What the Movie Does Not Tell You

Introduction: The Passion's Great Omissions

0:00 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday evening, February 29, 2004, at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. One would have to have lived in a cave up in the mountains of Tennessee or had been on another planet not to know that during the past few weeks the dominant issue in our national discourse has been the film, The Passion of the Christ, produced and directed by Mel Gibson. Newspaper and magazine articles, talk show subject matter, primetime interviews, and other forms of popular media have literally been glutted with discussion, pro and con and somewhere in the middle, with respect to this film. As of this afternoon, we are told that the film has grossed $117.5 million since its release on Wednesday and could well be the film event of the year for those living in our country. In the light of these facts, we've announced that I would be speaking tonight on the subject, The Passion's Great Omissions.

1:27 What? The movie doesn't tell you. The Passion's Great Omissions. What?

1:37 The movie doesn't tell you. As I take up this subject with you, let me make it unmistakably clear what I'm seeking to do in this message. I want to state it negatively and then positively. I am not offering to you a critique of the graphic and relative.

1:58 Relatively, historically accurate content of the film's depiction of the arrest, trial, and execution of Jesus of Nazareth. I did this in an adult Sunday school class a week ago, and that lesson is available on our website. It's available on tape and CD through the Trinity Book Service. So I am not tonight offering a critique.

2:28 I am not offering a critique of the film. But positively, I purpose to set before you crucial aspects of the death of Jesus, which according to the scriptures, the very scriptures from which Mel Gibson has declared that he has taken the fundamental text of his film, my purpose is to set before you crucial aspects of the death of Jesus. Which according to these scriptures are essential to a proper understanding and a saving experience of the death of Jesus. To state it in another way, I want you to consider with me some foundational truths from the scriptures in relationship to the crucifixion, truths without which one could view Mel Gibson as a Christian. Mel Gibson's film on the Passion of Christ a thousand times shed a bucket of tears, have deep and lasting and even traumatic religious experiences, and yet be an absolute stranger to the saving power that is in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's my purpose, to turn to our Bibles and with our Bible's open before us to prove that the save mailing list reading our book has not differed. 1 PowerPoint

3:57 1 The Free Order Bible 3 Parker 1 for us to consider the passion's great omissions, what the movie doesn't tell you, what the movie does not tell you that the Bible says we must both hear and by the Spirit's illumination understand and embrace from the heart if the salvation purchased by the passion of Jesus is to be ours now and in the day when we stand before the living God in the day of judgment. Well, having stated my purpose in the message, please think with me as I present to you for your serious consideration the passion's great omissions, what the movie doesn't tell you. First of all, the movie doesn't tell you the truth. The movie does not tell you the true identity of the one who died upon that cross. The movie does not tell you the true identity of the one who died upon the cross.

Omission 1: The True Identity of the One Who Died

5:09 While the movie has stirred up heated discussion focusing on the question, who bears the primary responsibility for the death of Jesus? Was it the religious leaders of the Jews? Was it the Roman government?

5:26 In a very real sense, that's an inconsequential question. A more fundamental question is this, not who was responsible for the death of Jesus, but who was put to death in the death of Jesus. For it is the true identity of the sufferer that determines the value and the results of the suffering. It is because Jesus is who?

5:57 Who he is, that his death is able to accomplish what it does. The doing of Jesus rests down upon the being of Jesus. If he were not who he was, he could not accomplish what he did. And that movie, whatever its virtues may be, fails to tell you the true identity of the one who died upon that cross.

6:28 Now, I've asserted that it's crucial to understanding and appreciating the significance of his death that we understand who it was that died. Well, he who asserts must prove. And now I would like to set before you from the scriptures the basis of that assertion. If you have a Bible and would turn to Matthew chapter 16, I want to underscore this principle as it is seen in the Bible.

6:58 It is the very activity and words of Jesus himself. In Matthew's gospel, chapter 16 and verse 13, we read as follows. Now when Jesus came into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples saying, who do men say that the son of man is? The title son of man was the favorite title that Jesus used concerning himself.

7:26 It was not loaded with many misconceptions. It was not loaded with many misconceptions. It was not loaded with many misconceptions that the title Messiah or the Christ had loaded upon it. And so Jesus often referred to himself most frequently as the son of man, a title that has its tap roots in the Old Testament scriptures in Daniel chapter 7.

7:46 And so he asked his disciples, what's the scuttlebutt about the identity of my person? Who do men say that the son of man is? What's the current scuttlebutt? What's the current scuttlebutt about my identity?

8:02 And they said, some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. But he said unto them, who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. Peter responds to that question on behalf of the disciples and says, you are the anointed Messiah, which speaks of his unique, unique, unique identity.

8:29 He has come as God's Messiah, God's anointed one. That's what Messiah means, the one whom God has anointed and set apart to perform a unique function as God's final prophet to reveal the will of God to men, God's final priest to offer a sacrifice on behalf of men, and God's final king to govern and to rule over the hearts of men. You are the Christ, that's his office, but now with regard to his person, Peter says, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. You are God's unique and only Son. You are God the Son. You share with the Father in the divine essence. You are nothing other than Son of God, that is, God the Son.

9:25 Jesus responds and says to him, Blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah, that is, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed it unto you, but my Father who is in heaven. Peter, you have come to this understanding of my true identity by a work of divine illumination. For when men see me, as you've indicated, they see but a man, an exalted man, yes, a holy man, yes. They say that I...

9:57 I am Elijah, or one of the old prophets. But Peter, you see in me the same person that they see as I move about Galilee, as I preach, as I perform miracles, as I heal, as I straighten out crooked limbs, as I even raise the dead. They see but a man, a man anointed by God to perform unusual miracles and works of power. They see in me one who speaks the word of God with authority.

10:26 As one of the old prophets. But they see in me nothing but a man. But Peter, you see in me not only a unique man, but God's anointed Messiah, who is in his own personal identity, nothing less than the Son of God. Now, it's very interesting. Having elicited that confession of the true identity of his person, notice verse 21.

10:55 From that... From that time began Jesus to show unto his disciples that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and the scribes and be killed and the third day be raised up.

11:14 From that time, having established the uniqueness of his person, he now begins to give explicit instruction concerning the nature and focus... ...of his saving work.

11:29 From that time, so that these disciples were under solemn obligation to think of the one who would suffer and be killed and be raised as none other than the Son of the living God. The matter of the identity of the one who suffered upon the cross is crucial. And our Lord Jesus Christ indicates that in the very way in which he drew out that confession as the foundation of the beginning of his explicit instruction concerning his coming passion. And when we take the total witness of Scripture, the answer to the question, who was he, is clear. That he was and is nothing less than the unique Son of God. And Son of Man. The one who is truly God, as much God as though he were not man, as much man as though he were not God.

12:36 The answer to one of the old catechisms, who is the Redeemer of God's elect, is this. The only Redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ. Who, being the eternal Son of God, became man. And so was and continues to be both God.

12:56 And so was and continues to be both God. And man, in two distinct natures, in one person, forever. The identity of the one who died is that he is the God-man. Truly divine, truly human, two distinct, unmixed natures, yet united in this one person, who is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

13:23 His real manhood is clearly attested. From his virginal conception in Mary's womb, he was not sent to us, taking a fully developed, mature, adult human body when he came from heaven. But the angel came to Mary and said that the Spirit of God would brood over her. And her womb would be the vehicle by which the eternal Son of God would take to himself a true human soul and body in her womb.

13:55 And he passes through all. All of the normal prenatal development. He is born in the midst of the mucus and blood of an ordinary birth. And the scripture tells us that as a little boy, he grew, he developed mentally, socially, physically, until he came to his mature manhood.

14:15 And when the gospel records describe him in that manhood, there is no question that he is truly man, one of our kind. He gets weary. He rests by a well. So bone weary that he falls asleep on a pillow in a ship in the midst of a storm and has to be shaken to be awakened out of his deep, almost stupor because of his weariness.

14:42 He feels the human emotions of joy, of disappointment. He is truly man. And the passion demonstrates it. When his back is lacerated, he has real blood that flows.

14:56 And when the nails pierce his hands, it's real blood that flows out of him. There is no question that he is truly man, but, but, sinless man, utterly, totally, perfectly sinless manhood. Peter says of him in 1 Peter 2, 24, who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. He could look straight in the eye of his most bitter enemies and say, Which of you can condemn?

15:27 Which of you can convict me of sin? Which one of you can bring forward any hard evidence that I have ever violated the holy law of my Father?

15:38 Which of you can ever convict me of failing to love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, and loving my neighbor as myself? His own Father spoke from heaven at his baptism. This is my Son, my beloved one. In whom I am well pleased.

16:00 Everything I see in my Son pleases me. Never a thought of jealousy. Never a motion in His spirit of ill will. Never a word of dishonesty.

16:12 Never a word of harshness. Never a thought of uncleanness. Think of what sinlessness meant in this world full of sin. As a true man, He moved among us.

16:26 And yet the Scripture says of Him, in the book of Hebrews, He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. The Father attests to His sinlessness. And yet He is not only true man and sinless man, but He is truly God. He is called God.

16:49 In the Gospel of John we read these words, speaking of the Lord Jesus. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God.

16:59 The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him. And without Him was not anything made that has been made. He made personal claims to Deity.

17:07 In John 10, 30 to 33, He said, I and my Father are one. And the Scripture tells us the Jews took up stones to stone Him, saying, You're going to die. You're going to die. You're going to die.

17:19 You're going to die. You're going to die. You're going to die. And then the bueno were guilty of blasphemy.

17:27 You claim equality with God. And Jesus did not say, Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold off fellas. You misunderstood me.

17:35 I just meant that my Father and I are one in purpose, and one in sympathy, and one in goal and perspective. No, He was making an unabashed claim to equality with God. I and my Father are one. He willingly received worship as God.

17:53 To His resurrection, He meets with the disciples in a closed room. And some of you will remember the term, Doubting Thomas. Thomas was not there in the first post-resurrection meeting. A week later, Thomas is there.

18:06 And Jesus says, Thomas, be not faithless, but believing. Here, look at my hands, look at my side. And the Scripture tells us that Thomas exclaimed, My Lord and my God. He owned Him as His Lord and His God.

18:22 And how did Jesus respond? Did He say, Thomas, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but really, Thomas, I am not to be worshipped as God. Oh yes, I am above and beyond most men, but I am certainly not Jehovah manifested in the flesh. No, no, Jesus responded by saying, Thomas, blessed are you that having seen, you have believed.

18:45 Believed what? That I am who I am. That I am Lord and I am God. But blessed rather are those who having not seen, believe.

18:54 Believe what? Believe that I am whom you have just confessed me to be. Now this is absolutely critical. If we are to appreciate the passion of Jesus, in our mind's eye to look upon that bloody cross, that immolated, bruised, and battered form, and be able to say this is incarnate deity impaled, upon that cross.

19:26 And it is only when we understand, not the mystery of how God can take humanity to Himself, remaining all that He ever has been, yet becoming something that He never has been, the Word became flesh. He was still the Word, equal to God, Himself God, yet He takes flesh to Himself. We cannot understand the mystery of the two natures in the one person, but we can bow in wonder and confess it is true, because it is revealed in the scriptures. And it is only when we view the cross through a right understanding of Mary's womb, what happened there, that the cross will have its true significance for us. In Mary's womb the eternal second person of the Godhead took to Himself true humanity, and from the moment of His conception was and continues to be to this hour, God and man in two distinct natures in one person forever. As God's servants have noted in days past, in the light of Jesus' own claims to deity, it is ridiculous to fawn over Him as being a good teacher but something less than God, as a noble man, but something less than God.

20:55 No, in the light of His own claims about Himself, we've got to do one of three things. Pity Him as a demented madman, curse Him as a devious and wicked deceiver, or fall at His feet in love, trust, and worship. Those are the only alternatives before us. But now secondly, as surely as the movie does not teach us the true identity of His person, the movie does not tell us the identity of the primary agent causing His death.

Omission 2: The Primary Agent Causing His Death

21:39 The movie does not tell us who is the primary agent causing His death. Because the movie reflects with some degree, not with perfect accuracy, but with some degree of accuracy, the involvement of the Jewish and Roman leaders, as major players as the human agents responsible for putting Jesus to death. There's been a great flap over whether or not this would foster anti-Semitism. And let me say, by way of an aside, no one who reads his Bible and has a mind and heart tethered to his Bible will have the least sympathy for anti-Semitism in any form, any shape, any color whatsoever. But in all of this debate, in all of this discussion over was the primary responsibility the Jews and the Romans became, as it were, puppets under the pressure of the high priest in the Sanhedrin? Or was it the Romans who bear primary responsibility? The Scripture is clear.

22:46 Sometimes in one sentence you will find the apostles praying and saying, Lord, they were gathered there at Jerusalem, the Roman leaders, the religious leaders of the Jews, and they acted to fulfill their purpose. But you see, the real issue for us is what the Scripture sets before us as the identity of the primary agent causing his death. And it was not the Jews, and it was not the Romans. John Piper says these very perceptive words.

23:19 The most important question of the 21st century is, why did Jesus suffer so much? But we will never see this importance if we fail to go beyond the human cause. The ultimate answer to the question, who crucified Jesus is, God did. It's a staggering thought.

23:45 Jesus was his son, and the suffering was unsurpassed. But the whole message of the Bible leads to this conclusion. The movie doesn't tell you the identity of the primary agent causing the death of Christ. And that agent is none other than God himself.

24:07 We turn back to the passage Pastor Carlson read in our hearing, Isaiah chapter 53. And this emphasis comes through with unmistakable clarity in the prophetic utterance of the prophet Isaiah. In the opening verses, it speaks of him being despised, rejected, people regarding him as smitten of God, but wounded for our transgressions. Notice then verse 6.

24:37 All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way. Now notice. And the Lord, Jehovah, the God of the covenant, the great I am, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

24:58 God was the prime actor and the fundamental mover in the central events of the passion of Jesus. Verse 10. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. Now wait a minute.

25:16 The movie shows the soldiers bruising him. The soldiers buffeting him. The soldiers scourging him. The movie shows the soldiers impaling him.

25:29 But the Scripture says it pleased the Lord to bruise him. The movie shows the Lord bruising him. But the text says it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He, the Lord, has put him to grief.

25:50 When you, God, shall make his soul an offering for sin. This is the teaching of Scripture here in the Old Testament prophetic utterance. And when we turn to the New Testament, the same emphasis comes through with equal clarity. In Romans 8 and 32, we read these words.

26:12 He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. And that word, delivered him up, is the standard word for betrayal. Judas delivered him to the chief priest. He was delivered.

26:31 He was betrayed. He was handed over. Here the Scripture says, He, that is God, who spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. God is the one who delivered him up into the hands of cruel men.

26:53 God takes full responsibility for the crucifixion of his son. In Acts chapter 4, we have the record of the early disciples praying in the midst of some opposition they are receiving from the religious authorities. And as they are praying, notice how they pray. Acts 4, 27.

27:17 For of a truth, in this city, against your holy servant Jesus, whom you did anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together. So there are seven instruments, all included, grouped together, Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, the peoples of Israel, gathered together to do what? Verse 28. To do whatsoever your hand and your counsel foreordain to come to pass.

27:57 God foreordained everything that transpired in those twelve hours from the arrest to His being impaled upon the cross and to His hanging His head in death. These human instruments were accomplishing divine purpose. Whatsoever your hand had foreordained to come to pass. This is why Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane said, The cup which my hand my Father has given me to drink, shall I not drink it? John 18, 11, after He's had His wrestlings in Gethsemane, to which we will return in a few minutes under another heading. He says, Look, look, put up your sword, Peter. The Father has put a cup before me.

28:57 That cup that will involve my being arrested, bound, delivered over to the religious and then the Roman civil authorities. Peter, you must understand the Father has given me this cup. Shall I not drink it at His hand? It was nothing less than the Father's giving Him over and nothing less than His voluntary obedience to the Father that led to the cross.

29:28 Jesus said these amazing words in John 10, verses 17 and 18. Words that no mere human would dare to utter. Therefore does the Father love me because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one takes it away from me.

29:49 I have power to lay it down. I have power to take it again. This commandment received I from my Father. My Father has taken the initiative in mapping out the course of my life leading to the cross.

30:07 I voluntarily embrace the will of my Father. And in so doing I am in full control. I lay my life down. I take it again.

30:19 No one takes it against my will. That's why in Hebrews 9, 14 we read of the activity of Jesus in His own death. Amazing words. This one hanging upon the cross apparently the helpless victim of the cruel and unrighteous treatment of men.

30:42 Yet of Him it is said, how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish unto God. He was an active priest upon the cross offering Himself up unto God by the upholding power and ministry of the Holy Spirit. The movie does not tell you the identity of the primary agent causing His death. And in that agency is the heart of the Gospel.

31:21 For that most familiar of all Gospel text points to this very fact. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. And in that giving is not merely the giving in His incarnation and in His life of sinless obedience but supremely in His death upon the cross God so loved that He gave. Here in His love John says not that we love God but that He loved us and gave His Son to be the propitiation, the sacrifice that turns away the wrath of God.

Omission 3: The Central Issue of His Suffering

32:05 God's giving is supreme in the passion of Jesus. The Son's voluntary giving is supreme in the passion of Jesus. But then thirdly the movie does not tell you the central issue involved in the suffering and death of Jesus. The movie does not tell you the central issue involved in the suffering and death of Jesus.

32:44 All that I've read and spoken to who have seen the movie agree that it conveys in a shocking, numbing way the horrific, the sadistic, the unspeakably cruel and bloody nature of the suffering of Jesus at the hands of the Roman authorities. However, however, according to the Bible it was not it was not the sufferings inflicted by men and visual to the eyes of those who beheld it then and who behold it in its poverty-stricken efforts at reproduction upon a screen. It was not those sufferings visible to the eyes of men then or now that constituted the height of the true significance of the sufferings of Jesus. Rather, according to the Scriptures, as I will demonstrate shortly, it was the sufferings of His soul at the hands of His Father in the invisible but real transactions between the Father in heaven and the Son upon the cross. It was those transactions invisible to the eyes of men that constituted the central issue. In His sufferings

34:12 and in His death. How do we know that? Turn with me to Mark's Gospel, chapter 14. In Mark's account of the trauma of Gethsemane, our Lord goes into that olive grove to pray.

34:32 And this is what Mark records for us in chapter 14 and verse 32. And they come unto a place which was named Gethsemane. And He said to His disciples, Sit here while I pray. And He takes with Him Peter and James and John and began to be greatly amazed and sore troubled.

34:55 And these English renderings don't begin to convey the force of the original. He began to be utterly, distractedly blown out of His mind. Something possessed His mind and His soul. Not a hand was near Him to touch Him.

35:12 He's alone in the garden. Three disciples, a stone's throw away. And yet He says, it says of Him, He began to be greatly amazed, sore troubled. And He said unto them, now look at the language, My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death.

35:33 And He was not saying it will be sorrowful until I die. What He was saying is, I'm feeling a weight of sorrow in the depths of my soul. That here in this place will crush me to my death. There was no lictor's lash upon His back.

35:55 There were no fists raising contusions upon His face. There were no nails in His hands. There was no crown of thorns pressed upon His holy brow. He's all alone.

36:11 Three disciples off a stone's throw. Don't lay a hand on Him. He says, something is happening to me. Something is happening to me that is going to crush me into death.

36:23 And He says, it's an internal agony. It's in the soul that He feels this agony. Now is my soul exceeding sorrowful even unto death. Abide here and watch.

36:37 And He went forward a little and fell upon the ground. See the picture? He's walking. And suddenly this weight of His soul drags Him to the crown like a mighty hand presses Him.

36:53 And He cries out, O my Father, if this cup, here's the issue. It's all focused now in what He calls the cup. If this cup, if this cup, if this hour cannot pass away. Verse 36, Abba, Father, all things are possible.

37:10 Remove this cup from me. Not what I will but what Thou wilt. And then Luke adds a very moving, significant detail in Luke's Gospel, chapter 22. We read these words.

37:27 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly and his sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling down upon the ground. A condition called hematadrosis in which someone is in such intense agony that they actually burst capillaries and blood can mingle with sweat. What's going on here? The cup, my soul, agony, so intense that he sweats as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground.

38:11 The book of Hebrews picks up on this and says, Who in the days of His flesh prayed with strong crimes and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death and He was heard. He was preserved through the agony of the garden that He might die upon the cross. But here our Lord is in the midst of the true soul of His sufferings which were the sufferings of His soul. The soul of His sufferings were the sufferings of His soul.

38:51 And Mark then picks up in the further account in chapter 15 in verses 33 and 34 this mysterious theme and brings it to its ultimate expression for we read in verse 33 of chapter 15 And when the sixth hour was come there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice Elohim Elohim Elohim lama sabachthani which is being interpreted my God my God why have you forsaken me? Earlier we read that all the disciples forsook Him and fled. No word from the Savior's mouth. Peter denies Him in the court of the high priest no word from His mouth.

39:51 Just a look at Peter. He is buffeted. He is bruised. He is falsely accused.

39:58 He is scourged. The crown of thorns placed upon Him. He is mocked. He is driven out and placed upon the cross.

40:06 Not one record of a word in the language of the old Negro spiritual and He never said a mumbling word. But now for three hours God pulls a curtain over the sky and plunges the sky into spittium midnight black darkness. God is doing in the external world what He is doing in the invisible internal world of the soul of the Son. For in those hours He is experiencing what hell will be to everyone in this place who dies impenitent and unbelieving in what Christ has done. Then will He say to them depart from Me into outer darkness. Hell is not only described as the eternal fire but the outer darkness. Abandonment, banishment from all of the light of God's countenance and all of the cheering rays of His love and His mercy and His grace.

41:16 And while hanging upon the cross the soul of the sufferings of Christ is not to be understood in terms of the nails and the thorns and the open wounds upon His body but the wounds upon His soul. And why was God so wounding him? Causing him to taste the horrors of the abandonment of hell and outer darkness? Let these four passages of scripture answer that question.

41:49 I simply read them. Galatians chapter 3 and verse 13. Galatians chapter 3 and verse 13. We read these words.

42:00 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us. For it is written cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree. 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 21 speaking of the activity of God the Father for He, God the Father has made Him, that is Jesus to be sin on our behalf the one who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. And then the passage that I already read from Isaiah 53, 6 and the Lord hath laid on Him literally the Lord hath made to strike upon Him the iniquity of us all. And 1 Peter 2 and verse 24 who His own self bore our sins in His body up to the tree. He bore our sins. He was the representative sinner I say it reverently.

43:17 In those hours upon the cross Jesus Christ became the greatest sinner who ever existed on the face of God's earth. He became the greatest sinner that ever existed on the face of God's earth. Not by personal guilt not by personal defilement but by imputed guilt He stood in our room instead and the Father laid upon Him the iniquity of us all and God entered into court with His Son laden with our sins and said my son you are laden with the multitude the innumerable multitude of the sins of all who will ever come to trust in you as Savior and bow to you as Lord what do you plead? And Jesus upon the cross says Father I plead guilty I plead guilty I have chosen to take the guilt of their sin upon myself I have chosen to stand in their room and in their stead and bear the full unleashed fury of Your holy wrath against that sin Father I plead guilty and the Father says it's outer darkness for You my Son and He pulls the shade over the heavens

44:44 and plunges the soul of His Holy Son into the agonies of forsakenness into the agony of abandonment until toward the end of those three hours the pent up fury of God that is broken upon the head of His Son is such that He can bear it no longer and He cries My God My God Why have You abandoned Me? The movie doesn't tell you that The movie doesn't tell you that The movie cannot tell you that but my friend the passion of Jesus makes no sense without it but then fourthly and this is so crucial the movie does not tell you that the bodily resurrection of Jesus was the necessary and validating sequel to His death the movie does not tell you that the bodily resurrection of Jesus was the necessary and validating sequel to His death I know as some have commented that there is at the end of the movie some special effect

Omission 4: The Necessary and Validating Sequel: The Resurrection

46:12 section that does indicate that the tomb was empty about 60 seconds that makes this rather strange and oblique reference to the resurrection further I know that Mel Gibson was determined to focus almost exclusively on the passion the suffering of Jesus but now the question is this does the Bible do this and does Mel Gibson or anyone else have a right to do this to separate radically the sufferings of Jesus from the subsequent bodily resurrection of Jesus which as we shall see is both the necessary and validating sequel to His death according to the scriptures Christ's death has no true worth apart from Mary's womb He is the God-man and Joseph's empty tomb separate the cross from the womb and the tomb and you have a Jesus that is not presented in the Bible it's the Jesus of the cross who was the Jesus of the womb and the empty tomb proof of this yes turn with me please to Luke chapter 9 where we have a sampling of Jesus' own predictions of His death and you will notice

47:41 that almost without exception when He speaks of His death He always speaks joins to it as an absolute certainty the sequel to His death His glorious bodily resurrection Luke chapter 9 and verse 22 we'll back up to verse 21 but He charged them and commanded them to tell this to no man saying the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and the third day be raised He no sooner says be killed but He says and be raised and when He defines the gospel that His followers are to preach throughout the world notice how He brings these things again into an inseparable relationship the last chapter of Luke Luke 24 and verse 45 then opened He their understanding or their mind that they might understand the scripture and He said unto them thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day and that repentance

49:09 and or unto remission of sin should be preached in His name unto all the nations beginning from Jerusalem you are witnesses of these things what things that He must suffer and that He must rise from the dead knows of Christ is true to Christ's mandate that merely focuses upon His suffering for His suffering is validated by His resurrection and this was true in the apostolic preaching on the day of Pentecost when the Spirit of God came upon the infant church and Peter stands and begins to preach notice how the resurrection is central to his preaching Acts chapter 2 begins in verse 22 and speaks of Jesus who was delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God this Jesus He says whom you crucified yet verse 32 this Jesus did God raise up whereof we are all witnesses being therefore by the right hand of God exalted and having received of the Father the promise of the Spirit He has poured forth this which you now see and hear verse 36 let all the house of Israel

50:37 therefore know assuredly God has made Him both Lord and Christ this Jesus whom you crucified in other words Peter did not preach a Christ still upon the cross he preached a Christ upon the throne who came to that throne by way of a cross and an empty tomb and he said this is the Christ whom we preach to you now if anyone could have set forth in graphic heart wrenching detail what it meant for someone to be crucified Peter lived under Roman rule and saw people crucified but rather than fix their gaze upon the bloody brutal details of the crucifixion he fixed them in the same way he fixed their gaze upon the exalted position of the risen exalted seated Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father and all the way through the book of Acts they preached the resurrection of Christ so much so that when Paul defines the gospel entrusted to him in 1 Corinthians 15 he does so in these words verse 1 I make known to you brethren the gospel which I preach to you which also you received wherein you stand by which you are saved and what is that gospel it is this gospel verse 3 I delivered unto you first of all that which I received number 1 Christ died for our sins

52:06 according to the scriptures and he was buried and that he has been raised the third day according to the scriptures that's my gospel it has this note of this validating sequel to his death his literal physical bodily resurrection and I have called it the validating sequel why because the resurrection of Jesus validates his claims to be who he is and validates his cry it is finished the validation of the true identity of the person of Christ and the sufficiency of the work of Christ is the empty tomb of Christ in Romans 1 in verse 4 Paul says this speaking of the gospel that he preaches that concerns God's son Jesus Christ this is what he says he was declared to be the son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead Joseph's open tomb is like a massive megaphone that says he is who he claimed to be he had the audacity to say nobody takes my life

53:35 I lay it down I take it up again what a claim the empty tomb says it's true the megaphone of the open tomb says it's all true he is the son of God and I have no proof that the one is in heaven and he says with a loud voice it stands accomplished it is finished well how do we know it's finished all that needs to be done to turn away the wrath of God from hell deserving sinners how do we know there isn't some sin floating around somewhere in the universe that God will pluck out and charge to my account in the day of judgment.

54:33 Jesus said, it's finished. Well, how do I know it's finished? Romans 4.25 says this, He was delivered up for our offenses.

54:42 He was raised on account of our justification. He was raised because God was satisfied with all that He did in His perfect life and in His substitutionary death. And God says, I want everyone to know if you trust in My Son for the forgiveness of all your sins, there will be no sin floating around out there somewhere in the universe to be plucked out and charged to your account. Look at the open tomb.

55:11 I raised Him from the dead because all the claims of the broken law were fully satisfied in My beloved Son.

55:21 The teaching of the Bible is this, that a dying Jesus procures our salvation and a living Jesus procures our salvation. And a living Jesus secures and applies that salvation to us. A dying Jesus provides it. A living Jesus applies it.

55:41 So that we turn to a passage such as Romans 8 in verse 34, one of the most triumphant passages in all of the Word of God. And Paul says this, backing up to verse 33, Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who is He that condemns?

56:00 He says, where in all the moral universe are you going to find someone who can justly condemn me for one sin? Here's the man who said, I'm the chief of sinners. I'm less than the least of all saints. Here's the man who unashamedly acknowledged that he was a sinner.

56:15 He had been a persecutor and a murderer of Christians. He acknowledged that sin was still in him. The good that I would, I do not. And the evil that I would not, that I do.

56:25 And yet he dares to say, Who is he that condemns? And what is the root cause of his conflict? It is Christ Jesus that died. Yea, rather that was raised from the dead.

56:39 Who is at the right hand of God who also makes intercession for us? He says the cross was the stepping stone to the resurrection that was the stepping stone to His heavenly session which was the entrance into His perpetual life of intercession by which He succeeded. He secures for me all He died to purchase for me. That's enough to make the most doer, reserved, shout.

57:11 That's what He did. Who is He that condemns? He wasn't gazing at a crucifix and self in the wounds and hope that I'll get a feeling of forgiveness. No.

57:25 He said the one who hung upon the cross went in a tomb, came out of the tomb, went back to the right hand of the Father and there He represents me. He intercedes. He prays for me. He prays for me.

57:37 Hebrews 7.25 Wherefore He is able to save to the uttermost that is to the consummate blessings of salvation. Why? Seeing He ever lives to make intercession for us.

57:51 Yes, a dying Christ provides redemption. A living Christ applies it and secures it for all who trust in Him.

Omission 5: How to Appropriate Salvation (Repentance and Faith)

58:02 Well, fifthly and finally the movie does not tell us how we must live. How we must live. How we may appropriate to ourselves the salvation procured by the sufferings of Jesus. The movie does not tell us how we may appropriate to ourselves the salvation procured by the sufferings of Jesus.

58:33 Are we to look at the scenes of His suffering and be stirred with pity and somehow think that that pity brings us into the fellowship of the benefits of His sufferings? No. If you don't pity another suffering human being something has died in you. But my dear friends Jesus is not looking for your pity.

59:00 He doesn't need your pity. He doesn't need my pity. No, the Bible is clear. If we would appropriate the benefits of the salvation procured by the dying and suffering of Jesus we must do two things.

59:14 The Bible calls them repent and believe. They are the two plates on the hinge of the door of salvation. The door of salvation swings on a hinge. One plate is repentance and the other is faith.

59:30 Paul could say in Acts 20.21 Wherever I preached among you Ephesians this is what I preached publicly and from house to house. Repentance towards God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. That's what Jesus preached.

59:48 Mark 1.15 From that time on Jesus came preaching saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. Repentance and faith.

60:02 Now what is repentance?

60:04 You walk in this way. Repentance is you stop turn around and you go in this way. Your face is toward sin to the world to your flesh to your lust. To your pride.

60:20 Indifference to God. To Christ. To his salvation. To his laws.

60:24 To his people. To his worship. To his praise. All of that's behind you.

60:29 Everything before you is that which your own wicked heart wants and revels in. God says repentance. The old Puritan said is the vomit of the soul. You see that all of this is dishonoring and displeasing to God so much so that the only way he could make amends for it was to send his son to the cross.

60:52 You mean I'm hugging to my breast what caused his groans and his agony? The shrouded heavens? The cry of dereliction? You mean I've been hugging to my breast the appetites, the passions, the goals, the relationships that caused such agony for him?

61:14 You mean my indifference to God and to his word and to his worship and to his people is so abominable in God's sight that he subject his son to the horrors of the cross on account of those things? Yes. Well, when your eyes see that you want to turn from all of this into a God who is so gracious that rather than consign you to hell as you know he could have and should have he would send his son to die for the likes of you that there might be a just and a righteous pardon extended to sinners like you. And you've had all these hard thoughts about God that he's a mean God, he's a narrow-hearted God he is a killjoy God and you say, oh God, forgive me for such unworthy thoughts about you. You turn from your sin unto this God as he is revealed in Jesus Christ and you say, what a fool and a knave I have been. That's why again the old catechism I quoted from earlier asked the question, what is repentance unto life and answers this way repentance unto life is a saving grace whereby a sinner out of a true sense of his sin and an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ does with grief and hatred of his sin

62:42 turn from it unto God with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience. I see my sin for what it is. I see the Savior and his grace for what it is and I turn from my sin unto God through Christ. And what is faith?

63:06 Faith is critical. When a jailer trembling with the sense of his sin cried out to Paul and Silas, sirs, what must I do? They didn't hold up a crucifix and say, look at it until you feel sorry for your sins. No, they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.

63:23 Thou shalt be saved. That's what they told them. And what is it to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? Saving faith is nothing less than whole soul commitment to Christ Himself in the glory of His person and in the perfection of His work as He is presented to us in the Gospel.

63:44 Here's the glory of the Bible teaching on saving faith. In saving faith, it's the whole sinner who embraces from the heart a whole Christ with nothing in between. No water, no wafer, no pastor, no minister, no priest, no nothing. The sinner in all the nakedness of his need and the Savior in all the glory and beauty of His saving virtue and power.

64:15 They come together in the embrace of faith. Hear the words of Jesus. He said, come unto, me, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart and you'll find rest to your soul.

64:39 He says to the sinner, here you are, bow down with the weight of unresolved guilt. You've got to go to bed at night with a bad conscience. What a horrible companion is a bad conscience. And when any dark providence comes you hear as it were the rumblings of the day when you'll stand before God and give an account of the deeds done in the body.

65:03 Burden down with the emptiness that comes from drinking at those fountains that you thought would bring satisfaction to the soul but they leave you empty, gnawing, conscious that you've been a fool. Jesus says, you're weighted down, you're burdened, come to me. Come to me. I'll lift the burden and then I'll, I'll place upon you my easy yoke.

65:27 The yoke of obedience to me. My yoke is easy. My burden is light. You'll find rest to your soul.

65:36 Or John 1.12, to as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become the children of God. Even to them that believe on his name, to believe on Christ is to receive him in all the glory of his person as the exalted God man and only savior of sinners and in all the benefits of his saving work. You say, Lord Jesus, whatever it means to save a sinner, do it for me.

66:06 And you don't need to go off to school for six months and find out all the... I've been a Christian now since the spring of 1952.

66:14 A little bit of rhythmic will tell you that's 52 years.

66:19 I'm only beginning to find out all that I got when I got Jesus. And I'll have a whole eternity to find out how more. I don't need to understand it all. I just come to Jesus as a helpless, needy, guilty sinner and say, Lord Jesus, you give me all the salvation you promised the needy sinners.

66:41 That's what I need. Oh, you say that's too simple. Ah, my friend, that's the great stumbling block of the gospel. We want to do something more.

66:52 Because if that's what it means to believe on the Lord Jesus, saying with the hymn writer, nothing in... In my hands I bring simply to thy cross I cling foul I to the fountain fly wash me Savior I die if I come as a naked, needy, helpless sinner bringing nothing to Him then I got no credit to put at my own feet for what He does.

67:18 And He gets all the praise. That's the sticky wicket in the gospel. That's the stumbling block. We're so natively self-glorifying and proud and to have a salvation that's all of God that He gets all the glory.

67:35 But ah, my friend, that's the only salvation Jesus died to purchase for sinners.

67:42 And the movie will never tell you these things. Did you find anything like this? Have you seen the movie? Anything like this?

67:48 No. Nothing. Nothing. And so I lay before you for your serious consideration with the spirit of the Bereans spoken of in Acts 17.11.

67:58 It says, These were more noble than those of Thessalonica, that they received the word with readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. I only plead with you. If these have sounded strange on your ears, go to your Bibles. Even if you're mad and want to go to your Bible to prove me wrong, that's fine.

68:16 You get in your Bible, you're going to get hooked on the truth. Go to your Bible. Go to your Bible. Say, Oh God, if what the preacher said and he quoted an awful lot of Scripture, but Lord, if he was hoodwinking me, show me.

68:28 If that's the truth, Lord, show me.

68:31 For Mel Gibson's movie, For Whatever Virtues It May Have, these are five things it will never tell you. The movie does not tell you the real identity of the one who died. It doesn't tell you the primary agent causing his death. It doesn't tell you the central issue involved in his death.

68:51 It does not tell you that the bodily resurrection was the necessary and validating sequel to his death. It doesn't tell you how you may appropriate to yourself the salvation procured by his death. But I have told you. And I've not given you my opinions.

69:10 I've given you God's interpretation of the sufferings.

Conclusion: Go to Your Bibles

69:18 May you take it to heart. Let's pray.

69:25 Father, how we thank you for the Scriptures that are a lamp unto our feet and a light to our pathway. We earnestly pray that you would indeed awaken in the hearts of multitudes, the millions that are flocking to move forward. We are moving theaters all around our country. Lord, grant that what they see will provoke in them a desire to find out from the Bible why this suffering, why this gore, why this apparent tragedy of the innocent, holy man being brutalized in this way.

70:05 God, grant that people will go to your word and in that word discover these things that can never be seen upon the silver screen. So we ask you to seal your word. Blessed to our hearts, help us as we would seek to be a faithful witness to others. May we by all means seek to save some.

70:30 Thank you now for your presence with us in Jesus' name. Amen.

70:38 The preceding sermon was delivered on Sunday evening, February 29, 2004, at Trinity Baptist Church, in Montville, New Jersey. For more information about the ministries of Trinity Baptist Church and to hear other sermons, please visit us online at www.tbcnj.org.