Paid In Full: An In-depth Look at the Defining Moments of Christ's Passion (21 page)

Can you think of times in your own life when your walk with Jesus put you in an unpopular position with your peers? What did you do when you realized your commitment to the Lord was going to jeopardize your job or your status with your friends? Did you sacrifice your friendship and your status, or did you sacrifice your commitment to the Lord?

Let’s decide today to never make the mistake of sacrificing our relationship with Jesus for other people or other things. Instead, let’s resolve to stand by Jesus, regardless of the situation or the personal cost we may have to pay for staying faithful to Him.

Remember what Jesus said: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39 NIV). When you hang on to the wrong things, your wrong choices always cost you the most. On the other hand, when you let go of things you count dear and choose to give everything you have to Jesus, you always receive back far more than you could ever ask or imagine.

When faced with the choice of enforcing the truth but sacrificing his career, Pilate caved into a lie by sacrificing Jesus to the will of an angry mob. Integrity comes with a price, but the consequences of abandoning integrity for self-preservation are even costlier.

Can you think of some ways in which you’ve chosen self-preservation above being faithful to Jesus?

Pilate made an outward show of washing his hands to demonstrate what he considered to be his own innocence. He did it in an attempt to distance himself from the bloodthirsty crowd and to prove that he didn’t really support the decision he felt trapped into making. Yet Pilate’s willing compromise with the crowd locked him within their ranks.

What choices are you faced with on a daily basis that could lure you into compromise? How do you respond to those opportunities? Do you see a need to respond differently?

What do you suppose is the underlying emotion or belief that would prompt a person to go along with public opinion, even when that opinion is contrary to what he or she really believes? Do you know how you’d respond if you were ever thrust into such a situation? Think about it.

Chapter 22:
The Horror of a
Roman Scourging

What was it like for a prisoner to be scourged in New Testament times? From what materials was a scourge made? How did it feel when the straps of a scourge whipped across a person’s back and body? What effects did a scourging have on the human body?

Matthew 27:26 tells us that Pilate “had scourged Jesus” before he delivered Him to be crucified, so we need to understand what it meant to be “scourged.” The word “scourged” is the Greek word
phragello
. It was one of the most horrific words used in the ancient world because of the terrible images that immediately came to mind when a person heard it. Let me tell you a little about the process of scourging and what it did to the human body. I believe this explanation is important so you can understand more completely what Jesus endured
before
He was taken to be crucified.

When a decision was made to scourge an individual, the victim was first stripped
completely
naked so his entire flesh would be open and uncovered to the beating action of the torturer’s whip. Then the victim was bound to a two-foot-high scourging post. His hands were tied over his head to a metal ring, and his wrists were securely shackled to that ring to restrain his body from movement. When in this locked position, the victim couldn’t wiggle or move, trying to dodge the lashes that were being laid across his back.
⁶

Romans were professionals at scourging. They took special delight in the fact that they were the “best” at punishing a victim with this brutal act. Once the victim was harnessed to the post and stretched over it, the Roman soldier began to put him through unimaginable torture. One writer notes that the mere anticipation of the whipping caused the victim’s body to grow rigid, the muscles to knot in his stomach, the color to drain from his cheeks, and his lips to draw tight against his teeth as he waited for the first sadistic blow that would begin tearing his body open.

The scourge itself consisted of a short, wooden handle with several 18-to 24-inch-long straps of leather protruding from it. The ends of these pieces of leather were equipped with sharp pieces of metal, wire, glass, and jagged fragments of bone. This was considered to be one of the most feared and deadly weapons of the Roman world. It was so ghastly that the mere threat of scourging could calm a crowd or bend the will of the strongest rebel. Even the most hardened criminal recoiled from the prospect of being submitted to the vicious beating of a Roman scourge.

Most often, two torturers were utilized to carry out this punishment, simultaneously lashing the victim from both sides. As these dual whips struck the victim, the leather straps with their sharp, jagged objects descended and extended over his entire back. Each piece of metal, wire, bone, or glass cut deeply through the victim’s skin and into his flesh, shredding his muscles and sinews.

Every time the whip pounded across the victim, those straps of leather curled tortuously around his torso, biting painfully and deeply into the skin of his abdomen and upper chest. As each stroke lacerated the sufferer, he tried to thrash about but was unable to move because his wrists were held so firmly to the metal ring above his head. Helpless to escape the whip, he would scream for mercy that this anguish might come to an end.

Every time the torturers struck a victim, the straps of leather attached to the wooden handle would cause multiple lashes as the sharp objects at the end of each strap sank into the flesh and then raked across the victim’s body. Then the torturer would jerk back, pulling hard in order to tear whole pieces of human flesh from the body. The victim’s back, buttocks, back of the legs, stomach, upper chest, and face would soon be disfigured by the slashing blows of the whip.

Historical records describe a victim’s back as being so mutilated after a Roman scourging that his spine would actually be exposed. Others recorded how the bowels of a victim would actually spill out through the open wounds created by the whip. The Early Church historian Eusebius wrote: “The veins were laid bare, and the very muscles, sinews, and bowels of the victim were open to exposure.”
⁷

The Roman torturer would so aggressively strike his victim that he wouldn’t even take the time to untangle the bloody, flesh-filled straps as he lashed the whip across the victim’s mangled body over and over again. If the scourging wasn’t stopped, the slicing of the whip would eventually flay the victim’s flesh off his body.

With so many blood vessels sliced open by the whip, the victim would begin to experience a profuse loss of blood and bodily fluids. The heart would pump harder and harder, struggling to get blood to the parts of the body that were bleeding profusely. But it was like pumping water through an open water hydrant; there was nothing to stop the blood from pouring through the victim’s open wounds.

This loss of blood caused the victim’s blood pressure to drop drastically. Because of the massive loss of bodily fluids, he would experience excruciating thirst, often fainting from the pain and eventually going into shock. Frequently the victim’s heartbeat would become so irregular that he would go into cardiac arrest.

This was a Roman scourging
.

According to Jewish law in Deuteronomy 25:3, the Jews were permitted to give 40 lashes to a victim, but because the fortieth lash usually proved fatal, the number of lashes given was reduced to 39, as Paul noted in Second Corinthians 11:24. But the Romans had no limit to the number of lashes they could give a victim, and the scourging Jesus experienced was at the hands of Romans, not Jews. Therefore, it is entirely possible that after the torturer pulled out his whip to beat Jesus, he may have laid more than 40 lashes across Jesus’ body. In fact, this is even probable in light of the explosive outrage the Jews felt for Jesus and the terrible mocking He had already suffered at the hands of Roman soldiers.

So when the Bible tells us that Jesus was scourged, we now know exactly what type of beating Jesus received that night. What toll did the cruel Roman whip exact on Jesus’ body? The New Testament doesn’t tell us exactly what Jesus looked like after He was scourged, but Isaiah 52:14 says, “As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men.”

If we take this scripture literally for what it says, we can conclude that Jesus’ physical body was marred nearly beyond recognition. As appalling as this sounds, it was only the overture to what was to follow. Matthew 27:26 continues to tell us, “...and when he had scourged Jesus,
he delivered him to be crucified
.” This scourging was only the preparation for Jesus’ crucifixion!

Every time I think about the scourging Jesus received that day, I think of the promise God makes to us in Isaiah 53:5. This verse says, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” In this verse, God declares that the price for our healing would be paid by those stripes that were laid across Jesus’ back.

In First Peter 2:24, the apostle Peter quoted Isaiah 53:5. He told his readers, “…By whose stripes ye were healed.” The word “stripes” used in this verse is
molopsi
, which describes
a full-body bruise
. It refers to
a terrible lashing that draws blood and that produces discoloration and swelling of the entire body.
When Peter wrote this verse, he wasn’t speaking by revelation but by memory, for he vividly remembered what happened to Jesus that night and what His physical appearance looked like after His scourging.

After graphically reminding us of the beating, bleeding, and bruising that Jesus endured, Peter jubilantly declared that it was by these same stripes that we are “healed.” The word “healed” is the Greek word
iaomai
— a word that clearly refers to
physical healing
, as it is a word borrowed from the medical term to describe
the physical healing or curing of the human body.

For those who think this promise refers to spiritual healing only, the Greek word emphatically speaks of
the healing of a physical condition
. This is a real promise of bodily healing that belongs to all who have been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ!

Just as Jesus willfully took our sins and died on the Cross in our place, He also willfully took our sicknesses and pains on Himself when they tied Him to the scourging post and laid those lashes across His body
.