Jesus Foretold: Mocked And Ridiculed (MP 64)

The stones of Golgotha tremble and shake,
Aghast at sacrilege men do and say
To their Creator, lest He them unmake,
Open earth and let it swallow them away!
How can they sneer, mock, and despite the One,
Who left behind the glories of His throne,
Who came and suffered for nothing He’d done,
But to pay their debts and naught of His own?
They knew He was coming to them some day,
But blind and deaf to prophecies of God,
They killed Him rather than do things His way,
And stubbornly to hell they chose to trod!
David must have watched sad and with dismay,
His psalm coming true on that awful day!

Scripture Quoted (NIV) [Brackets added]
Prophecy Made: Psalm 22:7-8—“All who see me [see Jesus, as foretold by David] mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: ‘He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue him [from being nailed to the cross]. Let him [God] deliver him, since he delights in him,’ “ (Written in the 10th century)

Prophecy Fulfilled; Matthew 26:39-41—“Those [people] who passed by [Golgotha] hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God.’ In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. ‘He saved others,’ they said, ‘but he can’t save himself! He’s the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him if he wants him, for he said, I am the Son of
God.’ “ (written in the 1st century A/D.)

Commentary On: “Jesus Foretold: Mocked And Ridiculed”
The Roman soldiers who put a purple robe on Jesus after flaying the skin off His back; who cruelly pressed a crude crown of thorns into and around His head; and then mockly bowed and addressed Him as “Your Lowness”; could not have known the enormity of sacrilege of which they were guilty. However, it would not have been so with the priests, teachers of the law and elders that publicly made sneering statements to Him, such as, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross, and we will believe!” They would not have let themselves believe, no matter what miracle He performed; they proved that, for they had already seen and knew for a fact of dozens of miracles Jesus had already performed in full view of them or their trusted agents, including raising people from the dead. The truth is that they must have known by now that He was who He said He was; they could not afford to accept Him as the Messiah without admitting their false teachings and perversions of prophecy from God, which had led the common people far from the spirit of the law into slavery to a system that poured riches into their coffers.

Besides, there was already a miracle well known to them concerning their very own mockery—it was the prophecy of their most famous King David, who had written into the words of one of their hymns about this very heresy 1000 years ago, found in Psalm 22 quoted above, They could not pretend ignorance—the psalms were sung over and over through all those years, and they had spent entire lives studying and discussing them. It would be like me denying Jesus had died on the cross after 85 years of singing “The Old Rugged Cross” in church. The words and tune are so familiar to me or any other older Baptist who was raised singing hymns in church that it would be unthinkable to us that Jesus died in any other way. However, I’m afraid the younger generation is being deprived of that very dear privilege, for modern Baptist churches have switched from hymns to “praise” choruses, whose major characteristic is a jungle beat and whose words constitute a phrase repeated many times over. Hymns are more majestic and worthy of worship of God than rap or beat music, no matter how popular those forms are with younger people.

Many Old Testament prophets made prophecies without being conscious that the words they were writing were prophetical. God knew, however; He purposely revealed glimpses of future events in the words spoken or written hundreds of years earlier.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)