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Chapter 121 “Behold the man!”
“Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!” (John 19:5)
Pilate, the cowardly, self-serving governor of Judea, has had the Lord Jesus scourged, severely beaten with a whip, by his soldiers. Those soldiers stripped him naked, platted a crown of thorns and shoved it into his holy head, put a purple rag on his immaculate shoulders, and stuck a reed for a mock scepter in his harmless hands. They mocked him, beat him with their fists, and spit all over him. Then, Pilate brought the Lord Jesus out before the Jews, the chief priests, and the Pharisees. When he did, Pilate said, “Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him” (v. 4). — “Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And [Pilate] saith unto them, Behold the man!”
I call your attention to the fact that the name of Pilate was added by our translators, as indicated by the fact that they put his name in italicized letters. So read the text without the name of Pilate added, and you will get another sense of the text altogether. — “Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe and saith unto them, Behold the man!”
The One speaking here is not Pilate, but the Lord Jesus himself. Pilate spoke in verse 4. — “Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him.” But then, it is our blessed Savior who speaks. He who stood before Pilate in silence, he who spoke not a word to defend himself before the Jews, the chief priests, the Pharisees, the Roman soldiers, or Pilate, when he stepped forth before that crowd of guilty sinners whose hands dripped with his own precious blood, “wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe,” said —— “Behold the Man!” Here, standing before you is the Man you said you have been looking for, the Man of God’s appointing, the Man of whom all the Scriptures speak. —— “Behold the Man!”
Standing before this God-hating, satanically inspired mob of blood-thirsty religious men, men who were about to execute the most violent, lawless deed of history, is the Man for whom the world was made. The Man stood before them, who for three years had healed the sick and done deeds of mercy and kindness, who had revealed his supernatural power as God in countless displays of mercy. These men cried “Give us the murderer Barabbas! Crucify the Man, crucify him!” And here he stands. — His bleeding shoulders covered by the purple robe. — His head crowned with thorns. — His visage marred and smitten beyond recognition. — “Behold the Man!” That is the message of this Book; and that is my message God has sent his servants to proclaim to a lost world. — “Behold the Man!”
The Lord Jesus Christ is the Man of whom all the Scriptures speak, the Man by whom the Triune God saves fallen men.
Bible’s Message
“Behold the Man!” — That is the great message of the Bible. God’s revelation to man is all about one Man, the mediator Man, the God-man, the Man Christ Jesus. From Genesis to Revelation, God says, “Behold the Man!” Throughout the Book of God, our Savior calls upon his chosen to behold him, to look to him in faith, to trust him, saying again and again, “Behold the Man” (Judges 13:10-11; Ezekiel 9:11; Zechariah 6:12-13).
Throughout the Old Testament, as in the New, the Triune Jehovah calls for us to behold this Man, who is God our Savior. God the Father says, “Behold the Man” (Isaiah 42:1-4; Matthew 12:18). God the Son says, “Behold the Man” (Isaiah 65:1; 45:20-22) And God the Holy Ghost says, “Behold the Man” (John 1:29, 36).
When the Lord Jesus came forth before the high priests and rulers of Israel, having given his back to the scourging and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, as the Prophet said he would, the Man Christ Jesus calls upon the multitude standing before him to “Behold the Man!” Yet, as the Prophet Isaiah also prophesied, he was “despised and rejected of men” (Isaiah 53:3).
May the Lord God pour upon you and upon me the Spirit of grace and supplication, that we may “Behold the Man” for sinners slain and live forever in the sweet awareness of his mercy, love, and grace (Zechariah 12:10; 13:1). “Behold the Man!” That’s the message of this Book.
The Covenant Man
Behold our Lord Jesus Christ, the Covenant Man. He stood forth from everlasting as our covenant Surety, in whose image the first man Adam was made. Yes, I know that our Lord’s human nature was created in time. His human body and soul were not from everlasting. Yet, he stood forth as our Covenant Head and Surety before the world began. We were from everlasting accepted and blessed of God in him (Ephesians 1:3-7).
The Promised Man
Behold the Lord Jesus, our Divine Savior, as he is set before us as the promised Man of the Old Testament Scriptures. Read the Book of Genesis, and “Behold the Man!” In the first chapter of Genesis, the earth was brought out of the deep waters of darkness, chaos, death, and judgment (Genesis 1:1-3). Then, at God’s command, the earth brought forth vegetation and animal creation. All was garnished with beauty and glory. Finally, on the sixth day of creation, the Lord God created man in the person of our father Adam, and placed him in the Garden of Eden. The Lord God brought forth, out of the dust of the earth and by the breath of his Spirit, by direct creation, a creature which is his offspring. He said, “Let us make man in our image, and after our own likeness;” and he did it.
All three persons in the eternal Godhead were involved in this creative act. And one of the three, God the Son, knew that at an appointed day, “in due time,” “when the fulness of time was come,” he would take upon himself the nature of that man he created. He is the image of God in whose image Adam was created.
Adam was not a cave-man. He was not a ferocious half-ape/half-man. Adam was not an unintelligent brute. Adam was created in the image of God, filled with wisdom and knowledge. He possessed far greater knowledge than we have ever imagined. He had names for every beast of the field and of the forest. Without a moment’s hesitation he named them. Tell me what 1000 men together could do so today!
Not only was he brilliant and physically perfect, Adam lived every day in sweet fellowship with the triune God. He enjoyed God’s presence all the time, and reigned as king over all the earth.
But soon the scene changed. Adam sinned. He abandoned God in an act of angry rebellion. And fallen man was cursed, cast out of the Garden, and sentenced to death. Doomed to live, generation after generation, under the curse of the fall, in sin, in the sweat of his brow, upon an earth cursed with briars, and thorns, and rocks, and pain, and sickness, and death! There is man: fallen, stripped, lost, ever running and hiding from God! Deeper and deeper he sinks. Sin drags him lower and lower. Darker becomes the night.
But will the Lord God leave him there? Just before he drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden, he promised a Man, a Man to be born of a virgin, the Woman’s Seed, by whom he would redeem and save his people. — “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). Then the Lord God showed the fallen pair how he would save them by that Man, Christ Jesus, whom he would send into the world. — “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21).
From that day on, chosen men, called by grace, lived by faith in that Man who was to come, in and by whom redemption must be accomplished. Throughout the ages of Old Testament history and throughout the writings of Israel’s prophets, the Lord God, —— (The Lord Jesus Christ stood forth as he did at last in Pilate’s judgment hall) —— and said, “Behold the Man!” In prophetic promises and redemption prophecies, the Lord God pointed fallen man to the last Man, the Seed of the woman, and for four thousand years cried out to fallen, guilty sinners, “Behold the Man!” — “Behold My Servant!” — “Behold the Branch!” — “Behold the King!” — “Behold Immanuel!”
“Behold the Man!” — God comes down to man as a Man, to suffer, to die, to take sin upon himself, to be the Sin‑bearer and Sin Offering for his people! “Behold he cometh,” the Lamb of God, to take away sin and sorrow, the curse and the crying, the guilt and the shame, the ruin and the death that plagues fallen man! He comes, that Man, to undo all that the first man Adam did, to restore that which he took not away! — “Behold the Man!” That is the message of the Book of God. The Man comes, the One from above, the deathless One, the One who was, and is, and is to come, — “Behold the Man” comes to suffer death and to conquer death, hell, and the grave by the sacrifice of himself, to put away sin by being made sin, to remove the curse by being made a curse! — “Behold the Man!”
The God-Man
Read the first chapter of John’s Gospel, and behold the Man again. Here we behold him as the God-man.
(John 1:1-3) “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”
(John 1:14) “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”
If there is any verse in the Bible marked with the special emphasis by God the Holy Spirit, surely it is John 1:14. Every word is of immense importance. Here is the glorious person so highly spoken of in the preceding 13 verses of this chapter. The Word who is God is declared to be “made flesh.” God the Son was “made flesh.”
The word translated “flesh” is very strong. The same word is used in Romans 3:20, where we are told no flesh can be justified by the deeds of the law. In Romans 8:3 Christ is said to have been made “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” The word here translated “flesh” has the same significance as the Hebrew words used in Genesis 6:12 to speak of “corrupt” flesh. John could not have used a stronger, more emphatic word to speak of our Savior’s great condescension and humiliation in assuming our nature. Had John merely said, “The Word was made man,” the meaning would not have been so emphatic a declaration of degradation. (Philippians 2:5-8).
“The Word was made flesh!” — The Son of God was made what we are, made to be our full nature, body and soul, a complete man. He who is God became man. He did not cease to be God; but he took our human nature into union with his Divine nature, so that the Lord Jesus Christ is God and Man, the God-man, our Mediator. “The Word was made flesh,” as Augustine put it in the 4th century, “Not by changing what he was, but by taking what he was not.” This union of God and Man in one person is indissolvable and forever. Jesus Christ our Savior, our God-man Mediator is “the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).
I have no idea what the length, breadth, height or depth of what I am about to say is; but I cannot help linking these words to those of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:30. — “The Word was made flesh;” and “we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones!” So is it now, so it has been in all ages of the Church, and so it shall be forever! — “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).
The Representative Man
As we open the Word of God and behold the man Christ Jesus, we have understood nothing until we have been made to see that he is the Representative Man and trust him as such. Oh, may God the Holy Spirit teach you this. — “Behold the Man,” the Representative Man, our Savior!
“Behold the Man!” — Thus speaks the Holy Spirit of God in the Gospels. Behold him in his submission to the will of God. Behold him in the display of his power. Listen to his words of eternal life. Behold him in his sinlessness, his perfection, and his loveliness.
But he came for something greater than to live on earth as the perfect man and make the invisible One visible in his person. John the Baptist in his God‑given witness states the great truth. — “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” “Behold the Man” in his life of obedience as our Representative, bringing in everlasting righteousness. And “Behold the Man” in his agony, sufferings, and death, as he was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. —— “Behold the Man” our Substitute and Surety (Romans 5:12, 18-19; 5:20-21; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22).
“Behold the Man” in Gethsemane. — The first man was in a Garden of delight, the last Man must also go into a Garden, a Garden of grief. It is Gethsemane, the Garden of sorrow and bloody sweat. We hear the weeping and the wailing, the strong cries and the tears (Hebrews 5). — “Behold the Man” in agony, sweating blood! Now he is what he said in Psalm 22 — “I am a worm, and no a man!” The Man of Life and Glory becomes the willing captive of cruel men.
“Behold the Man” at Gabbatha. — And after all the dishonor done to him, the cruel scourging, they look upon him with hearts filled with satanic hatred. Here in John 19, we see the Lord Jesus suffering horrid reproach still. Here, at Gabbatha, the Son of God was assaulted by men, by sinners, by the will and the hands of foul, wicked men. Here, at Gabbatha, at Pilate’s judgment hall, the Lord Jesus, who was betrayed by his own familiar friend in Gethsemane, was scourged (Matthew 27:26). — “The plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their furrows” (Psalm 129:3). He was mocked by the soldiers and crowned with thorns (Matthew 27:26-29). His beard was plucked from his face (Isaiah 50:6). And here he was condemned to die (John 19:13-16). But our Lord’s reproach, our reproach, the reproach of our guilt and sin, the reproach which broke his heart was not over yet.
“Behold the Man” on Golgotha. — The Man is nailed to the cursed tree. Where was it done? Not as a hymn says, “There is a green hill far away, without the city wall,” but Scripture says, “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden” (John 19:41). The crown of thorns is still upon his blessed head, the head which rested in all eternity upon the Father’s bosom. He bears the curse. He bears the shame, bearing our sin in his own body. He makes atonement and satisfies God’s infinite justice. — “He who knew no sin was made sin for us.” He bows his thorn‑crowned head, and his lips give the great shout of victory, “It is finished!” “Behold the Man,” our sovereign, successful, satisfied Substitute!
“Behold the Man!” — “Behold the Lamb of God!” — He has finished his work. Peace has been made by the blood of the cross! “Behold the Man!” He is the One, the only One who saves. He has made the new and living way into God’s glorious presence. “Behold the Man!” Oh, may God give you grace to behold him, to trust him!
The Risen Man
“Behold the Man,” the Risen Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior.
“And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither [was any] deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put [him] to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see [his] seed, he shall prolong [his] days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, [and] shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him [a portion] with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” (Isaiah 53:9-12)
“Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only [so], but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only [so], but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.” (Romans 4:25-5:11)
“Behold the Man!” — The grave is empty. There he stands, that Man who had died, Victor over death, hell, and the grave. He has conquered them forever. He is not a spirit, nor a phantom. “Behold the Man,” the Head of the new creation, the Firstborn among many brethren!
The Ascended Man
“Behold the Man,” the Ascended Man, our Lord Jesus Christ. We look up. He has ascended upon high. He passed through the heavens. The power of God lifted up the Man and carried him into the third heaven, into the highest height of all the heavens. We look up and see “Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and with honor.” He sits there at the right hand of God. Far above all principalities and powers, and every name that is named. Yonder he sits, the Man, the Man who lived, who died, who was buried, and who rose again. O glorious vision! Oh, for faith to see him in that highest glory, having Divine assurance that we, redeemed by him, one with him, shall possess with him the glories above. “Behold the Man!” Your great High Priest, your loving Advocate with the Father. “Behold the Man!” The head of the body, the coming Bridegroom. “Behold the Man” with all power to give eternal life to chosen, redeemed, helpless sinners! “Behold the Man!” — “He must reign!” “Behold the Man” interceding as your Advocate on High!
The Coming Man
“Behold the Man,” the Coming Man. — “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they [also] which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen” (Revelation 1:7; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10; 1 Corinthians 15:49-58).
Soon everything is going to be far different. I see the Man, my Redeemer. I see him leaving the Father’s side. He arises from his glorious place. He leaves the mediatorial place. He descends once more. He comes to the air, and gives the commanding shout, the shout which opens the graves of his own, the shout which will gather all his saints together to meet him face to face, to receive the travail of his soul. — “Behold the Man!” We shall “see him as he is, and shall be like him.” Imagine that! What vision it will be! We shall not see him as the mob saw him, at Gabbatha and Golgotha, but we shall see him in all the fulness of all his glory!
With the enthroned Christ, we shall reign as kings forever! The crown rights over the earth are his. The last Man will restore a ruined creation. There will be a great regeneration. His mighty power will banish the curse. His heel has crushed the serpent’s head; and he shall bruise Satan under our feet shortly! — “Behold the Man! “He is upon the throne to rule and reign in righteousness. — “Behold the Man!” — The Covenant Man — The Promised Man — The God-Man — The Representative Man — The Risen Man — The Ascended Man —The Coming Man!
“Behold the Man” and live forever! — “Behold the Man!” I see the Lord Jesus standing there in the judgment hall, stretching forth his slashed, bruised, bleeding arms, and hear him saying, “Behold the Man!” Those words are spoken as a call to faith, a call to utter devotion, and a call to holy communion.
Don Fortner
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