Jesus predicts that He would die and be raised again but the disciples just could not understand such a concept. They knew the Messiah would live forever. The Bible told them so. As a result they were not prepared for what Jesus was telling them would happen. No one expected Jesus to die and once He die no one expected He would be raised again. Peter even protested the idea and Jesus called him an agent of Satan. This was the ultimate temptation for Jesus - that He would not need to die to reveal the full extent of God's love for us and enable us to believe that we are included in His Kingdom.
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SHOW NOTES
A MESSIAH THAT WOULD NOT DIE
19 “And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.”
A key means one can enter, or one has the authority to use a protected object. A key that is never used looses its value. Having the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven means that we have entrance for ourselves and others. We can open heaven for the people we meet. Here are some examples of Believers who used these keys.
Peter opened the door for the Jews
Acts 3:19-20 (NLT) Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away. 20 Then times of refreshment will come from the presence of the Lord, and he will again send you Jesus, your appointed Messiah.
Paul & Barnabas open the door for Gentiles
Acts 14:27 Upon arriving in Antioch, they (Paul and Barnabas) called the church together and reported everything God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles, too.
Isaiah prophecies that Jesus will have these keys.
Isaiah 22:22 I will give him the key to the house of David—the highest position in the royal court. When he opens doors, no one will be able to close them; when he closes doors, no one will be able to open them.
Jesus confirms that he has these keys.
Revelation 3:7 “Write this letter to the angel of the church in Philadelphia. This is the message from the one who is holy and true, the one who has the key of David. What he opens, no one can close; and what he closes, no one can open: Revelation 1:18 I am the living one. I died but look—I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.
“Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven”
—It is the Believer’s privilege to bind the hearts of sinners to the heart of God with the gospel.
“Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven”
—When Believers share the gospel with sinners they are loosed from their guilt and insecurity. Whoever believes and holds to Christ’s Word, heaven stands open to him, hell is shut, the devil is imprisoned, sins are forgiven, and he is a child of eternal life. That is what this book teaches you—the Holy Scriptures—and no other book on earth.—Martin Luther (WA 48:155)
20 Then he sternly warned the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
If the people grasped that Jesus was the Messiah they would come to him for food, healing and deliverance from the Romans and his opportunities for teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven would be severely restricted by the crowds.
Jesus Predicts His Death
21 From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead.
How did Jesus know he would suffer and die?
At age 10 there is a revolt at Sepphoris 5 km from Nazareth. 2000 Jews are crucified. Jesus would remember the smell of the rotting corpses even if he never saw the victims. He knew that if he was handed over to the Romans the only charge that would stick would be treason. Sepphoris was predictive of what the Romans did to traitors.
At age 12 Jesus was dialoguing with the Temple Teachers. What about? Could it be that he was intrigued by the killing of all the lambs and especially the goat on the Day of Atonement?
Jesus understood the implication of the story of Jonah. Jonah knew he had to be thrown overboard to calm the storm (Jonah 1:12). Jesus understood that to calm the “storm of sin” he would need to be“thrown overboard” by sinners into the sea of death.
Jesus was familiar with Isaiah 53:
53:8 NLT Unjustly condemned; he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants,that his life was cut short in midstream. But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people.
Jesus and the sacrificial system
It is noteworthy that Jesus never referred to the temple services to substantiate his death.
Much more than the death of Jesus was required. It was not enough for him to die privately of stress in Gethsemane. He had to be publicly rejected, tortured and executed. It had to be seen that Jesus’ deathwas at the hands of Satan using sinners as his tools (Romans 4:25).
Jesus understood the remedy for sin would be his submission to the will of sinners. He understood that he would have to lay down his life. “Do not resist and evil person” (Matthew 5:39) implied that Jesus would have to be at the mercy of the evilest being, that is the devil.
John 10:18 NLT No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.” (John 10:11, 15, 17; 1 John 3:16)
Peter could not grasp Messiah’s suffering and resurrection
22 But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!”
Jesus had evaded arrest and death on numerous occasions and Peter assumed it would always be this way.
1. Herod had attempted to kill baby Jesus Matthew 2:13 “Now when they had gone, behold, an angel of the Lord *appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him.””
At Nazareth Jesus had avoided being thrown over the cliff (Luke 4:29).
John records the following attempts on Jesus’ life:
You are of your father, the devil—they pick up stones to stone him (John 8:59).
My Father and I are one—They pick up stones (John 10:31).
I AM the Son of God—They tried to arrest him (John 10:39).
Peter was not unique in thinking that Jesus was invincible.
Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection was NOT expected by Israel in 30 C.E.
Every time Jesus’ suffering and death is referred to in the New Testament it is stated, “just as it was predicted in the scriptures,” or a similar statement is made. This is because the suffering and death of the Messiah was not anticipated by the Jews in Jesus’ day. The Old Testament passages which predicted his death were in plain sight but hidden because it was not what was wanted by the Rabbi’s or the Jews of the day.
That Messiah had to suffer was unbelievable for Jesus’ contemporaries and scriptural authority was needed to establish its credibility.
1. The crowd did not anticipate Messiah’s death and resurrection:John 12:31-34 NLT
“The time for judging this world has come, when Satan, the ruler of this
world, will be cast out. 32 And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to
myself.” 33 He said this to indicate how he was going to die.
34 The crowd responded, “We understood from Scripture that the Messiah would live forever. How can you say the Son of Man will die? Just who is this Son of Man, anyway?”
Here is one OT scripture that ostensibly supported this idea.
2 Samuel 7:12-13 NLT For when you (David) die and are buried with your ancestors, I will raise up one of your descendants, your own offspring, and I will make his kingdom strong. 13 He is the one who will build a house—a temple—for my name. And I will secure his royal throne forever.
2. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea did not anticipate Jesus’ resurrection
John 19:38 NLT Afterward Joseph of Arimathea, who had been a secret disciple of Jesus
(because he feared the Jewish leaders), asked Pilate for permission to take down Jesus’ body. When Pilate gave permission, Joseph came and took the body away. 39 With him came Nicodemus, the man who had come to Jesus at night. He brought about seventy-five pounds of perfumed ointment made from myrrh and aloes. 40 Following Jewish burial custom, they wrapped Jesus’ body with the spices in long sheets of linen cloth.
This weight of embalming material indicated Jesus was to be dead for a long time.
3. The women who came to anoint Jesus’ body did not anticipate Jesus’ resurrection
Mark 16:1-2 NLT Saturday evening, when the Sabbath ended, Mary Magdalene, Mary the
mother of James, and Salome went out and purchased burial spices so they could anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on Sunday morning, just at sunrise, they went to the tomb.
4. The eleven disciples stubbornly refused to believe Jesus was resurrected
Mark 16:14 NLT Still later he appeared to the eleven disciples as they were eating together. He rebuked them for their stubborn unbelief because they refused to believe those who had seen him (the women) after he had been raised from the dead.
5. The two disciples on road to Emmaus did not believe Messiah would suffer and die:
Luke 24:19-21 NLT “What things?” Jesus asked. “The things that happened to Jesus, the man from Nazareth,” they said. “He was a prophet who did powerful miracles, and he was a mighty teacher in the eyes of God and all the people. 20 But our leading priests and other religious leaders handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. 21 We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. This all happened three days ago.
It seems clear then that the concept of a suffering and dying Messiah was absent from Israel at this time in their history. We now turn to Jesus for his understanding of his suffering and death.
The Jewish Leaders were afraid that Jesus would seem to have resurrected.
Thus, they wanted the tomb secured so the disciples could not steal away the body.
Peter as an Agent of Satan
23 Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”
Satan is the liar and the murderer (John 8:44). He was working through Peter to influence Jesus to go back to Galilee to avoid the danger in Jerusalem. Jesus had previously left Judea and gone back to Galilee and Peter is encouraging Jesus to do so again. Jesus now tries to get his disciples to understand the Kingdom of Heaven as opposed to the Kingdom of this World.
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. 25 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if yougive up your life for my sake, you will save it. 26 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?[c Is anything worth more than your soul?
Jesus was thinking aloud. This is a perilous situation he is in. If he avoided the cross, he would be denying or contradicting his own soul or integrity. He had come to earth to love and serve his human friends. A horrible death at the hands of humans was the only way to reveal the intensity and depth of divine love for them and for the watching cosmos. It was the only way to expose evil for what it will do to the innocent lover of human hearts.
27 For the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father and will judge all people according to their deeds.
This judgment is described in 25:31-46 in the parable of the sheep and goats. The outcome of the judgment is not determined by Jesus but is the consequence of the life lived. It is not about salvation but about the rewards or consequences of our lives. Revelation 5:15-17 demonstrates that the wicked have refused the gift of salvation and do not want to be with Jesus and his Father. It is the refusal of the gift which prevents one desiring to be with Jesus. Humans make this decision. God does not save anyone
against their will.
28 And I tell you the truth, some standing here right now will not die before they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.”
Jesus meant that at least Peter, James and John would witness his transfiguration on the mountain. Or he might have meant that his coming was possible in the decades after his resurrection. Christians might have delayed this event as the Israelites delayed their entrance into the Promised Land. Or he could have meant that the growth of the Kingdom would confirm that Jesus was the divine Messiah.
Every generation of Christians has hoped and believed that Jesus would literally return before they died. This was their wish but they had no evidence for this expectation. We must make sure our expectations are in harmony with the Bible.
Ian Hartley, November 2024.
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