Search The Scriptures -- Matthew

Study 46 – Matthew 27:32-50

1. Jesus suffered in every way. Physically – He was beaten, forced to begin the journey carrying His own cross, He was nailed through the hands and feet. Emotionally – He was publically humiliated before the Sanhedrin as well as before Pilate and the crowd gathered at Pilate’s palace, He was stripped of all of His clothing and placed on public display like a common thief. Spiritually – He felt the sins of the world upon Him and the absence of the presence of the Father as He turned His face from the one that became sin for us.
   
   
2. If Jesus were to have saved Himself from the cross He would have failed to live up to who He was. In seeking to save Himself, He would have lost everything that He was. He could not deny the will of the Father. God did not intervene because it was for this very purpose that the Son was sent. When Christ, who knew no sin, became sin for us, that must have been the most horrific moment of His existence. He had previously not known what it was like not to fill the fullness of the presence of the Father in His life. Now, at His most physically and emotionally challenging moment, that precious presence was gone. The beating, the nails, the crown of thorns, were no match for the pain of separation from  the presence of the Father.
   
   

 Study 47 – Matthew 27:51-66

1. The tearing of the curtain meant that Jesus had walked in to the presence of the throne room of God offering His own blood as a sacrifice for the sins of the world! Death no longer would have a grip on the people of God. The resurrection of many holy people from Jerusalem was a foreshadow of the final resurrection of all believers.
   
2. Joseph of Arimathea is described by Luke as one that did not go along with the judgment against Jesus and one who was ‘waiting for the Kingdom of God’.  It is not as if Joseph had went along with any of this. This was just the first time that He was actually able to do something about the events that were happening around him. The magnitude of spices that Joseph used to wrap the body of Jesus is indication of His burial as a King! Cf. John 19:38-39.