash his hands; man cannot absolve himself of responsibility. Pilate displayed the weakness of government, the Roman power in its weakness, and surrendered to the will of the people, and they said, “Crucify, crucify him”, Luke 23: 21. “We will not that this man should reign over us”, Luke 19:14. Well, persons make their decisions and have to reap the consequences of them.
Let us join this select band of persons here who have fully committed themselves, declared their allegiance, declared their love and carried out the service that was required to be fulfilled at this time. We can join this company by owning our allegiance, by bowing and by recognising, “Truly this man was Son of God”; that means that He is God in His own person. He is Man; He fulfilled in manhood all that was required, the great and tremendous work of atonement. Think of these hidden sufferings from the sixth hour when darkness enshrouded the whole land until the ninth hour. “About the ninth hour Jesus cried”. These three hours we cannot penetrate, but we do know for certain that He drank the cup that was given to Him of His Father. That bitter cup, He drank it. We think of the offerings of the Old Testament, the fire consumed the offering; He consumed the fire. He bore the wrath of God; He bore it for you; He bore it for me. It is available to all: “God commends his love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died for us”. It is simple; it is the way of faith, that we lay hold upon the value and virtue of this great work that has been carried out and we voice our appreciation. We declare who the Christ is. Who is He to each one of us? Can we each here say, ‘He is my Saviour; He died for me. And He is truly the Son of God’?
May it be the portion of each for His Name’s sake.
Edinburgh
23rd January 2022