MM Meditation - The Scourge of the Crucifixion

As our Lord walked this earth, He came in touch with three items that He would encounter again on His day of crucifixion - the scourge, the thorns and the robe.

As He encounters each item, He attacks the lies and the false relgion that it represents.

Each of these items revisited Him in a painful way, yet He died, was buried and rose victorious over the symbols and the sin,  and presented a simple way for mankind to shed off all the man-made trappings of religion and approach the God of Heavens for salvation,  simply by faith.

SCOURGE

Religion for Profit

Twice in the Scriptures Jesus was in the presence of a scourge. The first time it was one He made to drive away the sin that had been brought into His Father's house.

John 2:15, "And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables."

He didn't grab a scourge from a nearby Roman soldier, He deliberately wove it together in planned vengeance to clean out His Father's house from the sinful practice of  profitting financially from the God-given command to sacrifice animals to cover the sins of the people.

One family would come with a lamb to sacrifice, it would be refused, and another lamb would be sold to them at a high price.   The temple workers would take the family's lamb and resell it to another family.

The sacrifices were foreshadowing  the Lamb of God who would die to take away the sins of the world.  Greed was ruining this beautiful picture, by charging for the blood that had to be shed.

The second time it is recorded that the Lord Jesus is in the presence of a scourge, it was used by the Romans to mutilate His body, so that He was unrecognizable and marred more than any man, to the satisfaction of the highest Jewish leaders of the day.   Isaiah 52:14

The scourge was wrongly used to punish the One who knew their sin, rebuked their sin, offered forgiveness for their sin, and was about to die for their sin.

Do you think when they watched Him being scourged, the Jews remembered the scourge He created and used stop their money-making? Did the temple workers have to nail the tables back together? Did they have to round up the animals? Did they fight over the scattered coins on the marble floor? They were selling their religion, taking advantage of the rich and the poor that were bringing sacrifices to atone for their sin. The Lord Jesus offers full atonement for free.

The Lord Jesus used a scourge to clean out the temple, then the scourge was used on the only Man who could clean out their hearts. Did their hardened hearts see the marks of the scourge as His face, His back, and His body  as vengeance?

Is a scourge needed in the Church of God today?  We must be careful that we do not offer religion for profit, that the Gospel is offered as freely as the blood of Jesus was shed.