"The King of the Jews"

“And it was the third hour when they crucified him. And the inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.” And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left.” (Mark 15:25-28 ESV)

In one sense, Chapter 15 of Mark is one of the saddest and darkest chapters in Scripture. It talks about what happened to the very Son of God who knew no sin but became sin so that we could become the righteousness of God. What happened to Jesus just wasn’t right. By anyone’s standards, the illegal trials that took place, the false witnesses that came forward to testify against Him, the accusers going against their own laws to put Jesus on trial, and the verdict of death, including Jesus suffering and being tormented by the Roman guards. The innocent lamb of God, hanging on the cruel cross where He bled and died and was pierced by a Roman soldier's spear. None of it was fair or right by any human standard.

It was customary for the Romans to place the accusations against the person they were crucifying on the actual cross itself. The only accusation that the Jewish leaders brought to Pilate was that Jesus claimed to be the King of the Jews. In verse 2, we read, “And Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And he answered him, “You have said so.” So, when the Roman soldiers nailed the charges against Jesus to the cross, we read in John 19:20, “Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek.”

It was significant that these charges were written in these languages: Aramaic was the common language spoken among the Jewish people, Latin was the official language of the Roman Empire, and Greek was the universal language spoken by Jews and Gentiles alike. This sign, placed on the Cross of Jesus, explained to the entire known world exactly what Jesus’ crime was. His crime was leaving heaven with the Father and the Holy Spirit, taking on human form, living a sinless life, and proclaiming what the Father told Him to say, thereby bringing honor to the Father. Jesus had no crime for which the Jewish leadership could accuse Him, so they accused Him of saying that He was the King of the Jews. How reprehensible, how totally sinful to accuse the Son of God of blasphemy when He was telling the truth.

This chapter details the trial, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus. But the thing that really stands out to me was the charge against Him: “And the inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.”  Whenever I read about the crucifixion of Jesus and the charges that were displayed, I can’t help but to remember what the  Apostle Paul wrote in Colossians 2:13-14, “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” Paul was referring back to this very passage in Mark, where the charges against Jesus were “nailed” to His cross. But it just wasn’t the charges against Jesus that were nailed to His cross; it was every charge against me (and you) that was nailed there as well.

You see, Jesus had never sinned and had no sins for which He had to pay the penalty. Jesus was the sinless lamb of God, spotless and pure. Which only he could claim. For we know that “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”, except for Jesus. Jesus was sinless but allowed our sins to be nailed to His cross so that He could pay the penalty for every one of them. My sins alone would have made a long list, but if you add all of the sins of the world, we can see the magnitude of sins against God that Jesus had to pay for.

You know if Paul had stopped there, we would all be in a miserable state, our sins having caused the perfect Son of God to die?  But thanks be to the Father of all light and truth, as Paul stated, “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” We were dead in our sins, and because our sins were nailed to the cross with Jesus, God has made us alive together with Him. God has forgiven our sins because of Him; God has canceled the debt we owe for each sin we’ve committed because of Jesus. Every accusation of our sins that we have or will commit has been nailed to the cross of Jesus. They have all been paid for; we are now alive with Jesus because we have been completely forgiven.

In the hymn “It Is Well” written by Horatio Spafford in 1876, we read:

“My sin – oh, the bliss of this glorious thought,

My sin, not in part, but the whole,

Is nailed to His Cross, and I bear it no more,

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!”

My friend, if you are, as Paul describes it, “dead in your trespasses”, if you are still carrying around the record of debt that you owe God. Why not allow God to nail your sins to the cross of Jesus, so that you can be made alive with Him for all of eternity? Your list of debts is too heavy a burden to carry by yourself. Accept the gift of eternal life that Jesus provides, and list all your sins to be nailed to His cross so that you bear them no more.

Accept the free gift of eternal life offered by God, through faith, believing that Jesus loved you enough to die for you, that His death paid the price for all of your sins. Believe God and take Him at His Word and sing along with all the other believers “Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul.”

"Living in Grace is not about what I can do, but about what Jesus has already done!"