Whose Fault Was It?
“He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He be the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him: for He said, I Am the Son of God.” Matthew 27:42-43
Whose fault was it that Jesus had to die on the cross of Calvary? Was it the Jews? Was it the Romans? Was it Himself? Did He do something that caused people to believe that He needed to die? It certainly wasn’t Jesus’ fault. Jesus was and is sinless. He never did anything wrong. He was/is God which makes Him perfect, holy, righteous, and sovereign. The self-righteous religious leaders had in for Him because of envy. They were so fearful that He would get so popular among the common folks that they would lose their prestigious positions as leaders of the Jewish people. The Romans, perhaps, were fearful of insurrection. What if Jesus did get so large a following that the Romans could be overthrown. I mean, that is what most of the people expected their Messiah to do, free them from Roman dominion.
However, some of the people began to turn against Him even after all the praises that they heaped upon Him when He first entered Jerusalem on a colt. The people, along with the religious leaders, mocked Him as He hung in excruciating pain on the cross, saying that He saved others, but He couldn’t save Himself. In saying that He saved others, they were acknowledging the miracles that He had done, but in His supposed inability to save Himself, they were doubting that His miracles were real. They even said that they would believe Him if He came down from the cross. However, knowing their past actions, I doubt that they would really have believed Him. If they wouldn’t believe Him to be the Son of God after watching Him raise a dead man to life, I don’t think anything that Jesus would have done would have made any difference to them. Because Jesus did not cast out the Roman government from over them, they would not accept Him as their Messiah.
It got worse from there. The people continued with their rant against Him, and, in so doing, they dared the God whom they claimed to worship to intervene. They shouted that since He trusted in God, then let God bring him down off the cross, if God will have Him. After all, Jesus claimed to be the Son of God. What an insult to the holy One of Israel and to Jesus the Christ. For the religious leaders to insinuate that Jehovah God would want nothing to do with this One who claimed to be His Son was the height of prideful arrogance. This was a direct fulfilling of prophecy written by King David in Psalm 22:7-8: “All they that see Me laugh Me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the LORD that He would deliver Him: let Him deliver Him, seeing He delighted in Him”. I have often wondered just how familiar the religious leaders were with scripture. There are so many specific details of the coming of Christ, how He was treated by the multitudes, and His crucifixion and resurrection written by several of the Old Testament prophets that we wonder why they couldn’t see the truth of Jesus.
I can almost hear the hateful sarcasm in the voices of the Pharisees and other leaders and the underlying note of glee that their supposed enemy would soon be gone as they assured themselves that their God would never rescue this One whom they believed was an imposter. They could never have been more wrong! Not only did God the Father rescue Him in His own way, He also resurrected Him and thereby brought rescue, reconciliation, restoration, and resurrection to all who would believe in Christ.
To answer the question, “whose fault was it” that is, who were the ones responsible for Christ’s sacrifice; it was the Jews, the Romans, the multitudes, and every person that has ever lived on this earth. We were all born separated from God by our sins. God made the ultimate sacrifice by sending His Son to suffer and die to pay the penalty for our sins so that we could be forgiven and saved from God’s wrath. There are millions, maybe billions, of folks on this earth who are just like those religious leaders of Jesus’ day. They either mock Christ, ignore Him, curse Him, and worse of all, reject Him. But there are millions who have repented and received Him as Lord and Savior, exceedingly grateful for His extreme sacrifice so that they could be counted as children of the most high God and brothers and sisters of Christ, being able to spend eternity with Him in heaven. Yes, it was my fault Jesus had to die, but He forgave me and counts me His friend. It doesn’t get any better than that.