I was in church yesterday. We were observing the Lord’s Supper. I began to read Matthew’s account of Jesus’ crucifixion while the cup was being passed around. Before long I came to the verse I had read 100 times before. The verse is in Matthew 27:41-42, “Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders said, ‘He saved others; Himself He cannot save.'” Have you ever read something over and over only to realize you had been missing something to whole time? I had missed something so simple in my previous readings of this verse; maybe you did too.
The gospels are filled with ironies. For example, Jesus is hanging on a cross with a sign above Him that says, “This is Jesus the King of the Jews,” (Matt. 27:37). The sign was placed by Pilot in mockery of the Jews, but all the while this plaque was more truth than it was mockery. I can imagine some Jew in the audience, on the fence about who Jesus was, and praying to God, “Please give me a sign so I will know!” Here’s your sign.
Another irony is when Jesus takes the place of Barabbas the murderer and insurrectionist. Israel was asking for Jesus to take Barabbas place. They were asking for Jesus to take the punishment that Barabbas deserved. What they didn’t realize at the time is that every one of them was Barabbas. What was a spiteful injustice AGAINST Jesus was in actuality a gracious ransom BY Jesus.
The example of Barabbas is a perfect lead in to Matthew 27:41-42. While the crowd was mocking Jesus with their statement, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save,” the truth of their words went right over the top of their heads. They refused to believe the miracle of Jesus’ resurrecting Lazarus (John 11), the only son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17), or the daughter of Jairus’ (Luke 8:51-52). They refused to believe the hundreds, no, thousands of eyewitnesses who attested to the healing of the lame, blind, mute, crippled, feverish, demon possessed, and leprous. Beyond this, they refused to believe the miracles they saw with their own eyes (Matthew 9:1-8)! And so they said with contempt in their voices, “He saved others! Ha! You would think that someone who could raise the dead would be able to take Himself down from a cross!” But that was just the thing, Jesus couldn’t come down from the cross. If He was going to save others (spiritually), He had to stay on that tree. If He was going to save all the Barabbas’s of the world, He had to hold back the 12 legions of angels who were just waiting to be unleashed on the mob. If He was going to make the legal payment that would redeem sins as far back as Adam and as far forward as Aaron in 2019…He couldn’t save Himself.
Knowing that Jesus felt every stroke of the hammer that bloodied His hands and every thorn that penetrated His skull makes this irony that much more incredible. People often talk about Christ’s suffering like, “Yeah, but He was God,” as if to say that Jesus didn’t feel or endure what you and I would have felt and endured had we been on the cross. Hebrews 2:14-18 says quite the opposite. Jesus was 100% God, 100% Man. He was 200% God-Man, and He endured it all for my flee-bitten carcass. Praise God for the irony of the cross.
