One of the most well-known and powerful sermons ever preached in America was titled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Jonathan Edwards first preached it in 1741. It’s still considered one of the greatest sermons in the English language. The sermon vividly portrays sinners under God’s wrath, on the very precipice of hell, dangling over the lake of fire from a spider’s web. It was a very powerful sermon that led to many conversions.

In today’s text, we find, not sinners in the hands of an angry God, but God in the hands of angry sinners. Jesus, God in the flesh, subjected himself to the abuse and false judgment of sinful man. In a very real sense, God was in the hands of angry sinners.

And it might seem as these evil men controlled Jesus’ destiny. But we know that Jesus, not these men, is in full control of this process. He’s willingly laying down his life as a sacrifice for our sins. These wicked men were unwittingly fulfilling God’s plan.

Jesus had been arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and taken to the home of the high priest. During the time that he was under arrest, he began to experience violent abuse.

Let’s walk through the text and see how God was in the hands of angry sinners.

The title for this message from Steven J. Cole's commentary on Luke