Jesus' Predictions

         Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” (John 2:19)

        From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

        Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

         Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” (Matthew 16:21-23)

The Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-13)

     When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.  They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life.” And the disciples were filled with grief. (Matthew 17:22-23)

        Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. On the way, he took the Twelve aside and said to them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!” (Matthew 20: 17-19)

         The Triumphal Entry (Matthew 21:1-11)

         When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, “As you know, the Passover is two days away—and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.” (Matthew 26:1)

         Mary Anoints Jesus’ Feet with Nard (Matthew 26:6-13)

 

          According to Matthew, Jesus predicted His death at least four times. I’ve added some incidents to put them in a temporal context. He also mentioned being raised to life at least once. In fact, the incident mentioned in John seems to have taken place early in His ministry. Given that Lazarus was wealthy, Jesus loved him and had raised him from the dead, I suspect the disciples told him whether Jesus did or not. After all, Lazarus might have been able to talk to the right people to keep Jesus out of trouble or to convince Jesus to choose a different path.

          Of course, Lazarus and his sisters were the wrong people to recruit to stop Jesus from going to Jerusalem. They, better than 99% of the people in Israel, knew God could raise Jesus from the dead.

          Now, let’s apply a little bit of logic here. Clearly, Jesus is not only not doing anything to avoid being killed. He could have left Israel. He could have not gone to Jerusalem. He could have avoided confrontations with the political infrastructure of the nation. Instead, He rebuked Peter, calling him, “Satan” in response to Peter’s arguing with Him about the issue.

          Later in the week, in the Garden of Gethsemane, what is it Jesus struggles with? He is tempted to forego the crucifixion. Even if you go back to Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, Satan gave Him an option that would circumvent the crucifixion. And if you continue reading through Pilate’s trial of Jesus, you’ll read that Pilate’s wife counsels Pilate against the crucifixion because she’d had dreams about it. We are sometimes tempted to feel sorry for Pilate, who was in a no-win situation. He had no clue what was going on, but while we might be tempted to think him a sort of “good guy” for trying to avoid crucifying Jesus, neither his wife’s dreams nor his reluctance were from God.

          Against all of that, we have evidence that Satan used Judas Iscariot to identify Jesus to the Romans. But was Satan’s goal for Christ to be crucified? Or was it his goal to push Jesus to fight?

          As much fun as the songs and stories in which Satan thinks he won because Jesus was crucified and then is surprised by the resurrection is, they teach the wrong message. Jesus’ sacrifice was planned before the foundation of the earth. It was foretold, even by Jesus. The only way Satan could have won would have been to prevent it.