I Believe in Jesus Christ who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried


Sermon by J. Ligon Duncan on March 9, 2003 Matthew 27:1-2; 22-60

The
Apostles’ Creed
“I believe in Jesus Christ who suffered under Pontius
Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried”
Matthew 27:1-2; 32-60

If you have your Bibles, I’d invite you to turn with me to
Matthew 27. We are continuing our study through the Apostles’ Creed and we are
now squarely in the center of the portion of the Apostles’ Creed that deals with
the person and work of Jesus Christ focusing especially on his sufferings and
death, and so we read the account of this from Matthew 27. We’ll look at the
first two verses and then we’ll skip down to the 22nd verse and read
to verse 60, so let’s hear again the story of our Lord’s death for us from God’s
living, inspired and inerrant Word.

“Now when morning came, all the
chief priests and the elders of the people conferred together against Jesus to
put Him to death; And they bound Him, and led Him away and delivered Him to
Pilate the governor. As they were coming out, they found a man of Cyrene named
Simon, whom they pressed into service to bear His cross. And when they came to a
place called Golgotha, which means Place of a Skull, They gave Him wine to drink
mixed with gall; and after tasting it, He was unwilling to drink.

Amen. This is God’s Word; may He add His blessing to it.
Let’s pray.

Our Lord, it stirs our hearts to hear of the suffering
and crucifixion and death of our Savior, Your Son. By Your Spirit, as we study
Your Word and this beautiful and ancient summary of it in The Apostles’ Creed,
help us understand what it means that the blessed Messiah, the Son of God, the
Savior of our souls, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and
buried. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Have you ever noticed that the bulk of the gospels
are devoted to the last week of Jesus’ life? You know, something like a third of
Matthew, Mark, and Luke, often called the synoptic gospels, are devoted
to the last week of Jesus’ life. Something like one-half of the gospel of John
is devoted to that. Have you ever wondered why?

There is a lot to say about Jesus. John even said if
he said everything about Jesus that he could say, it would fill the world with
books. Why do they focus on the last week of Jesus’ life? Well, there’s a reason
and at least part of that reason is that Jesus’ last week of His life contained
a very, very significant aspect of His ministry. In fact, the central focus of
Jesus’ life was dying on behalf of His people as the atonement, as the
sacrifice, as the propitiation for their sins. And so the gospels rightly focus
on the final week of His life in order to highlight to us this central aspect of
His work, thus reminding us that Jesus’ person and work must be kept together.

And did you notice the last time, perhaps, that you
said The Apostles’ Creed, how it goes right from “I believe in Jesus Christ, His
only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate.” Did you notice that? “Born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate.” No mention of His teaching, no mention of His
miracles, no mention of His calling of the disciples or the sending out of the
disciples or the parables that He taught, or the Sermon on the Mount. “Born of
the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate.”

You see, it’s not because the Creed thinks those
things are unimportant. It’s that the Creed, on precisely the same logic as the
gospels, is concerned to take you to the central deed of Jesus’ life. The
atoning work accomplished for us on His cross, and anytime you see a Christian
teacher downplay that aspect of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, you can
be sure that they are up to no good because the gospels themselves want the
Christian to make a bee line for the cross. To realize that Jesus’ person and
all the glory of His incarnation was here and in place in God’s plan so that He
could die for His people. He was, as so many say, born to die.

Now I want you to see five things that we learn in
The Apostles’ Creed. Things that are illustrated in the passage which we’ve just
read from Matthew 27: (1) that Jesus suffered; (2) that He suffered under
Pontius Pilate; (3) that He was crucified; (4) dead; and (5) buried. Those five
things will outline our tasks today.

I. He suffered. The redemptive
suffering of our Lord.
The suffering referred to here is specifically the suffering of
Jesus’ final passion. It is the suffering that occurred in the events
immediately leading up to the crucifixion itself. And the Creed is bidding us to
contemplate the redemptive suffering of our Lord, the suffering described so
painfully and in such detail in Matthew 27 that we’ve already read. Now it is
true, of course, that Jesus lived a life of humiliation. There’s a sense in
which His very birth was the first step in His condescension and humiliation.
And then the fact that He was born in a poor family and wasn’t born in a palace
amidst riches. He was born in a stable and laid in a manger because there wasn’t
even room for Him in the inn. And He lived a life of suffering. As an infant, He
had to escape with His family into Egypt simply to stay alive because the
authorities wanted to kill Him. He would say one day to His disciples, “The
foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but God’s own Son, the Son
of man, doesn’t have a place to lay His head.”

Now He lived a life of suffering on our behalf, but
the Creed is pointing us to Jesus’ cross sufferings–the sufferings surrounding
that complex of events in the death of Jesus Christ. Those cross sufferings are
the centerpiece of the Creed and that’s why the Creed makes a beeline from “born
of the Virgin Mary” to “suffered under Pontius Pilate.” And my friends, that’s
why it is so important for us to contemplate the suffering of Jesus Christ. It
is important for several reasons.

It is important, first of all, because when we look
at the suffering of Jesus Christ on the cross, we see what our sins deserve. Our
generation looks at the sufferings of the world and lifts up a questioning eye
to the Lord and says, “How could you allow suffering like this?” But the
Christian, because he/she has been looking at the cross, knows that that is not
the most profound question that we can ask. The more profound question is, “Have
I realized that my sins deserve what Jesus received on the cross? Have I
realized that I am so bad, so depraved, so godless apart from His grace, that my
sin deserved that?” It’s a solemn thing that Jesus did not suffer on the cross
more than His people deserved. “The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all”
Isaiah says. So making a beeline for the cross and contemplating the sufferings
of Jesus Christ is so important because it shows us what our sins deserve.

But it is also important for another reason. It is
important because in contemplating the suffering of Christ on the cross, we are
forced to ask the question, “Why? What is this happening for? What is the
meaning of this?” And the Bible has an answer for that, and it’s directly
related to the theme that we were just thinking about. The cross, you see, is
God’s remedy of His people’s deservingness of punishment. There is a linkage
between our sin and what it deserves, and the death of Jesus Christ. His death
is payment for sin. We sang about that just a few moments ago. Flip back to
number 247 in your hymnals. “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” that wonderful text by
Bernard of Clairvaux. Some of you will be glad to know that we don’t have all
the verses of that hymn in the hymnal. There’s something like 25, and you know
I’d sing them, too. In the second stanza of that hymn we say: “What thou, my
Lord, hast suffered was all for sinners’ gain: mine, mine was the transgression,
but Thine the deadly pain.” You see, already there Bernard, and Paul Gerhardt
who translated him, and then J.W. Alexander of Princeton who translated him, are
getting at this; that there is a linkage between Jesus’ death and my
transgressions. Later in that hymn, in some of those verses that we don’t have,
Bernard is even clearer as to what the relationship was between Jesus’ death and
my sin. Listen to what he says: “My burden is Thy passion, Lord. Thou hast
born
for me.” You see, when you look at the cross you see Jesus
bearing your burden. That’s your burden there; that’s what you should
have
deserved. He was without sin; you were not. He’s bearing your burden. “My
burden in thy passion, Lord, thou hast born for me; for it was my transgression
which brought this woe on thee. I cast me down, before me wrath were my rightful
lot. Have mercy; I implore thee. Redeemer, spurn me not.”

When you contemplate the sufferings of Christ, you
are contemplating the instrument of God’s grace to forgive you of your sins. The
Father has given His own Son that you might become the righteousness of God in
Him. He’s born your sins. That’s what you’re seeing at the cross. But you’re
even seeing more.

Turn back to Matthew 27 quickly. I want you to see
two things that perhaps you missed when we were reading it the first time.
First, look at verse 1. What did the chief priests and elders of the people do
after they conferred together against Jesus to put Him to death? They bound Him
and they led Him away and they did what? They delivered Him to Pilate the
governor. That word means that they betrayed Him into the hands of, or
they handed Him over to.

Now the next thing that you note happening is this.
In verses 22 and following, Pilate hands Him over to them. He hands Him over to
the guards to be crucified. And so that theme is a theme you’ll find in Matthew
of Jesus being delivered over to crucifixion. He’s delivered over by Judas, says
Matthew in Matthew 10; He’s delivered over by the Jews, it says in Matthew
27:1-2; He’s delivered over by Pilate in Matthew 27:22 and following; but Paul
in Romans 8:32 and Peter in Acts 2:23, say that it was the heavenly Father who
delivered Him over. The suffering of Christ was by the free agency of men,
but it was in accordance with the Father’s eternal plan of redemption.
When
you see the cross, you’re not just seeing a tragedy, you’re not just seeing a
miscarriage of justice, you’re not seeing what one evangelical has recently
called, “The murder of Jesus.” Yes, a judicial injustice is being done, but
this is part of the plan of God. And it’s God’s plan to forgive unworthy
sinners that you’re seeing in the sufferings of Jesus Christ. And so, the Creed
bids us contemplate the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ who suffered.

II. Under Pilate. The concrete
historical circumstances of Christ’s sufferings.
Of course, that phrase of the Creed doesn’t end with the word
suffering, does it? It teaches us a second thing, that He suffered under
Pontius Pilate. The Creed is reminding us here of the concrete, historical
circumstances of Christ’s suffering. The Creed, just like the gospel, goes out
of its way to root the sufferings of Christ, the work of Christ, the death of
Christ, in history. Even to the point of naming Pilate. Have you ever thought
about it? The only two people named in the Creed, apart from God, are Mary and
Pilate. What’s the Creed doing? The point is that the Creed is saying, “This
is history. This really happened.” This is not a “once upon a time” story. This
happened in our history. It’s like saying, “and the execution occurred when
Ronnie Musgrove was the governor of Mississippi.” It’s the same thing. He was
crucified when Pilate, Pontius Pilate, was the Procurator of Judea. You know,
in that seven or eight-year period when he had been appointed by Caesar in Rome
to control his interests in the land of Palestine, it was then that our Lord and
Savior died. The point is, it really happened, this is history, it’s not myth,
it’s not saga, it’s not a parable, it’s not an illustration, it’s history.

III. Was crucified. The agonizing
and humilit6atingly embarrassing means of Christ’s death.
Then, the Creed reminds us that He was crucified: “suffered
under Pontius Pilate, was crucified.” And in so doing, the Creed is reminding
us, it’s pointing us to the agonizing and humiliatingly embarrassing means of
the death of Christ. You see, the cross was the instrument of punishment for
the worst of criminals. It was for outcasts, and it represented the worst
punishment that the greatest judicial system in the world could mete out. And
to the Jewish people especially, it was a uniquely horrendous thing, the
ultimate sign of being cast out and cut off. And that’s precisely why God chose
it. He chose it, because on the cross, Jesus had to become an outcast so that
you could be gathered in. On the cross, Jesus had to bear God’s ban, His curse,
His anathema, the fullness of His wrath. He had to be treated as a sinner. You
remember how Paul puts it: “He who knew no sin, became sin, that we might
become the righteousness of God in Him.” Jesus on the cross had to be looked
upon by His Father as one who was in rebellion, as one who was deservingly of
judgment, because Jesus was there on the cross in our place. And the cross is
the instrument of that punishment, and the horror of the cross is not just in
the physical pain. You can feel that pain even as you read this passage. All
the things that went with it, even when the garments are placed on Him and
removed, you can feel the garments tearing His already wounded flesh from Him.
You feel it when that crown of thorns is described being pressed down on His
head and then you imagine the soldiers taking that reed and beating Him over the
head. The physical pain is obvious to you, but deeper than that, is that He is
the object of His Father’s wrath. He’s crucified. And through this means, we
are redeemed. The Creed presses you to meditate on that, to realize what the
cross was, to realize what the cross cost Him, to realize what the cross
accomplished.

IV. Dead. The reality of our the
death of our Lord.
And He was dead, the Creed says. The Creed drives home the
reality of the death of our Lord. We see Christ’s humiliation is His succumbing
to the power of death, and the Creed is determined to stress in every way the
reality of Jesus’ death, over against any tendency to downplay it or deny it.
Ever since the proclamation of the gospel began, and ever since people really
grasped who Jesus was claiming to be, and who He had demonstrated Himself to be,
the very Son of God, there have been some people who have had a hard time
swallowing the fact that Jesus died. Some had such a hard time that they denied
it, and they came up with different theories. “Right before they were going to
crucify Jesus, His Spirit went to heaven.” The Muslims teach that. “He wasn’t
really human; He only appeared to be a human, and so they couldn’t really
crucify Him.” All sorts of crazy theories have floated around for 19
centuries. And you see what the Creed is doing. The Creed is saying, “No, your
Jesus, your Savior, died. He knows what it’s like to die.” The Creed is
determined to stress in every way the reality of Jesus’ death. Jesus knows what
death is like. He’s been there. He’s done it.

Have you ever been with a friend standing over a
casket, and in a moment of honesty, when all of the superficial things we say to
one another, to comfort one another in the hour of death have been stripped
away, and in that moment of honesty the friend shares with you the fear that he
has because, no matter who it is, they don’t know what death is like. They’ve
never been there. And they wonder, “What’s this like for my loved one, this
friend, this father, this husband, this wife, this child?” And understand, they
won’t know what death is like until they go there. And isn’t it marvelously
comforting to know that Jesus does know what real death is like, he’s been
there, he was there before you, He was there for you, and because He has been
through death Himself, He knows how to lead you through the valley of the shadow
of it. He knows the portal, friends, He knows how to take you to it, He knows
how to take you through it, He knows how to take you somewhere else, because
He’s been there.

Isaac Watts has us sing, “Alas and did my Savior
bleed, and did my Sovereign die.” He doesn’t explicitly answer his question in
the hymn, but the answer is, “Yes, He really died.” In everything that it means
to die, He died.

Why is that important? Because the Bible says “The
wages of sin is death.” And so it was absolutely necessary that He taste death
in every aspect and ramification of it in order that He pay the wages of sin.
And any tendency to deny that he met the fullness of death is actually something
that undermines the gospel, because in facing and defeating death, and only
through facing and defeating death, was He able to remove the sting of death
which is sin.

V. And
buried. The totality and reality of the Lord’s death.
One last thing. The Creed goes on to say, “He was buried.”
Just as we’ve read in the passage before us today. It’s the Creed’s way of
continuing to emphasize and confirm the totality and reality of the Lord’s
death. He had a real, bodily death. The final episode of His preresurrection,
bodily activity in this world was burial. Laid in the tomb. Just like every
other person that dies. There’s some tender, tender words from Matthew there,
aren’t there?

It’s moving, when you think of this man Joseph, who
from a worldly sense had so much to lose. He was a wealthy man, but he had
become a follower of Jesus Christ. And he is brave enough to go to Pontius
Pilate and say, “Excuse me, Sir, I’d like Jesus’ body.” He could have lost
everything right there. All he wanted to do was bury his Lord. He could have
lost everything because he wanted to bury his Lord. And he does it.

And then there’s that beautiful — don’t you think of
yourself when you read verse 60 — “and he laid Jesus’ body in his own tomb.”
You see, Jesus was in the grave which was meant for you! And when He rose from
that grave, He made it absolutely certain that every one, every last person who
is united to Him by faith, will come out of the grave with Him. Hallelujah,
what a Savior. Let’s pray.

O Lord God, as we contemplate these simple summary
statements from the Apostles’ Creed, which just reflect the biblical teaching in
Matthew 27 that we see throughout Your Scriptures, we ask that You would
enlighten our hearts to see the greatness of Your grace, to believe the facts of
Your gospel, and to embrace the only Savior of God’s people, even Jesus Christ,
in whose name we pray, amen.

************************************************

A Guide to the Morning Service

The Worship of God

“There is more healing joy in five minutes of
worship than there is in five nights of revelry.” (A.W. Tozer)

The Reading of Scripture
Paul told Timothy “give attention to the public reading of Scripture” (1 Timothy
4:13) and so, at virtually every morning service, a minister reads a substantial
section of Scripture. The public reading of the Bible has been at the heart of
the worship of God since Old Testament times. In the reading of God’s word, He
speaks most directly to His people. We generally read consecutively though Bible
books. We are currently reading through the Book of Acts. Today’s passage
recounts the sobering story of Ananias and Sapphira, and the perhaps surprising
result of church growth!

The Sermon
We continue today in our study of the Apostles’ Creed. This morning, we consider
the phrase “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried.” Our
study aims to: (1) Anchor the specific assertions of the Creed in text of the
Scriptures
– we want to show clearly that the Bible teaches these truths.
(2) Address contemporary deterrents to belief – we want to respond to the
cultural forces currently arrayed against historic Christian teaching. (3)
Affirm Christian confidence in biblical truth
– we want to encourage
Christians to whole-heartedly embrace the teachings of Scripture despite modern
skepticism. (4) Arrest Christian defection from the biblical truth – we
want to respond to false teaching that often goes under the name “Christian.”
(5) Apply the truth to specific issues in the Christian life – we want to
show how good theology serves to lead to the good life. This study will be
timely for students soon leaving for college and university, and thus facing new
challenges to their faith. It will also help parents understand the contemporary
challenges to their children’s faith and to answer the tough questions their
young people are asking..

The Psalm and Hymns
O Worship the King (Psalm 104)

Our sung response to God’s call is based on a psalm of praise. Though most of
our congregation will recognize it as one of their favorite “hymns,” it is, in
fact, a Robert Grant paraphrase of a portion of Psalm 104. Grant was a member of
the British Parliament and an evangelical Anglican from Aberdeen, Scotland. This
hymn was written the year before he was appointed Governor of Bombay. The Book
of Psalms is God’s divinely inspired hymnbook, thus we always sing psalms along
with scripturally sound hymns in all our services.


O Sacred Head, Now Wounded

This hymn, with a text by Bernard and a tune by Bach, is a classic by any
standard! Here we seek to stir up within us hearts of praise full of Christ. The
author of this famous hymn, Bernard of Clairvaux, was the son of a knight who
served the Duke of Burgundy, France. Bernard was educated at Chatillon, where he
was distinguished by his studious and meditative habits. He entered the
monastery of Citeaux (the first Cistercian institution) in 1113. He rose to
eminence in Church politics and gained fame by “preaching the Crusades.” He was
well known in Rome, and founded 163 monasteries throughout Europe. Bernard,
despite his blind spots and flaws, was a man of exceptional piety and spiritual
vitality. Martin Luther, 400 years later, called him, “the best monk that ever
lived, whom I admire beyond all the rest put together.” He was a favorite of
John Calvin, who quotes him often. The text of this hymn prepares us for the
morning’s message.


Man of Sorrows! What a Name


Philip Bliss, composer of the tune to “When Peace Like a River” (or “It is Well
with My Soul”), wrote both the lyrics and the music to this well-known and loved
meditation on the atoning work of Jesus Christ. It is a wholly suitable response
to the morning sermon text and message.

This
guide to worship is written by the minister and provided to the congregation and
our visitors in order (1) to assist them in their worship by explaining why we
do what we do in worship and (2) to provide them background on the various
elements of the service.

© 2024 First Presbyterian Church.

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