Jesus on His Way Up to Jerusalem
and the Cross
PART II
What Jesus Prophesied Walking to Calvary.
By Jan Lilleby
If you already read the first article, you may have noticed that I left out those details where Jesus spoke to the onlookers/multitudes watching the Roman executioners escorting Jesus up to Calvary. And what Jesus spoke to Pilate.
Therefore I wrote this PART II to fill in those details with my comments and thoughts.
I find it proper to use John 19:1-11 to lead us into this crucifixion drama, and with more details than in the first article. (Ampl. Bible, I may drop some of the clambers though) –
“So then Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him. 2: And the soldiers, having twisted together a crown of thorns, put it on His head, and threw a purple cloak around Him. 3: And they kept coming to Him and saying, Hail, King of the Jews! And they struck Him with the palms of their hands. 4: Then Pilate went out again and said to them, See, I bring Him out to you, so that you may know that I find no fault in Him. 5: So Jesus came out wearing the thorny crown and purple cloak, and Pilate said to them, See, (here is) the Man! 6: When the chief priests and attendants saw Him, they cried out, Crucify Him! Pilate said to them, Take Him yourselves and crucify Him, for I find no fault (crime) in Him. 7: The Jews answered him, We have a law, and according to that law He should die, because He has claimed and made Himself out to be the Son of God. 8: So, When Pilate heard this said, he was more alarmed and awestricken and afraid than before. 9: He went into the judgement hall again and said to Jesus, Where are You from? But Jesus did not answer him. 10: So Pilate said to Him, will you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you and I have power to crucify You? 11: Jesus answered, You would not have any power or authority whatsoever against Me if it were not given you from above. For this reason the sin and guilt of the one who delivered Me over to you is greater.”
Jesus, the defendant and Pilate, the Judge
Can a Judge – in any civilized society – just have a defendant beaten and flogged, like we just read above? Or, perhaps even worse: Have his police/court attendants mock the ‘perpetrator’ and slapping his face or any other insults they would like to utter? Of course not!
Wouldn’t a Judge in our time rather follow all the correct procedures, hearing the prosecutor reading what the defendant is accused of, and then having the defense lawyer oppose it, trying to tackle the accusations? We have all seen this over and over again as most of us have watched TV-series and Police shows – taking us through many court-scenes, and well-rehearsed actors playing their parts as if it all were real-life stories.
But with Jesus it was the other way around, - He was the only innocent SINLESS person not only in the court rooms of Pilate, but in the entire world.
However, Pilate, he was a corrupted governor and his ‘police-force’ a gang of hoodlums and brutal thugs clad in the standard uniforms of the Emperor’s army.
He was also totally ignorant of whom he was charging, but he could obviously feel something was wrong with the whole set-up…and Pilate got ‘cold feet’ – he tried to back out, pushing this delicate matter back into the hands of the Jewish priesthood and counsel who had brought Jesus there. He knew that he was being manipulated by that slick religious flock, as they wanted Rome to take the blame for executing Jesus.
Verse 8 tells us that they wanted Him dead, since He said of Himself that He was the Son of God, and because of this we find that Pilate got scared and shaky. (Is Jesus a God-person?? He healed a lot of sick people, the rumor goes) – remember, Pilate was part of a civilization which had several false idols, inherited from Greek Mythology. And much superstition had its grasp on them.
In addition to this, Pilates’ wife told him she had dreamt of Jesus and warned him against any actions in that regard (Mat. 27:19) – she said that Jesus was innocent and upright.
Here it is nice to know that we – in the Biblical history – have the well-known words of Peter telling us whom (among humankind) to blame for the crucifixion of Jesus, - even knowing that the whole drama was planned and orchestrated by God Almighty,
Acts 2:23 – “This Jesus, when delivered up according to the definite and fixed purpose and settled plan and foreknowledge of God, you (Jews) crucified and put out of the way (killing Him) by the hands of lawless and wicked men.”
Peter spelled it out for them, didn’t he?
So Jesus knew this fact, and therefore spoke it straight forward to Pilate, like we read in John 19:11 – Rome had no power to decide anything in regard to Jesus being crucified or not – Pilate had only so much power as God Almighty saw fit to allow Rome taking these actions. In other words, Rome was entirely in the hands of God, and could not do anything about it. Rome had to do what pleased God, period. I recommend Rom. 13 to you, and Paul’s teaching on authorities and rulers (Rom. 13:1-7). This sort of rule shall come back and will be exercised as the Great Tribulation comes upon Israel in the end times.
Jesus prophesying to those who stood by the path to Calvary
Some believers have the idea that the Great Tribulation described in Revelation (and also in Mat. 24) will come upon the entire world. And that thought may have emerged from out of bad translations of the Bible. Especially this goes for the Revelation Book.
In Rev. 13 we find expressions like “…all inhabitants of the earth will fall down in adoration and pay him (Anti-Christ, the beast) homage.”
But this is simply not true. Only the inhabitants of Israel in the time of Anti-Christ’s rule in the time of the Great Tribulation, will be such ones who will fall down and adore him, a false Messiah.
That is why it is convenient to learn what Jesus said of this. He told the people along the pathway to Calvary of whom those would be – suffering the Great Tribulation. His words are entirely in accordance to what we find in Rev. 6:16 – of horrified Jews calling out to the mountains to hide them from God’s punishing wrath.
Luke 23:27-31 say,
“And there accompanied (Jesus) a great multitude of the people, (including) women who bewailed and lamented Him. 28: But Jesus, turning toward them, said, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29: For behold, the days are coming during which they will say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not borne, and the breasts that have never nursed (babies). 30: Then they will begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us! and to the hills, Cover us!”
Rev. 6:15, 16 - “Then the kings of the earth (read: Land, Israel) and their noblemen and their magnates and their military chiefs and the wealthy and the strong and slave or free hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 16: and they CALLED TO THE MOUNTAINS AND THE ROCKS, FALL ON US AND HIDE US FROM THE FACE OF HIM WHO SITS ON THE THRONE AND FROM THE DEEP-SEATED INDIGNATION AND WRATH OF THE LAMB (JESUS).”
It was Jesus that revealed to John all of which is written in the Revelation Book, and He revealed to John what it would be like – the very same thing He warned Israel’s people of as He walked up to Calvary.
Jesus told them not to weep for Him, but for themselves AND FOR THEIR CHILDREN….and it will be their children, Israel’s people in the Great Tribulation, who will suffer these horrors.
Notice: They confess aloud and in public that they know who is sitting at the Throne in heaven, sending those plagues and punishments: Jesus, The Lamb of God, He Who suffered death on the cross. But they would not repent and turn to Him in faith, as we learn from the Book of Acts. They stubbornly and rebelliously refused to listen to the apostles of Jesus, and the nation fell away from God. Paul was the one who spoke that final judgement against them in Rome, Acts 28:25-28. He quoted them Isaiah 6 of their spiritual blindness and deafness and lack of understanding and repentance.
So, I repeat, Jesus explicitly told the Jewish people, first in person as He walked up to the cross, and a few years later He repeated this warning by having John write it all down in his Revelation Book. Not a punishment to come upon the entire world, no, - only to come upon those who had Him crucified, namely Israel.
Verse 17 of Rev. 6 concludes why these frightened people in verses 15 and 16 took cover in the mountains,
“For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand before it?”
This is the time of the seven years of tribulation coming upon Israel in the end times. Jer. 30:7 call this day, ‘the time of Jacob’s trouble’. Jacob was re-named ‘Israel’ after his fight with the angel of the Lord. The Great Tribulation is explicitly said to come upon Israel and not the entire world. This is non-negotiable Bible truth.
