In our mini-Christology study, we have come to prophecies concerning Passion Week. Today we consider His being hated without reason and being beaten without cause.
The night Jesus was betrayed, He and His disciples had the Passover together. Throughout the meal, Jesus was giving them some final instructions and edification. He set their expectations in truth so they would not be disillusioned when things didn’t go as they wanted. In John 15:18-25 Jesus told them that they cold expect the world to hate them, just as it hated Him. For certainly He had come to His own, but His own did not receive Him (John 1:10-11). In John 15:24-25 Jesus says that people rejected the obvious works that Jesus did and hated Him instead to fulfill what had been prophesied long before; there are three places in the OT that use the phrase Jesus quoted. While Psalm 35:19 and 69:4 may be in view, it is probably Psalm 109:3-5 that is most referred to in this quote. Here is Psalm 109:1-5…
“Do not keep silent, O God of my praise! For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful have opened against me; they have spoken against me with a lying tongue. They have also surrounded me with words of hatred, and fought against me without a cause. In return for my love they are my accusers, but I give myself to prayer. Thus they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.”
The second prophecy for today is Jesus being beaten without cause. Matthew 26:67 tells us that during the mockery of a trial given to Jesus, while He was still before the Jewish high priest, that they smote Him and spat upon Him. Later, after the innocent One was sentenced to death, Roman soldiers beat Him and spat upon Him also (Matt 27:26, 30). This was foretold through Isaiah, in Isaiah 50:6 which says, “I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.” That is just part of what the Saviour endured for you.
