CRITICAL NOTES
Matthew 27:35. That it might be fulfilled, etc.—Omitted in R.V. It ought not to be questioned that the words were interpolated by the copyists, from John 19:24 (Scrivener).
Matthew 27:36. They watched Him there.—See R.V. They remained on guard over Him.
Matthew 27:37. His accusation—This was what was technically known as the titulus—the bill, or placard, showing who the condemned person was, and why he was punished (Plumptre).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Matthew 27:35-44
On the cross.—After a long approach to the cross, we stand, in this passage, as it were, at its foot. What is the real nature—what was the supposed nature—of the Sight we see there?
I. Its true nature and force.—On the one side, this is almost too plain. The cross itself, for example, tells of nothing but shame. It was the death of the outlaw, the villain, the slave. No Roman citizen, do what he might, could be put to death in that way. Every one recognised it as involving a “curse” (Galatians 3:13). What was seen in front of the cross also testified the same thing. The garments belonging to a crucified man were the usual perquisites of those who put him to death. This mark of shame also was not omitted in the case of our Lord. As prophecy had noted of Him beforehand in this particular as in so many others, so it was done (Matthew 27:35). Nor was there wanting testimony of the same kind on each side of His cross. On either side of Him there hung those who were known to be guilty of crime (Matthew 27:38); and guilty of such crime, moreover, as made them fully worthy even of that infamous death (Luke 23:41). So plain was it so far that He was being treated then as one of the worst of mankind. On the other side, however, there was that in this sight which was correspondingly dark and occult. What was the meaning, e.g., of that conspicuous “title” which stood over His head? The usual purport of such inscriptions was an affirmation of guilt. They set forth in plain language the particular enormity for which the culprit beneath them had been condemned to that death. In this case, however, there was in reality (Matthew 27:37) no “accusation” at all. The chief priests, we are told (John 19:21), had noted this with no little concern. They had even besought Pilate in consequence—but besought him in vain—to have that “title” changed in some way (ibid., Matthew 27:22). So significant did this peculiarity seem as well in his eyes as in theirs. It was simply repeating what he had said all along (Matthew 27:23-24). That is why he kept to it still. Nor does it seem to have been less important, it is to be noticed next, in the eyes of all who tell us the tale. The precise words objected to and yet retained, are put down as these: “THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.” It is worthy of note that all the four Evangelists, comparatively brief as all their accounts are, tell us of this title. It is as worthy of note that no two of them do so in quite the same words. It is more worthy of note that, notwithstanding these obvious dissimilarities between them, they all agree in comprising in their descriptions of the title, the above-specified words. In all these ways, therefore, we are pointed to them as specially worthy of note. And we can see, also, for ourselves, that they are so in a kind of mysterious way, when we compare them with those other plain points which we noted before. Taken in combination with these, how surprising indeed is the language spoken by this virtual acquittal of Christ! How extraordinary and perplexing the announcement it makes! An acknowledged King numbered with malefactors! Perfect innocence dying as guilt! God’s Holy One in the position of the worst of mankind!
II. Its supposed nature, as seen at the time.—What was thought of it, in the first place, by the ordinary observer? Such would be those mere “passers-by” of whom we read in Matthew 27:39—men who had taken no special part in bringing about the crucifixion of Jesus, but had heard something of the particulars of the case from common report, and had connected these with what they now saw. To them the contrast would be so violent as to be even a matter of jest (see Matthew 27:40). That is all that they would see in that sight; a pretentious career, brought to an ignominious—not to say a ridiculous—end. Not unlike this were the thoughts of those who were most accountable for that sight. To them what they saw was only convincing proof of what they had all along said. A complete answer, e.g., to all the miracles which were said to have been wrought by His power. Even if such things were true, they were fully disposed of as proofs of His mission by this total absence of miraculous power at a time like the present, which clearly called for it most. So also of His recent pretension (ch. 21, etc.) to be King of the Jews. That was equally disposed of by His present inability to come down from the cross. And so, finally, even of the very piety that had been heard in His words. If that were a real thing, why did God now let Him remain on that cross (see Matthew 27:42-43)? All that they saw, in short, was, in their judgment, simply condemnation of Him! And even those, lastly, who were suffering with Him saw nothing more in that sight; nothing more, at first, although one of the two saw much more indeed in the end (Luke 23:39-43). But, for the time present, in the eyes of both of them, there was nothing but despair in that “sight.” Even these miscreants only saw in it evidence that He was as bad as themselves! Did they not imply, indeed, by the “reproaches” they “cast on Him,” that He was even worse than themselves?
The story furnishes us with illustrations:—
1. Of the utter blindness of sin.—Two vivid truths, as we have seen, were inscribed on that cross: innocence, on the one hand; guilt, on the other. All the eyes of all the sinners who gazed on it, saw only the latter. The light of the former was but darkness to them.
2. Of the partial blindness, even of faith.—How many Christians there are who do not see to this day the full “guilt” of the cross! The guilt implied in the fact that Christ ever came to that cross! And that, being there, He was allowed to remain there, both by God and Himself? Why else was it that He did not reply to His enemies by coming down from the cross? Surely it was sin, though not His own sin, which kept Him up there!
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Matthew 27:35. Christ’s sufferings unique.—The unique character of Christ’s sufferings lies—
1. In the contrast between His heavenly healthiness and sensibility and this hellish torture.
2. In the contrast between His holiness, innocence, philanthropy and Divine dignity, and this experiencing of human contempt, rejection, and of apparent abandonment by God. Above all,
3. In His sympathy with humanity, which changes this judgment to which the world was surrendered into His own, and so transforms it into a vicarious suffering.—J. P. Lange, D.D.
Crucifixion.—Dr. Christian F. G. Richter, a pious physician of the Orphan House in Halle, who died in 1711, thus describes the physical sufferings of the crucifixion:
1. On account of the unnatural and immovable position of the body and the violent extension of the arms, the least motion produced the most painful sensation all over the body, but especially on the lacerated back and the pierced members.
2. The nails caused constantly increasing pain on the most sensitive parts of the hands and feet.
3. Inflammation set in at the pierced members and wherever the circulation of the blood was obstructed by the violent tension of the body, and increased the agony and an intolerable thirst.
4. The blood rushed to the head and produced the most violent headache.
5. The blood in the lungs accumulated, pressing the heart, swelling all the veins, and caused nameless anguish. Loss of blood through the open wounds would have shortened the pain; but the blood clotted and ceased flowing. Death generally set in slowly, the muscles, veins, and nerves gradually growing stiff, and the vital powers shrinking from exhaustion.
Gambling.—Look upon the picture presented in this verse, and endeavour to realise its frightful significance. There is nothing that can subdue the passion of the hardened gambler. Never, perhaps, did the hideousness of the gambling mania receive a more tragic illustration. We are apt to think that the more frantic forms of gambling are past incidents in the world’s history. Whenever we wish to glorify the nineteenth century we choose the eighteenth as a convenient preface. The picture of gambling in the eighteenth century is as bad as it is possible to conceive. It was the century in which Charles James Fox ruined himself with gambling debts, the century in which family after family with historic names were dishonoured, broken up, destroyed, by gambling follies. Gambling, no doubt, at the present day is more decorously conducted, but it is even more universally practised now than in the eighteenth century. But what is gambling? Here is the definition of it which is given us by the first philosopher of our time; and you who do not respect the Bible will at least respect, perhaps, the intellectual thoughts of Herbert Spencer. “Gambling is a kind of action by which pleasure is obtained at the cost of pain to another. It affords no equivalent to the general good; the happiness of the winner implies the misery of the loser.” The desire to possess money is a natural and not necessarily a pernicious desire. But two things must be remembered: first, to get money by honourable means; and second, that any possession of money which does not contribute to the common social good is infamous and evil. This is the indictment that I would bring against gambling:—
I. It renders men morally callous.—hardens them as no other vice does; it shuts their eyes to almost all the things that are beautiful in life; it fills them with a frantic passion for gain.
II. It destroys the very radical principles of honour and honesty.—There is a form of business—if it may be called by that honoured name—on the Stock Exchange, which is nothing but gambling.
III. It excites the fatal passion of cupidity.
Conclusion.—To get money without work is always a perilous thing. You see it in the spendthrift who inherits money from a penurious father, and who gets rid of it with all the rapidity he can. There is a proverb in Lancashire that “From shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves is only three generations,” and it is a proverb which applies to many places besides Lancashire. But it is far worse to get money by gambling. All sense of pleasure or value in the possession of money is lost when it is got by gambling, when a man finds by a little craft and cunning it is possible for him to float like scum on the surface of society and to have no root down in anything. It unsettles the mind, it destroys intellectual taste. I defy any youth who has once acquired a passion for gambling to apply his mind to any study, any hard task that will better him in mind and which will raise him in society. It destroys self-respect. It renders you, sooner or later, morally callous, spiritually deaf. And it is not surprising that it does all this when we recollect that in the light of the teaching of Jesus Christ it is a profoundly immoral act; for the teaching of Jesus Christ is that money is a stewardship.—W. J. Dawson.
The degradation of gambling.—Charles Dickens was not a Puritanical or Pharisaical writer, was he? Read what he has to say upon Doncaster races as he saw them. George Eliot was not a Puritanical or a Pharisaical writer. Read her description of the gambling tables which you will find in Daniel Deronda. Robert Louis Stevenson and Thomas Hardy are novelists who have not yet been accused of being Puritanical or Pharisaical. Two of the most extraordinary Chapter s in the greatest books of these artists are Chapter s which describe what Stevenson calls “the disgusting vice of gambling.” And the daily papers are not over Puritanical or Pharisaical; they simply chronicle the time. But even the Press has become frightened at last with the horrible growth of cupidity which is being fostered at the present hour by those who ought to know better, for they profess to provide journals which elevate and instruct and amuse. Or, if you do not care to take evidence of this kind, go and see for yourselves. Look at the sort of faces that one sees on the racecourse—the bestial, the foxy, the degraded. Travel in the same railway-carriage with habitual gamblers and hear what their talk is like. I stayed, some time ago, in one of the fairest of English cathedral cities. My friend, who is certainly not a Puritan, looking at the broad stretch beyond the city wall, said, “In a few weeks that green turf will be covered with the scum of the earth, with faces which haunt you afterwards like a dream of hell.” Is that strong language? No stronger than the language which Charles Dickens used about Doncaster racecourse. I have known such mad debauches after races, such diabolical impurities, that they are unnameable; they are all but unutterable. The gambling passion is the most insensate of all passions; it does more to render the heart callous than any other; it does not end with itself, but incites into diabolical activity every lust and passion of depravity; and the soldiers gambling at the feet of the dying Christ afford us just the type of moral deformity to which the lust of unearned gain reduces men.—Ibid.
Matthew 27:34-35. The inhumanity of man.—The Roman soldiers sat down at the foot of the cross. Some one of them took the dice out of his pocket, which was carried commonly by all Romans of that class. Another produced a bottle of cheap sour wine. There, beneath the shadow of the cross, with the blood trickling down from the burning arms and feet of the Crucified, they drank and gambled for the garments of the One that died to save them. I know not where you will find in history a more striking illustration of the inhumanity of man than in that scene—the drinking and the gambling at the foot of Christ’s cross.—L. Abbott, D.D.
Matthew 27:36. The Roman soldiers on guard.—They were a little tired with their march and their work, and they had to stop there on guard for an indefinite time, with nothing to do but two more prisoners to crucify; so they take a rest, and idly keep watch over Him till He shall die. How possible it is to look at Christ’s sufferings, and see nothing! These rude legionaries gazed for hours on what has touched the world ever since, and what angels desired to look into, and saw nothing but a dying Jew. They thought about the worth of the clothes, or about how long they would have to stop there, and, in the presence of the most stupendous fact in the world’s history, were all unmoved. We, too, may gaze on the cross, and see nothing.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Matthew 27:37. The inscription on the cross.—A better inscription for the cross the Apostles themselves could not have devised. “This is Jesus,” the Saviour—the Name above every name. How it must have cheered the Saviour’s heart to know that it was there! “This is Jesus, the King,” never more truly King than when this writing was His only crown. “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews,” despised and rejected of them now, but Son of David none the less, and yet to be claimed and crowned and rejoiced in, when at last “all Israel shall be saved.”—J. M. Gibson, D.D.
Matthew 27:39-43. The scoffing wayfarers.—The passers-by were representative men.—
I. Reason of their conduct.—
1. Christ was unpopular—they went with the stream.
2. It gratified their vanity—“we are wise, open-eyed men.”
3. They felt the bitterest hatred—practical Christianity always repulsive.
II. The heinousness of their conduct.—
1. They misrepresented His words.
2. They derided His claims.
3. They jested at His agonies.
III. The folly of their conduct.—
1. Thought there was force in their argument.
2. Imagined themselves secure.
3. What did they gain?
IV. Treatment their conduct received.—Silence.
1. The disciples did not denounce them.
2. Nor did the crowd protest.
3. Nor did Jesus speak—His public sayings were ended; He is silent, but observant (see Matthew 12:36.)—Stems and Twigs.
Matthew 27:39. Running with the stream!—How many of these scoffers, to whom death cast no shield round the Object of their poor taunts, had shouted themselves hoarse on the Monday, and waved palm branches that were not withered yet! What had made the change? There was no change. They were running with the stream in both their hosannas and their jeers, and the one were worth as much as the other. They had been tutored to cry, “Blessed is He that cometh!” and now they were tutored to repeat what had been said at the trial about destroying the temple. The worshippers of success are true to themselves when they mock at failure.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Matthew 27:40. The first prayer to the Crucified One.—I. Think of the speech as spoken by those who were passing by.—Their complete phrase was, “If Thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.” It was no easy thing for these men to believe that Christ was the Son of God.
II. Think of this challenge as spoken by the leaders of the people.—It is plain that their minds were not easy. The mental questions would arise: “Have we gone too far? Is it possible that we have made a tremendous mistake? What if, after all, this should be the Christ of God, the King of Israel?” To keep down their doubts, to keep up their courage, they drew together in close conference, and talked one to another in answer to unspoken language of horrible misgiving and surmise. “Is that the Saviour? He cannot save Himself—that the King! He is not even King over that cross.”
III. Think of the cry as spoken by the soldiers.—For them the word “Christ” was jargon; the word “Israel” had no meaning; but the word “King” roused them to a rough and terrible play. To them it was rare sport to make believe that this was a coronation day, and grimly ridiculous to speak of a king crowned with thorns, and nailed upon his throne; and they, therefore, caught up the banter, and joined in the chorus of infamy.
IV. Think of this cry as joined in by one, if not both, of the malefactors.—It is at least certain that one of the dying men struck in with the cruel cry.
A storm of voices rang out the call, “Come down from the cross.” The only answer to this exasperating demand was a kingly, expressive silence.
1. It was the silence of power.
2. The silence of intensity in resistance of temptation.
3. He was silent because it was a moral impossibility that He should have come down from the cross.
4. It was the silence of One who was doing a great work, and who would not stop to answer trivial words about it.—C. Stanford, D.D.
Matthew 27:42. Christ’s enemies condemned out of their own mouth.—
I. Their affirmation.—Sublimely true, and it condemns them. “He saved others.” This testimony condemns them:—
1. For their base ingratitude.
2. For their daring impiety.
II. Their denial.—Gloriously true, and it condemns them. “Himself He cannot save.” In the Divinest sense He could not save Himself. His moral weakness here is His glory. He could not, because He had undertaken to die, and He could not break His word. He could not, because the salvation of the world depended upon His death. The greatest man on earth is the man who cannot be unkind, etc. The glory of the omnipotent God is that He cannot lie. Learn:
1. The worst men may give utterance to the greatest truths. These murderers of Christ here proclaim
(1) Christ as a Saviour: “He saved others “;
(2) Christ as a Sacrifice: “Himself He cannot save.” Not a coerced sacrifice, but a voluntary one.
2. The best men are often most glorious in their weakness. “Himself He cannot save.” Godly tradesmen are too weak to make fortunes at the expense of honesty, etc. The grandest man on earth is the man who is too weak to be untrue, ungenerous, and self-seeking.—Homilist.
The cross a throne.—O blind leaders of the blind! that death which seemed to them to shatter His royalty really established it. His cross is His throne of saving power, by which He sways hearts and wills, and because of it He receives from the Father universal dominion, and every knee shall bow to Him. It is just because He did not come down from it that we believe on Him. On His head are many crowns; but, however many they be, they all grow out of the crown of thorns. The true kingship is absolute command over willingly submitted spirits; and it is His death which bows us before Him in raptures of glad love; which counts submission, liberty, and sacrifice blessed. He has the right to command because He has given Himself for us, and His death wakes all-surrendering and all-expecting faith.—A. Maclaren, D.D.