Luke 9:22 shows that after being correctly identified by His disciples as the Christ, Jesus discloses a distressing prophecy that He must suffer, be rejected, be killed, then will raise from the dead.
The parallel Gospel accounts for Luke 9:22 are Matthew 16:21-23 and Mark 8:31-33.
In Luke 9:22, Jesus foretells that He must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised up on the third day.
Luke 9:22 is part of a longer conversation between Jesus and His disciples while they were alone (Luke 9:18a). According to Matthew and Mark, this conversation occurred in the Roman district of Caesarea Philippi (Matthew 16:13,Mark 8:27) which was located north and slightly east of Galilee.
This conversation began when Jesus asked His disciples while they were alone: “Who do the people say that I am?” (Luke 9:18b). After they gave their answer, Jesus followed up with the question: “But who do you say that I am?” (Luke 9:20a). Peter answered that He was “the Christ of God” (Luke 9:20b). And Jesus praised Peter for his confession, saying that God had revealed this to him (Matthew 16:17-19), before “He warned them and instructed them not to tell this to anyone” (Luke 9:21—see also Matthew 16:20,Mark 8:30) about His Messianic and divine identity.
After Jesus affirmed His divine and Messianic identity and forbade them to tell anyone about it, Jesus told His disciples about His future to prepare them for the difficult realities that lay ahead:
saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day” (v 22).
Even though Jesus was the Christ—the Messiah—and God’s Son (Matthew 16:16) this did not mean that He would not be rejected and killed. This dreadful prediction was difficult for the disciples to fathom. But Jesus also told them that He would be raised up from the dead on the third day. This too was difficult for them to understand, perhaps in part because it meant that the first part would have to be true.
The word—saying—directly connects Jesus’s prediction to His instruction for His disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Christ or that He was God (Luke 9:21).
Matthew’s Gospel explicitly points out how Jesus “began to show His disciples” these things “from that time” (Matthew 16:21). “From that time” (Matthew 16:21) meant from the time Peter confessed that He was the Christ and Son of God (Matthew 16:16).
In Luke’s account, Jesus began His explanation by referring to Himself as the Son of Man.
During the time in which Jesus lived, the title Son of Man could be interpreted in three distinct ways.
Most plainly, it could simply denote a human being. Son of Man was an expression for “someone” or “anyone.”
Son of Man could also be recognized as a prophetic term for Ezekiel, who referred to himself as son of man nearly ninety times.
But most profoundly, Son of Man carried Messianic significance. The prophet Daniel used the term the Son of Man to describe a divine figure who would be given everlasting dominion and a kingdom that would never be destroyed (Daniel 7:13-14).
By calling Himself the Son of Man, Jesus was identifying Himself as the Messiah—the figure whom Daniel prophesied.
See The Bible Says article “Son of Man” to learn more about what this term meant.
Jesus told His disciples that He—the Son of Man—must endure/do four things.
The Son of Man must suffer many things
The Son of Man must be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes
The Son of Man must be be killed
And the Son of Man must be raised up on the third day.
The reason the Son of Man must endure and/or do these four things was to fulfill the scriptures (Luke 24:25-27, Luke 24:44-46, Acts 17:2-3, 1 Corinthians 15:3-4) and to accomplish the will of His Father (John 6:38-39, 10:17-18, Acts 2:23).
Nearly eight centuries before Jesus’s death, Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah must suffer as part of the LORD’s plan to redeem Israel from her sin and guilt,
“But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief If He would render Himself as a guilt offering… Because He poured Himself to death And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors.” (Isaiah 53:10a-12b)
God’s plan for Israel and the world’s redemption had long entailed the Messiah’s suffering (Genesis 3:15) and it would be through Jesus the Messiah’s suffering that creation would be reconciled to God. Therefore, if the world was to be redeemed, the Son of Man must suffer many things.
The Book of Hebrews comments on the beauty of this divine plan:
“For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.” (Hebrews 2:10)
But the Old Testament also described the Messiah as a triumphant figure whose glorious and prosperous reign would never end (Genesis 49:10,2 Samuel 7:12-13, 1 Chronicles 22:9-10, Psalm 2:6-8, Psalm 45:6-7, Psalm 89:3-4, Psalm 89:35-36, Daniel 2:44,Daniel 7:13-14, Zechariah 14:9).
The Old Testament also described during the Messiah’s reign that Israel would thrive in peace with the world and live in harmony with God—a state of shalom—where everything is as it should be (Isaiah 2:2-4, 9:6-7, 11:6-9, Ezekiel 34:25-26, 37:26-27, Hosea 2:18-20, Micah 4:3-4, Zechariah 9:10).
The disciples had seen Jesus perform many wonders and they knew Him to be the Messiah (Luke 9:20). They heard Him preach that His kingdom was imminent (Matthew 4:17) and had even preached this to Israelites in obedience to Jesus (Matthew 10:7,Luke 9:2). The disciples likely believed that the time of Israel’s redemption and exaltation under the Messiah’s glorious reign would soon take place under Jesus’s leadership.
Therefore, the disciples were likely shocked when Jesus told them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed.
1. The first thing Jesus told His disciples He must endure as the Son of Man was to suffer many things.
The expression many things appears to be a general statement that includes all of the things He Himself must suffer between the time that Jesus made this statement and His resurrection. In Matthew’s account of this statement, Jesus specifies that Jerusalem is the particular location where He must suffer these things (Matthew 16:21).
Below is a list of the many things Jesus would suffer. The Gospel references are scriptures that describe the many things Jesus (the Messiah) actually suffered. The Old Testament prophecies are scriptures that foretold the many pains that the Son of Manmust suffer.
Political Conspiracy to kill Jesus coming from the highest levels of religious leadership - Matthew 26:3-5, Mark 14:1,Luke 22:2,John 11:47-53 - Psalm 2:1-2, 31:13, 56:5-6
Sorrow - Matthew 23:37-39, Luke 13:34, 19:41-42 - Psalm 31:10a, Isaiah 53:3, 53:4
Dejection/Anguish - Matthew 26:37-38, Mark 14:33-34, Luke 22:44 - Isaiah 49:4, 53:10, 53:11
Betrayal - Matthew 26:47-49, Mark 14:43-45, Luke 22:47-48, John 18:2-5 - Psalm 41:9, 55:12-14, Zechariah 11:12-13
Unjust Arrest - Matthew 26:50, 55, Mark 14:46,Luke 22:54,John 18:12 - Psalm 35:11,Isaiah 53:7-8
Illegal Trials - Matthew 26:57-68, Mark 14:53-65, Luke 22:66-71, John 18:13-14, 19-24 - Psalm 35:11, 109:2-3, Isaiah 53:7-8
Slander - Matthew 26:59-60, Mark 14:55-59 - Psalm 27:12, 31:13, 35:11-12, 15, 19-21, 109:2-3
Abuse from His Captors - Matthew 26:67-68, 27:30, Mark 14:65, 15:19, Luke 22:63-64, John 19:3 - Psalm 35:15,Lamentations 3:30,Isaiah 50:6, 53:14b, Micah 5:1
Illegal Trials - Matthew 26:57-68, Mark 14:53-65, Luke 22:66-71, John 18:13-14, 19-24 - Psalm 35:11, 109:2-3 Isaiah 53:7-8
Flogging - Matthew 27:26,Mark 15;15,Luke 23:16, 22, John 19:1 - Psalm 129:3,Isaiah 50:6, 53:5
National Rejection - Matthew 27:20-25, Mark 15:9-15, Luke 23:22-25, John 19:14-15 - Psalm 118:22,Isaiah 8:14-15, 49:7a
Public Humiliation and Mockery - Matthew 27:28-31, 39-44, Mark 15:17-20, 29-32, Luke 23:11, 35-36, John 19:2-3 - Psalm 22:7-8, 35:16, Lamentations 3:14
Crucifixion and an Excruciating Death - Matthew 27:33-50, Mark 15:22-37, Luke 23:33-46, John 19:16-30 - Psalm 22:16-18, Isaiah 53:5, 65:2, Zechariah 12:10
Death - Matthew 27:50,Mark 15:37,Luke 23:46,John 19:30 - Isaiah 53:9, 12
Jesus specified a few of those many things He must suffer—namely His betrayal, abandonment, crucifixion, and death.
2. The second thing Jesus told His disciplesHe must endure as the Son of Man was to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes.
Collectively, these three groups—the elders, chief priests, scribes—comprised the Sanhedrin Council.
The Sanhedrin was the highest Jewish court in the land. In Jesus’s lifetime, the Romans allowed the Sanhedrin a considerable degree of leeway to govern the Jews according to their own customs and traditions, so long as Roman supremacy was accepted, taxes were collected, and the peace was not greatly disturbed. The Sanhedrin Council met in Jerusalem. It consisted of members of both the Pharisees and Sadducees parties, and the scribes.
The Pharisees led the local synagogues and were the keepers of Jewish culture, the Law of Moses, and the Oral Traditions (the Mishnah). Pharisees who sat on the Sanhedrin Council were called the elders.
The Sadducees operated the Temple in Jerusalem and the sacrificial system. Sadducees who sat on the Sanhedrin Council were called chief priests.
In addition to eldersand chief priests, the Sanhedrin Council also had religious lawyers and legal experts called scribes.
Jesus’s statement that the Son of Man must… be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes meant that He would be rejected as the Messiah by the Sanhedrin Council—Israel’s national leadership.
Though the disciples had witnessed and experienced Jesus’s clashes with the Pharisees and scribes before (Luke 5:21-24, 30-39, 6:1-11) it was probably hard for them to imagine that He would be rejected by them and the chief priests. If anything, the disciples may have supposed that the elders, chief priests, and scribes would either come around to recognize Jesus as the Messiah or that He would reject them—long before the Sanhedrin would successfully depose and reject Jesus.
3. The third thing Jesus said He must endure as the Son of Man was that He must be killed.
According to Jesus, the Son of Man must die. And not only must He die, the Messiah must be murdered. The Son of Manmust be killed.
The structure of Jesus’s statement suggests that the Son of Man’s murder would be an execution at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and scribes.
The Messiah’s murder would have likely been even more unthinkable for the disciples of Jesus to fathom. Jesus was the chosen One of Israel. The Lord’s Anointed who would lead Israel to glory. His death—His murder—would seem to make those good things that the Son of Man was supposed to achieve impossible. It would likely have been a disturbing thought to think that the Sanhedrin would execute Jesus, the Messiah.
But the Messiah’s execution was not an avoidable tragedy. It was a necessary part of God’s plan.
The way the elders, chief priests, and scribes killed the Son of Man was by pressuring Pilate, the Roman governor (Luke 23:1-2, 23:23, John 19:12), to crucify Jesus and by manipulating the crowd for this deadly purpose (Matthew 27:20,Mark 15:11).
Jesus was killed by Roman crucifixion. Roman crucifixion was a brutal method of execution in which a condemned person was scourged, nailed or tied to a wooden cross, and left to suffer a slow, public, and agonizing death as both punishment and deterrent.
4. Thefourth thing Jesus said He must experience as the Son of Man was that He must be raised up on the third day.
This meant that Jesus would be raisedup from the dead on the third day of His death.
Just as the Messiah’s death was part of the LORD’s plan to redeem Israel, so was the Messiah’s resurrection from the dead. Therefore, the Son of Man must be raised up from the dead in order for God’s plan of redemption to be realized.
The Old Testament predicted that the Messiah would die and be resurrected through prophetic allusions and implications and through the prophetic imagery of historical events in Israel’s history. Just as the Messiah’s death.
Here are some of the prophetic imageries of events throughout Israel’s history that foreshadow the Son of Man’s resurrection.
Abraham and Isaac
When Abraham offered Isaac on Mount Moriah, Isaac was as good as dead, yet God provided a substitute and returned him to his father (Genesis 22:10-12). This prefigures how God would offer His own Son to death but raise Him up, delivering Him back alive.
Joseph brought out of the pit and slavery
Joseph was cast into a pit by his brothers and later suffered slavery and prison before being exalted to power in Egypt (Genesis 37:28, 41:39-41). His descent into humiliation and rise to glory foreshadow the Messiah’s suffering, death, and triumphant resurrection to reign.
Jonah and the Whale
Jonah was swallowed into the depths of the sea and remained three days in the belly of the great fish before God brought him out alive (Jonah 1:17, 2:10). Jesus Himself said this was the sign of His resurrection after three days in the grave (Matthew 12:40). Jesus claimed that His resurrection would be the proof of His identity as the Messiah and Son of God, and He called His resurrection “the sign of Jonah” (Luke 11:29).
In addition to these prophetic foreshadows, there were also some prophetic lines that allude and/or imply that the Messiah will come back to life,
“For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.” (Psalm 16:10)
“Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have ransomed me, O Lord, God of truth.” (Psalm 31:5)
“But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, For He will receive me.” (Psalm 49:15)
“You who have shown me many troubles and distresses Will revive me again, And will bring me up again from the depths of the earth.” (Psalm 71:20)
“I descended to the roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars was around me forever, But You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.” (Jonah 2:9)
Other Messianic passages such as Psalm 22 andIsaiah 53 clearly depict the Messiah as dead but later in the prophecy describe Him as alive. These prophecies imply that the Messiah will be raised up back to life.
The disciples seemed to have trouble grasping that the Messiah would suffer and die and be killed, therefore it was even harder for His resurrection from the dead to register in the minds.
From the moment Jesus confirmed to His disciples that He was the Christ, He began to prepare them for the path ahead. This marked a pivotal point in His ministry.
Jesus had previously hinted at His death (Luke 5:35) and/or resurrection (John 2:19-22) in symbolic or prophetic terms, but this was the first time He straight up told His disciples in such explicit terms that He would suffer and be killed but be raised back to life. The bluntness of this reality was startling.
Yet, despite the clarity of His words, it seems the disciples did not fully grasp what He was saying. At this time, they not only failed to understand why these things must be. They believed that these things should never be.
The idea that Jesus—the Messiah, the Son of God—could be overcome and killed was an unacceptable thought to the disciples. It challenged their beliefs about who He was and what He came to do. It is likely that this prophecy stirred their greatest fears: that their beloved Lord and Master would be killed.
Ironically, the disciples were prepared to lay down their own lives for Him and His kingdom (Matthew 26:35, 51, John 11:6). They had come to terms with the possibility, perhaps even the expectation, of suffering or dying for Him—but the thought of Him being defeated and executed was something they could not contemplate.
To the disciples, the idea of Jesus’s death seemed like a total disaster. It would have meant the collapse of their hopes—the defeat of their cause, the loss of Israel’s kingdom, and the waste of all they had sacrificed. His death appeared to contradict their beliefs about Him.
Matthew’s Gospel reveals how the disciples, particularly Peter, struggled to accept the things Jesus said that He as the Son of Man must suffer and experience:
“Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” (Matthew 16:22)
Peter’s rebuke was another iteration of the devil’s temptation offering Jesus the easy path to glory instead of following His Father’s will (Luke 4:6-7). And Jesus saw Peter’s rebuke for what it was:
“But He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.’” (Matthew 16:23)
What Peter and the disciples failed to grasp at this time was that the Messiah would come in two advents.
The Messiah’s first appearance would be as the suffering servant who would die for the sins of the world (Isaiah 53). The Messiah’s second appearance would come later as the conquering king (Psalm 45:3-6). This tension puzzled many Jewish thinkers, with some even proposing the idea of two distinct Messiahs to reconcile the conflicting expectations.
In Jesus’s first advent, He came as the suffering servant who gave His life for many (Matthew 20:28,Mark 10:45). In His second advent, He will come as a conquering King (Revelation 19).
The disciples’ beliefs left no room for a murdered Messiah. The disciples likely never considered that Jesus, as the Christ, could die or be killed. They focused on the prophecies of a conquering king and overlooked the suffering servant. As a result, Jesus’s statement was not only confusing—it was deeply unsettling and seemingly unthinkable.
But Peter and the disciples were mistaken in these Messianic assumptions.
God would not only allow Jesus to be killed—He sent His Son for that very purpose (John 3:16,John 12:27,2 Corinthians 5:21,1 John 4:9-10). This is why Jesus said these things must happen—His sacrifice and death was the very heart of God’s redemptive plan.
Luke 9:22
22 saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.”
Set to dark mode
Luke 9:22 meaning
The parallel Gospel accounts for Luke 9:22 are Matthew 16:21-23 and Mark 8:31-33.
In Luke 9:22, Jesus foretells that He must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised up on the third day.
Luke 9:22 is part of a longer conversation between Jesus and His disciples while they were alone (Luke 9:18a). According to Matthew and Mark, this conversation occurred in the Roman district of Caesarea Philippi (Matthew 16:13, Mark 8:27) which was located north and slightly east of Galilee.
This conversation began when Jesus asked His disciples while they were alone: “Who do the people say that I am?” (Luke 9:18b). After they gave their answer, Jesus followed up with the question: “But who do you say that I am?” (Luke 9:20a). Peter answered that He was “the Christ of God” (Luke 9:20b). And Jesus praised Peter for his confession, saying that God had revealed this to him (Matthew 16:17-19), before “He warned them and instructed them not to tell this to anyone” (Luke 9:21—see also Matthew 16:20, Mark 8:30) about His Messianic and divine identity.
After Jesus affirmed His divine and Messianic identity and forbade them to tell anyone about it, Jesus told His disciples about His future to prepare them for the difficult realities that lay ahead:
saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day” (v 22).
Even though Jesus was the Christ—the Messiah—and God’s Son (Matthew 16:16) this did not mean that He would not be rejected and killed. This dreadful prediction was difficult for the disciples to fathom. But Jesus also told them that He would be raised up from the dead on the third day. This too was difficult for them to understand, perhaps in part because it meant that the first part would have to be true.
The word—saying—directly connects Jesus’s prediction to His instruction for His disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Christ or that He was God (Luke 9:21).
Matthew’s Gospel explicitly points out how Jesus “began to show His disciples” these things “from that time” (Matthew 16:21). “From that time” (Matthew 16:21) meant from the time Peter confessed that He was the Christ and Son of God (Matthew 16:16).
In Luke’s account, Jesus began His explanation by referring to Himself as the Son of Man.
During the time in which Jesus lived, the title Son of Man could be interpreted in three distinct ways.
Most plainly, it could simply denote a human being. Son of Man was an expression for “someone” or “anyone.”
Son of Man could also be recognized as a prophetic term for Ezekiel, who referred to himself as son of man nearly ninety times.
But most profoundly, Son of Man carried Messianic significance. The prophet Daniel used the term the Son of Man to describe a divine figure who would be given everlasting dominion and a kingdom that would never be destroyed (Daniel 7:13-14).
By calling Himself the Son of Man, Jesus was identifying Himself as the Messiah—the figure whom Daniel prophesied.
See The Bible Says article “Son of Man” to learn more about what this term meant.
Jesus told His disciples that He—the Son of Man—must endure/do four things.
The reason the Son of Man must endure and/or do these four things was to fulfill the scriptures (Luke 24:25-27, Luke 24:44-46, Acts 17:2-3, 1 Corinthians 15:3-4) and to accomplish the will of His Father (John 6:38-39, 10:17-18, Acts 2:23).
Nearly eight centuries before Jesus’s death, Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah must suffer as part of the LORD’s plan to redeem Israel from her sin and guilt,
“But the LORD was pleased
To crush Him, putting Him to grief
If He would render Himself as a guilt offering…
Because He poured Himself to death
And was numbered with the transgressors;
Yet He Himself bore the sin of many,
And interceded for the transgressors.”
(Isaiah 53:10a-12b)
God’s plan for Israel and the world’s redemption had long entailed the Messiah’s suffering (Genesis 3:15) and it would be through Jesus the Messiah’s suffering that creation would be reconciled to God. Therefore, if the world was to be redeemed, the Son of Man must suffer many things.
The Book of Hebrews comments on the beauty of this divine plan:
“For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.”
(Hebrews 2:10)
But the Old Testament also described the Messiah as a triumphant figure whose glorious and prosperous reign would never end (Genesis 49:10, 2 Samuel 7:12-13, 1 Chronicles 22:9-10, Psalm 2:6-8, Psalm 45:6-7, Psalm 89:3-4, Psalm 89:35-36, Daniel 2:44, Daniel 7:13-14, Zechariah 14:9).
The Old Testament also described during the Messiah’s reign that Israel would thrive in peace with the world and live in harmony with God—a state of shalom—where everything is as it should be (Isaiah 2:2-4, 9:6-7, 11:6-9, Ezekiel 34:25-26, 37:26-27, Hosea 2:18-20, Micah 4:3-4, Zechariah 9:10).
The disciples had seen Jesus perform many wonders and they knew Him to be the Messiah (Luke 9:20). They heard Him preach that His kingdom was imminent (Matthew 4:17) and had even preached this to Israelites in obedience to Jesus (Matthew 10:7, Luke 9:2). The disciples likely believed that the time of Israel’s redemption and exaltation under the Messiah’s glorious reign would soon take place under Jesus’s leadership.
Therefore, the disciples were likely shocked when Jesus told them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed.
1. The first thing Jesus told His disciples He must endure as the Son of Man was to suffer many things.
The expression many things appears to be a general statement that includes all of the things He Himself must suffer between the time that Jesus made this statement and His resurrection. In Matthew’s account of this statement, Jesus specifies that Jerusalem is the particular location where He must suffer these things (Matthew 16:21).
Below is a list of the many things Jesus would suffer. The Gospel references are scriptures that describe the many things Jesus (the Messiah) actually suffered. The Old Testament prophecies are scriptures that foretold the many pains that the Son of Man must suffer.
- Matthew 26:3-5, Mark 14:1, Luke 22:2, John 11:47-53
- Psalm 2:1-2, 31:13, 56:5-6
- Matthew 23:37-39, Luke 13:34, 19:41-42
- Psalm 31:10a, Isaiah 53:3, 53:4
- Matthew 26:37-38, Mark 14:33-34, Luke 22:44
- Isaiah 49:4, 53:10, 53:11
- Matthew 26:47-49, Mark 14:43-45, Luke 22:47-48, John 18:2-5
- Psalm 41:9, 55:12-14, Zechariah 11:12-13
- Matthew 26:56, Mark 14:50
- Psalm 22:6-8, 31:11, 88:8, 69:7, 69:20, Isaiah 53:3, Zechariah 13:7,
- Matthew 26:50, 55, Mark 14:46, Luke 22:54, John 18:12
- Psalm 35:11, Isaiah 53:7-8
- Matthew 26:57-68, Mark 14:53-65, Luke 22:66-71, John 18:13-14, 19-24
- Psalm 35:11, 109:2-3, Isaiah 53:7-8
- Matthew 26:59-60, Mark 14:55-59
- Psalm 27:12, 31:13, 35:11-12, 15, 19-21, 109:2-3
- Matthew 26:67-68, 27:30, Mark 14:65, 15:19, Luke 22:63-64, John 19:3
- Psalm 35:15, Lamentations 3:30, Isaiah 50:6, 53:14b, Micah 5:1
- Matthew 26:57-68, Mark 14:53-65, Luke 22:66-71, John 18:13-14, 19-24
- Psalm 35:11, 109:2-3 Isaiah 53:7-8
- Matthew 27:26, Mark 15;15, Luke 23:16, 22, John 19:1
- Psalm 129:3, Isaiah 50:6, 53:5
- Matthew 27:20-25, Mark 15:9-15, Luke 23:22-25, John 19:14-15
- Psalm 118:22, Isaiah 8:14-15, 49:7a
- Matthew 27:28-31, 39-44, Mark 15:17-20, 29-32, Luke 23:11, 35-36, John 19:2-3
- Psalm 22:7-8, 35:16, Lamentations 3:14
- Matthew 27:33-50, Mark 15:22-37, Luke 23:33-46, John 19:16-30
- Psalm 22:16-18, Isaiah 53:5, 65:2, Zechariah 12:10
- Matthew 27:50, Mark 15:37, Luke 23:46, John 19:30
- Isaiah 53:9, 12
Jesus specified a few of those many things He must suffer—namely His betrayal, abandonment, crucifixion, and death.
2. The second thing Jesus told His disciples He must endure as the Son of Man was to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes.
Collectively, these three groups—the elders, chief priests, scribes—comprised the Sanhedrin Council.
The Sanhedrin was the highest Jewish court in the land. In Jesus’s lifetime, the Romans allowed the Sanhedrin a considerable degree of leeway to govern the Jews according to their own customs and traditions, so long as Roman supremacy was accepted, taxes were collected, and the peace was not greatly disturbed. The Sanhedrin Council met in Jerusalem. It consisted of members of both the Pharisees and Sadducees parties, and the scribes.
The Pharisees led the local synagogues and were the keepers of Jewish culture, the Law of Moses, and the Oral Traditions (the Mishnah). Pharisees who sat on the Sanhedrin Council were called the elders.
The Sadducees operated the Temple in Jerusalem and the sacrificial system. Sadducees who sat on the Sanhedrin Council were called chief priests.
In addition to elders and chief priests, the Sanhedrin Council also had religious lawyers and legal experts called scribes.
Jesus’s statement that the Son of Man must… be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes meant that He would be rejected as the Messiah by the Sanhedrin Council—Israel’s national leadership.
Though the disciples had witnessed and experienced Jesus’s clashes with the Pharisees and scribes before (Luke 5:21-24, 30-39, 6:1-11) it was probably hard for them to imagine that He would be rejected by them and the chief priests. If anything, the disciples may have supposed that the elders, chief priests, and scribes would either come around to recognize Jesus as the Messiah or that He would reject them—long before the Sanhedrin would successfully depose and reject Jesus.
3. The third thing Jesus said He must endure as the Son of Man was that He must be killed.
According to Jesus, the Son of Man must die. And not only must He die, the Messiah must be murdered. The Son of Man must be killed.
The structure of Jesus’s statement suggests that the Son of Man’s murder would be an execution at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and scribes.
The Messiah’s murder would have likely been even more unthinkable for the disciples of Jesus to fathom. Jesus was the chosen One of Israel. The Lord’s Anointed who would lead Israel to glory. His death—His murder—would seem to make those good things that the Son of Man was supposed to achieve impossible. It would likely have been a disturbing thought to think that the Sanhedrin would execute Jesus, the Messiah.
But the Messiah’s execution was not an avoidable tragedy. It was a necessary part of God’s plan.
The way the elders, chief priests, and scribes killed the Son of Man was by pressuring Pilate, the Roman governor (Luke 23:1-2, 23:23, John 19:12), to crucify Jesus and by manipulating the crowd for this deadly purpose (Matthew 27:20, Mark 15:11).
Jesus was killed by Roman crucifixion. Roman crucifixion was a brutal method of execution in which a condemned person was scourged, nailed or tied to a wooden cross, and left to suffer a slow, public, and agonizing death as both punishment and deterrent.
To learn more about this brutal manner of execution see The Bible Says article: “Bearing the Cross: Exploring the Unimaginable Suffering of Crucifixion.”
4. The fourth thing Jesus said He must experience as the Son of Man was that He must be raised up on the third day.
This meant that Jesus would be raised up from the dead on the third day of His death.
Just as the Messiah’s death was part of the LORD’s plan to redeem Israel, so was the Messiah’s resurrection from the dead. Therefore, the Son of Man must be raised up from the dead in order for God’s plan of redemption to be realized.
The Old Testament predicted that the Messiah would die and be resurrected through prophetic allusions and implications and through the prophetic imagery of historical events in Israel’s history. Just as the Messiah’s death.
Here are some of the prophetic imageries of events throughout Israel’s history that foreshadow the Son of Man’s resurrection.
When Abraham offered Isaac on Mount Moriah, Isaac was as good as dead, yet God provided a substitute and returned him to his father (Genesis 22:10-12). This prefigures how God would offer His own Son to death but raise Him up, delivering Him back alive.
Joseph was cast into a pit by his brothers and later suffered slavery and prison before being exalted to power in Egypt (Genesis 37:28, 41:39-41). His descent into humiliation and rise to glory foreshadow the Messiah’s suffering, death, and triumphant resurrection to reign.
Jonah was swallowed into the depths of the sea and remained three days in the belly of the great fish before God brought him out alive (Jonah 1:17, 2:10). Jesus Himself said this was the sign of His resurrection after three days in the grave (Matthew 12:40). Jesus claimed that His resurrection would be the proof of His identity as the Messiah and Son of God, and He called His resurrection “the sign of Jonah” (Luke 11:29).
In addition to these prophetic foreshadows, there were also some prophetic lines that allude and/or imply that the Messiah will come back to life,
“For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol;
Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.”
(Psalm 16:10)
“Into Your hand I commit my spirit;
You have ransomed me, O Lord, God of truth.”
(Psalm 31:5)
“But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol,
For He will receive me.”
(Psalm 49:15)
“You who have shown me many troubles and distresses
Will revive me again,
And will bring me up again from the depths of the earth.”
(Psalm 71:20)
“I descended to the roots of the mountains.
The earth with its bars was around me forever,
But You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.”
(Jonah 2:9)
Other Messianic passages such as Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 clearly depict the Messiah as dead but later in the prophecy describe Him as alive. These prophecies imply that the Messiah will be raised up back to life.
The disciples seemed to have trouble grasping that the Messiah would suffer and die and be killed, therefore it was even harder for His resurrection from the dead to register in the minds.
From the moment Jesus confirmed to His disciples that He was the Christ, He began to prepare them for the path ahead. This marked a pivotal point in His ministry.
Jesus had previously hinted at His death (Luke 5:35) and/or resurrection (John 2:19-22) in symbolic or prophetic terms, but this was the first time He straight up told His disciples in such explicit terms that He would suffer and be killed but be raised back to life. The bluntness of this reality was startling.
Yet, despite the clarity of His words, it seems the disciples did not fully grasp what He was saying. At this time, they not only failed to understand why these things must be. They believed that these things should never be.
The idea that Jesus—the Messiah, the Son of God—could be overcome and killed was an unacceptable thought to the disciples. It challenged their beliefs about who He was and what He came to do. It is likely that this prophecy stirred their greatest fears: that their beloved Lord and Master would be killed.
Ironically, the disciples were prepared to lay down their own lives for Him and His kingdom (Matthew 26:35, 51, John 11:6). They had come to terms with the possibility, perhaps even the expectation, of suffering or dying for Him—but the thought of Him being defeated and executed was something they could not contemplate.
To the disciples, the idea of Jesus’s death seemed like a total disaster. It would have meant the collapse of their hopes—the defeat of their cause, the loss of Israel’s kingdom, and the waste of all they had sacrificed. His death appeared to contradict their beliefs about Him.
Matthew’s Gospel reveals how the disciples, particularly Peter, struggled to accept the things Jesus said that He as the Son of Man must suffer and experience:
“Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.”
(Matthew 16:22)
Peter’s rebuke was another iteration of the devil’s temptation offering Jesus the easy path to glory instead of following His Father’s will (Luke 4:6-7). And Jesus saw Peter’s rebuke for what it was:
“But He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.’”
(Matthew 16:23)
What Peter and the disciples failed to grasp at this time was that the Messiah would come in two advents.
The Messiah’s first appearance would be as the suffering servant who would die for the sins of the world (Isaiah 53). The Messiah’s second appearance would come later as the conquering king (Psalm 45:3-6). This tension puzzled many Jewish thinkers, with some even proposing the idea of two distinct Messiahs to reconcile the conflicting expectations.
In Jesus’s first advent, He came as the suffering servant who gave His life for many (Matthew 20:28, Mark 10:45). In His second advent, He will come as a conquering King (Revelation 19).
The disciples’ beliefs left no room for a murdered Messiah. The disciples likely never considered that Jesus, as the Christ, could die or be killed. They focused on the prophecies of a conquering king and overlooked the suffering servant. As a result, Jesus’s statement was not only confusing—it was deeply unsettling and seemingly unthinkable.
But Peter and the disciples were mistaken in these Messianic assumptions.
God would not only allow Jesus to be killed—He sent His Son for that very purpose (John 3:16, John 12:27, 2 Corinthians 5:21, 1 John 4:9-10). This is why Jesus said these things must happen—His sacrifice and death was the very heart of God’s redemptive plan.