The Defeat of Evil (Part 1)

Introduction
About three weeks ago, I wrestled with the nature and origin of evil and suffering in the first three blog posts. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. On the 6th day, God created two human beings in His image unlike anything else He created previously. In Genesis 3, both Adam and Evil fell into sin; Eve was deceived, but Adam fully understood what he was doing when he took the forbidden fruit and ate. There are three answers to the origin of evil and suffering: (1) Satan is alive and well on planet earth, (2) We are a sinful and cursed race, and (3) All of creation is cursed. The good news is that God is using Satan, sin, and a cursed creation to accomplish His purposes by defeating evil.

In Genesis 3:15 God promised to defeat evil: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Someone will come who will destroy the devil and his works; that someone was Jesus Christ. But how did He do that? What I would like to do is see how the utter evilness of evil, the utter goodness of God, and the utter sovereignty of God all come together at the cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified. What I would like to do is look at the death of Jesus from the three vantage points that we see in Acts 2:22-24.

The Utter Evilness of Evil at the Cross
In his sermon to 3000 plus people in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, Peter gives three reasons why Jesus was nailed to the cross. One of those reasons is placed upon those gathered for the day of Pentecost: “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst… you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”

When we behold Golgotha the day Jesus died, we see evil at its worst. Jesus, an innocent man, was sentenced to death in the most humiliating and horrific way. All throughout Jesus’ life, people were trying to kill him. When he was a toddler, Herod had all the children two years old and younger murdered in Bethlehem in an effort to keep Him from growing up. When one reads the four Gospels in the Bible, we learn of many attempts made by the religious leaders to take his life. And of course, you recall that it was Judas who betrayed him by accepting a bribe of 30 pieces of silver to hand Jesus over to them.

It wasn’t because Jesus was a criminal who deserved to die that led to the persistent attempts by others to take His life, for He was totally and completely innocent. In fact, after Jesus was condemned, Judas brought back the 30 pieces of silver he received from the religious leaders saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood” (Matt. 27:4); he then committed suicide by hanging himself.

Think for a moment of the magnitude of Judas’ sin. He witnessed the many healings; saw Jesus hush the stormy seas to sleep; after Lazarus was buried, Jesus raised him from the dead. I am sure Judas was shocked when Jesus took the two fish and five loves of bread and feed more than five thousand people… Judas even helped pass out the baskets! Judas was also well aware of the intentions of religious leaders to have Jesus killed when he betrayed him for thirty pieces of silver… the price of a common slave. Judas handed over not only an innocent man to be killed, he handed the Son of God, the Holy One of Israel, the Lord of Glory, the spotless Lamb of God to be murdered by lawless men.

Judas gathered a band of soldiers and some officers to take Jesus by force. Upon finding Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Judas pointed out Jesus to the soldiers with a kiss. Jesus was arrested and tried… illegally.

Jesus faced six trials; none of the trials were performed according to the laws of the land. The first person Jesus is brought before is Annas (who was still upset that Jesus drove the people and money-changers out of the temple –Annas oversaw the money changers). Jesus was not required to answer any of Annas’ questions, but when he did answer he was struck by one of the soldiers… something that was forbidden during a Jewish trial. Annas then sent Jesus to Caiaphas the high priest where some false witnesses were gathered to incriminate Jesus (still under the cloak of night).

Up to this point Jesus remained mostly silent, when Caiaphas got frustrated he asked a question in such a way that any pious Jew was required to answer: “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God” (Matt. 26:63). So, Jesus answered the high priest: “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matt. 26:64), which was a direct reference to him being the Messiah as promised in Daniel 7. So, they got what they were hoping for… words from Jesus’ lips that were in their opinion blasphemous. Caiaphas condemned Jesus, a violation of Jewish law that required the whole council to vote, and the gathered people spit on him and beat him.

Jesus... tired, beaten, humiliated and bleeding, faced a third trial before the Jewish Supreme Court known as the Sanhedrin. This was the shortest of the three Jewish trials; they asked Him if he was the Messiah, to which He answered “yes.”

The final three trials Jesus faced were not justified either. In Rome there was a three phase process that led to either an acquittal or punishment: (1) accusation, (2) interrogation, and (3) a verdict. In Jesus’ fourth trial Pilate heard the accusations against Jesus but upon interrogating him, found him to be innocent. To get out of the jam he found himself in, he sent Jesus to his life-long enemy Herod, but the only thing Herod felt Jesus deserved was humiliation and mocking; this was Jesus’ fifth trial. Herod sent Jesus back to Pilate to receive a sixth and final trail.

It was at Jesus’ sixth and final trial that Pilate found himself trapped. He really believed Jesus was innocent. Pilate tried several avenues to get out of declaring Jesus guilty, so the first thing he offered was to have Jesus chastised and beat. Jesus was taken to a place for flogging where they stripped him naked before a whole group of soldiers. Two soldiers trained in the art of scourging flogged him with what was called a Cat-of-Nine-tails; each tip was laced with sharp bone and metal for the purpose of tearing apart the flesh. Jesus was flogged; his skin and muscle was torn to pieces, and when Pilate brought Him before the people he was one bloody mess.

If you thought things could not get any more worse, they did. It was the Passover and it was customary to release one prisoner, so Pilate gave the crowds a choice: (1) Jesus of Nazareth, or (2) Barabbas: a notorious criminal guilty of murder. When given the option, the crowd chose to free Barabbas. When Pilate asked why, the only response that he received was a riotous crowd screaming: “Let him be crucified!” “His blood be on us and our children!” Jesus was handed over to die in the most violent, humiliating, and painful death known in human history – crucifixion. As the soldiers prepared Jesus for death, they took his bloody and torn body, put a scarlet robe on him, placed a crown of thorns on his head, put a reed in his right hand, and mocked him by bowing down and saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” They then struck him on the head, spit on him, and led Him away as He carried His cross. On His way to Golgotha, as He carried His cross, he was further mocked, spit upon, and beaten. When he finally reach the place where He would be crucified, they stripped him naked again, nailed him to the cross, all in a manner to amplify intense humiliation and pain for all to see. Even while on the cross the Son of God was further mocked by the religious leaders as well as the two criminals crucified next to Him. Shortly before His death, Jesus cried “It is finished!” The Bible tells us that he gave up His Spirit and died. Man had committed the ultimate evil… he killed the Son of God.

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