Jesus Christ And Him Crucified
Acts 8:32–35 (NKJV)
32 The place in the Scripture which he read was this: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, So He opened not His mouth. 33 In His humiliation His justice was taken away, and who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.” 34 So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him.
As a quick review of our studies thus far we have heard the preaching of two Hellenistic evangelists. We already looked at Stephen, who was the first martyr for Christ, and preached to the high officials (the Sanhedrin) of Israel; but in this study Philip is preaching Christ to a high official of a Gentile nation. The method of preaching does not change from one to the other except for the tone and expectation. Stephen was ostensibly harsh and easily frustrated with the Jews for failing to understand and listen to the truth that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ. But in this study Philip is ripe with gentleness and patience with the Gentile eunuch who was not permitted to come close enough to hear the whole counsel of God. Both men used the Scriptures to expound Jesus from the Law and prophets and trusted in the sufficiency of its authority and power to reveal Christ as the Son of God. But only Philip gets the reward of a convert and experience immediate fruitful results. Through this reading of Scripture, and the recent events that took place in Jerusalem, it is clearer to the naked eye that these verses are speaking directly about the crucified Messiah. Jews had firsthand knowledge of the Scriptures and the three and one half years of the ministry of Christ only to come to the conclusion that Christ was a lunatic and a liar; but this Ethiopian eunuch only had secondhand knowledge of the Scriptures and the testimony of a stranger to come to a strong faith in Jesus as the Christ in the brief time Philip had to spend with him on the desert road. The contrasting results of the preaching of these two evangelists is amazing.
The place in the Scripture which he read was this: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, So He opened not His mouth.
As I mentioned before, this chapter is the highlight of the prophet’s writings. Philip springboards the doctrine of Christ from this place and portion of Scripture. Luke doesn’t give us an outline of the details of what Philip said but only what led the way to his preaching. The Ethiopian presumes the prophet is speaking of himself in the third person but is not certain.
Let’s break this down as to how Christ was ‘led as a sheep to the slaughter.’ First we need to understand that Christ was not led blindly or unwillingly to his death. Christ willingly gave His life a ransom for many (Jn.6:38). He knew exactly the timing and manner of His death (Jn.7:8). Therefore this was not blind faith but passive obedience on the part of Christ (Lk.22:42). Jesus was not a sheep in terms of needing a shepherd to teach or guide Him because He was the Shepherd (Jn.10:11). The illustration here is only to be taken in terms as an offering for sin and as the spotless requirement according to the law (Lev.9:3). It was the law of His Father and the eternal Word that was a part of Him that ‘led’ Him to His death (Ps.119:105).
Next we see the illustration of the silence of a lamb before the shearer. This testifies to the “innocence” of Christ. He was sinless in all His works and guiltless in all His worship. He did not deserve to be punished and put on trial for exercising the keys of the kingdom and slandered as a blasphemer (Lk.5:21, 24). For He was just as a lamb is innocent before the shearer. Picture in your mind as a lamb’s legs are bound, and as the shearer clips the wool from the skin, and yet the lamb still remains innocently silent as the shearer removes the coat that hides the nakedness of the animal. In the same way Christ was bound and stripped naked to expose the blamelessness of His love for sinners (Ps.22:6). He was clipped of His rights as a person and treated like an animal to be judged among criminals who deserved their judgment. My friends, Jesus was judged as a man even though He was God. As men we deserve to die His death, but Jesus willingly gave up His rights not only as a man but as God (Judge) to be a ransom for many (Mk.10:45; Jn.3:17).
Jesus had every right to defend Himself of the works that He did in His own flesh (Rom.8:3), but instead chose to defend the spiritual children, who on their behalf, His Father sent to satisfy justice. He chose to plead the fifth in His own defense because it would be the responsibility of His disciples to defend His honor after their sins would be put away from His Father’s justice. Jesus had already declared all that was needed before His accusers that He was indeed their Messiah (Jn.12:48), but it was of the Father’s will that His accusers would not hear. There was nothing more Christ could say that would convince His accusers that He was the Son of God except to remain silent as evil men would be used to fulfill all that had been spoken and prophesied concerning the Son of God.
In His humiliation His justice was taken away, and who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.”
The humiliation of Christ and the justice that He deserved to see upon His enemies was taken away by the will of His Father so that a prayer could be answered for you and for me. Let them not rejoice over me who are wrongfully my enemies; nor let them wink with the eye who hate me without a cause. (Psalm 35:19 (NKJV)) Jesus died so that you and I can have justice; not the justice that we deserve but the justice that we don’t deserve. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. (Matthew 23:23 (NKJV)) How many of us are willing to be like Christ and forfeit our rights to justice to see someone else receive mercy?
James 2:13 (NKJV)
13 For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
The Father’s will and motive was love for sinners but He couldn’t overlook justice. Jesus swallowed His tongue (His justice)(Ezk.23:32; Matt.26:42) to offer mercy without a word (1Pet.3:1). The prophet asks, “Who will declare His generation?” What does he mean by that question? The question is more of a call to preach the fulfillment of these things, a call to declare the life and death of this man who carried the sins of God’s people. Who will speak of the mystery of the death of the eternal Son of God? How could God die? Why did God need to die to satisfy Justice? God had to become a man in order to save men and God had to die as eternal God to satisfy His own eternal Justice. This is foolishness to the unbeliever (1Cor.1:18) but can only make eternal sense if the nature of God is triune; one spirit (Jn.4:24), three persons (Jn.17:21). The eternal Son suffered death as a man. He felt the pain of death in His flesh. His spirit passed through the realm of this limited knowledge, limited existence, and limited power to the realm of omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence (1Cor.13:10;15:54). To become a man He gave up His right to those treasures until the day that His Father would restore them to Him. As a man He had access to those treasures but would not hold onto them so that He could identify as a man in every way; and so that man would be able to identify himself in God for salvation from sin (Php.2:5-11). This is the imputation of the life of Christ to the sinner and the sinner’s life to the death of Christ. In other words Jesus died that you could live your life in Him; for His will, for His pleasure, and for His glory. To do this you must ask your heart if it is ready to be like the Son. You must examine your heart to be willing to give up personal rights for the salvation of others. You must be willing to be exposed and humiliated to serve others in the name of your Savior and Lord. Only Christ can balance the weight of sin loaded on your conscience, for He carried it upon His shoulders (Isa.9:6).
Luke 9:23 (NKJV)
23 Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.
You must recognize that it is a hard life to be identified as a Christian. You must be willing to suffer with Christ for His standard of truth even though you cannot keep His standard of truth; and though you cannot keep it, you love it still (2Thess.2:10). You must count the cost of being considered last to put the lost world first. Love puts the needs of others first and suffers long without personal needs. Love gives up ‘wants’ to supply other’s needs. We all need things like rest, confidence, and provision; but are we willing to give up rest to provide for another? Are we willing to deny provision to build up confidence in another? Jesus did all these things on His way to be crucified. He had no rest on the night of His betrayal while His disciples slept. He denied Himself essential things for life to prepare and build up confidence in His disciples. He literally carried the weight of a cross to His own death for the salvation of others. Those are just a few of the costs to be a disciple of Christ (Lk.14:33). The things that He has done eternally for you should be the motivation to continue in serving Him with what energy you have in your mortal body. Some have been given more than others but will also be responsible for more than others, but everyone has a cost to be a disciple of Christ.
