Word of Salvation – Vol. 51 No.32 – December 2006
He Was Guilty As We Were Charged!
A Sermon by Rev Sjirk Bajema
on Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 15
Scripture Readings: 1 Peter 2:20-25; John 19:1-16
Brothers and sisters, young people, boys and girls.
Let me begin by asking you this question: “When was the last time you felt guilty?”
Perhaps you remember it very clearly. It was just yesterday, or the day before. It’s still clearly in your memory. You see, it’s an awkward moment for you. What you thought or said or did then really bugs you now. You know you sinned. Maybe it was a while ago. But you haven’t completely forgotten. You knew you were wrong. You felt guilty.
Whenever it was, it is important that we know we have sinned. Not so that we give sin any glory, but so that we know we are saved! Imagine if you never felt guilty! How could you know what God’s forgiveness means? What could the sacrifice of Jesus Christ do then?
Lord’s Day 15 is clear about this. As we confess in the Apostles’ Creed that our Lord, “…suffered under Pontius Pilate; and was crucified…”, we make three clear statements about what we desperately didn’t have, and what he, out of the most wonderful love, took all on Himself. These three statements follow the three Answers of our text.
The first of these is that GOD’S SON TOOK OUR GUILT. Answer 37 vividly shows what our Lord suffered as He took upon Himself the anger of God. We deserved to be eternally condemned for what we did, and for what we still do.
Mind you, someone could ask: what is it to feel guilty? Put simply, it means that you know you are wrong. But there’s more to it than that. There’s that gnawing feeling inside you. Even if you’re not found out it upsets you. Just knowing the punishment if you do get caught is a draining thing. In the words of an old English proverb, “A guilty conscience needs no accuser.”
But we can’t say that this was why Jesus suffered. It wasn’t because of His own guilt. Jesus hadn’t done any wrong that He should be pained in this way. We deserved that torment of guilt – not Him!
God’s Word, though, tells us he did bear it. In fact, we are told He even suffered the worst possible affliction of guilt that anyone could ever have!
Just think, dear friend: How would you feel if you’re unfairly accused. You’re not very happy – that’s for sure! You do whatever you can to clear your name, don’t you? And you are so indignant – you’re really angry! Still, Jesus took it all! Right down to the last whip of God’s righteous anger against sin.
Looking on the life of Jesus, His suffering may not have seemed so extraordinary. After all, it was really only during the last week of His life that you could say He was physically persecuted. But think of what it was like being in a body, and in a place, within a group, where you just didn’t belong! When the apostle Paul cries out to the Corinthians, “What fellowship can light have with darkness?”, he does so because there is the Light – Jesus Christ Himself – who has brought us out of that darkness! We mustn’t ever forget!
In fact, we must see again and again how this suffering of Jesus shows us that we can really see that it’s only in Him we can be truly free. The God-man who told us to turn the other cheek was the One who showed us how to do it. In those words from Peter’s first letter chapter 2, verses 21-23, “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When they hurled their insults at him, he didn’t retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.”
In speaking of judgment, we come to our second point. This aspect tells us that, GOD’S SON BORE OUR JUDGMENT. Here we touch upon the teaching of Answer 38.
This aspect is not always easy to understand. We know the story of Pontius Pilate trying to free Jesus; Pilate knew Jesus was innocent. Under the pressure of the Jewish leaders and the crowd, however, he hands Jesus over to them to be put to death.
So, hadn’t Pilate judged Jesus innocent? Didn’t he go to some lengths to free Him? Indeed, he did. Still, at the end of all this, he declared that Jesus was guilty. He agreed with the crowd. As the Gospel records in John 19 verse 16, “Finally Pilate handed him over to be crucified.” Pontius Pilate sentenced Jesus Christ to death!
If we become quite upset at the slightest hint of being falsely accused, imagine our Lord’s anguish at this travesty of injustice. We can barely begin to realise what a terrible price He paid. Congregation – I pray that we’re doing just that – beginning to realise something of the terrible price he paid! On top of all the suffering He went through, Jesus has to undergo this judgment as well!
Much as we may think it bad when things don’t seem to be going right for us, we still deserve what is coming to us. We made this mess in the first place! And having become a part of the mess of sin, can we honestly say we’re making it any better? Don’t we only make it worse? It was only by Jesus stepping physically onto planet Earth and physically taking your place that you are saved at all! There at the bar of God’s justice – there in the ultimate courthouse, where God is the Judge and you are being tried for your sin – just as God is about to pass the inevitable sentence, the Saviour takes your place. And before the ultimate Judge He presents new evidence.
But now it’s not the evidence which has already convicted us because of our sin; it’s His own body He shows – the hands with holes, the side where blood poured out. Jesus proves our case. It’s dismissed! There’s no case to answer! “Innocent!” is the verdict.
We are stunned. How could this be? The righteous judgment of God doesn’t apply to me? Like a newly born again believer, we wonder: Did Jesus do that for me? All of our sin – layers and layers and layers of it – where has it gone?
That’s an interesting question. It’s a question our next point answers. There must be, surely, the punishment? And so, in the third place, we see… GOD’S SON RECEIVES OUR PUNISHMENT.
Congregation, God is no jolly Father Christmas who so quickly excuses your wrong, and gives you the lolly anyway. And other people know that, too. Even if they’re not Christians there’s still that sense of justice. There have been enough cries for the return of corporal and capital punishment to realise this. In New Zealand, a referendum conducted together with the 1999 General Election resulted in over 80% of New Zealanders voting for harsher sentences. What happened to that, anyway? Nothing was done. But that was public opinion.
People know that a crime not properly punished only makes things worse. And our society only shows this all the more every single day!
And, tell me, which punishment could possibly make up that huge gap between God and us? Well, it would be making up for a lot, so it would have to be the very best – it would have to be the perfect price. That’s something we just cannot give. But God’s Son can. And He does, because the very best dies for the absolute worst.
If there is one experience all Christians share, it must surely be this sense of our wretchedness and His righteousness. What John Newton wrote in the great hymn, “Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me…” has been repeated by countless believers throughout the centuries. The apostle Paul cried it out in Romans 7 verse 24, “What a wretched man I am.” And so do we, when we see His blood poured out for us.
We should only expect misery. Ever since Adam we have known we deserved only that. The example of how the LORD dealt with the disobedient Israelites in the desert showed this. The physical death with which they were punished is what we all deserve. And we all know – no matter how much this modern world tries to sanitise death, its smell just won’t go away.
Mind you, for Jesus to simply die in a quiet, dignified way wouldn’t be the complete answer for this curse. That wouldn’t make up for how angry God is with us. There needed to be more than that. The punishment on Him had to have no shred of decency whatsoever. This could be no dignified or peaceful pause. It has to penetrate to the worst of God’s judgments so deeply that the very rot is removed. If Christ didn’t go that far we could never be confident that God’s curse and punishment wouldn’t one day come back.
People of God, the Son of God – Your Saviour – had to be offered up in such a way that our sins were laid upon Him. He has to be the sacrificial animal on whom all the people’s sins were laid and then be sent away, outside the city walls. He had to be the one of whom Moses prophesied in Deuteronomy chapter 21 verse 23, “…anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse.”
Praise God that Jesus was crucified! Praise God that His Son came and did what we could never have ever done! That’s why Christ was crucified! That’s why Answer 39 says what it says. For “this death convinces me that he shouldered the curse which lay on me, as death by crucifixion was accursed by God.” We couldn’t bear it. Its burden had already pinned us to the ground, condemning us to death. But He took it away!
Congregation, that’s what we remember today – and every Sunday! That’s why we have the sacraments which picture the work of Jesus Christ for us. For just as the Passover remembered what the LORD God did in His deliverance of Old Testament Israel, through the blood of those lambs, so it was the through blood of the Lamb that His people everywhere are freed forever.
Because Jesus Christ bore our guilt, our judgment and our punishment, we’re free! Free to give God our very best! Free to love the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. To Him be the power, and the glory, and the honour. For great things He has done. And marvellous works He still does! Even to you today.
Amen.