Matthew
27:32-56
Now the hour has finally arrived and our Lord knew
that His prayers for another way to save man from his sin were not possible. He
girded up His waist and prepared Himself as His own familiar friend handed Him
over to the Jewish religious rulers at night. They came so by night to remain
away from the multitudes of the common people who gladly heard the Lord Jesus’
words. These poor misguided religious rulers had been plotting to kill the Lord
Jesus Christ from the very beginning of His earthly ministry, but they could
not because He had not allowed them to before His appointed time. Remember He
said, “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down
My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of
Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This
command I have received from My Father.”
Think of it, He walked in Judea, Samaria, Capernaum,
even Jerusalem and all the other surrounding cities for 31/2 years healing,
forgiving sins, feeding people, and destroying the works of the devil every day
all the while His own people (Jews) were plotting to kill Him every day believing
Him to be an imposter. He had told His disciples so many times that He would be
turned over into the hands of sinners to be mocked, spat upon, beaten, and killed,
then He would rise from the dead, but on every occasion they did not understand
Him.
Luke
18:31-34 Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that
are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For
He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit
upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise
again.” But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden
from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken. NKJV
There He is hanging on that wooden tree (just as He
told them He would be) becoming the curse of sin for everyone that will come to
Him in repentance and faith. Before they nailed Him to the tree, He had been
flogged and beaten so severely that He was not even recognizable and He could
not physically carry His cross all the way up to Golgotha and so Simon the Cyrene
was compelled to bear Christ cross for Him to the top of that hill (see the
article entitled “Are we Bearing our Cross-for Him Today?”, http://www.faithwriters.com/article-details.php?id=91234).
The cross was and still remains the most brutal, cruel, and painful instrument
of death and execution ever used by man. This is one of the reasons our Lord
was not born until this time period because God the Father wanted to show forth
His wrath against sin by using the worst human instrument to pour out His wrath
upon His own Son.
Isaiah
52:14 [For many the Servant of God became an object of horror; many were
astonished at Him.] His face {and} His whole appearance were marred more than
any man’s, and His form beyond that of the sons of men--but just as many were
astonished at Him. QAB
Isaiah
53:10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief.
When You 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. NKJV
These people thought they were putting our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ to death, but we see that God the Father authored Christ’s
death because of His great love for the human race that is separated from Him
by sin. The Lord’s crime according to the Jewish people was His claim to be the
King of the Jews, but the Father is making His very innocent and sinless soul
an offering, a sacrifice for the sins of every true repentant man, woman, boy,
and girl. Now as our Lord hangs there in physical pain the people then amp up
their mocking of Him and after witnessing 31/2 years of miracle after miracle
by His powerful, merciful, and loving hands (and yet they did not believe Him
to be Messiah) they now say to Him get Yourself down from this Roman cross then
we will believe You. In other words let us see this one last miracle and then
we will believe all the other miracles were from God and believe that You are Christ
the Messiah. Even today many people need some sort of tangible proof of God’s
existence before they will truly trust Him. The people, the chief priest, the
elders, and the scribes they all supposed that if our Lord was in fact YAWEH’s
Son, then certainly He (YAWEH) would come down in power and might to save His
son from this graphic death. Well YAWEH will come down in power and might but
not to save His Son but to split in half (by a mighty earthquake) the place
where they practiced their false hypocritical worship.
Our Lord is now nearing death but first He must receive
man’s sin into His soul and in so doing the Father has to turn His back to the
Son for the only time in eternity and for three hours the sky was pitch black
in the middle of the day as our Lord became sin for us. This is the moment on
the cross that caused those great drops of blood to fall from His head while He
prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. This was the reason He went back to the
Father three times praying the same words to find an alternative way so that He
would not have to be in this very moment. This is what made His flesh shriek back
from the cross and crucifixion not the physical pain He would endure in His
body. He displayed the very heart of an earthly son when his father is about to
leave the house and the little boy says, “Daddy, Daddy, don’t leave me”, so did
our Lord likewise when He sensed the Fathers presence not near to Him and He
cried out like the little earthly son, “My God, My God,
why have You forsaken Me?” He like the little earthly son cried out in the
distress that abandonment brings to the heart. Once again the people devoid of
the Old Testament Scriptures that foretold this day thought He again was crying
out for someone from Heaven to come and remove Him from the cross. Finally, our
Lord cried out again with a loud voice and said, “It is
finished” and He yields up or sends away His Spirit to the Father and
dies to redeem you and me from our sin by taking it away from us and placing it
upon Himself.
Hebrews
9:14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit
offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to
serve the living God? NKJV
Revelation
1:5-6 “To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and
has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and
dominion forever and ever. Amen.” NKJV
“The man with a cross no longer controls his
destiny; he lost control when he picked up his cross. That cross immediately
became to him an all-absorbing interest, an overwhelming interference. No
matter what he may desire to do, there is but one thing he can do; that is,
move on toward the place of crucifixion.”
A. W. Tozer 1897-1963
“The cross is the center of the world’s history; the
incarnation of Christ and the crucifixion of
our Lord are the pivot round which all the events of the ages revolve. The
testimony of Christ was the spirit of prophecy, and the growing power of Jesus
is the spirit of history.” Alexander MacLaren 1826-1910
“Gospellers have much to say about what Christ death
has accomplished for those who believe in Him, but very little is said about
what that Death accomplished Godward. The fact is that the death of Christ
glorified God if never a single sinner had been saved by virtue of it.” A. W.
Pink 1886-1952
“All heaven is interested in the cross of Christ,
all hell terribly afraid of it, while men are the only beings who more or less
ignore its meaning.” Oswald Chambers 1874-1917
“Non-Christians seem to think that the Incarnation
implies some particular merit or excellence in humanity. But of course it
implies just the reverse: a particular demerit and depravity. No creature that
deserved Redemption would need to be redeemed. They that are whole need not the
physician. Christ died for men precisely because men are not worth dying for;
to make them worth it.” C. S. Lewis 1898-1963
“The heart of Christ became like a reservoir in the
midst of the mountains. All the tributary streams of iniquity, and every drop
of the sins of His people, ran down and gathered into one vast lake, deep as
hell and shoreless as eternity. All these met, as it were, in Christ’s heart,
and He endured them all.” Charles Spurgeon 1834-1892
If
you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ and His amazing healing power, pray this
from your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ (you speaking directly to Him), Dear
Lord Jesus, I confess to You that I am a sinner and I need Your forgiveness. I
believe You shed Your Blood and died for my sins. I believe that You rose from
the dead proving that You alone are God. I repent of my sins. I want to turn
from my sins. I ask You Dear Lord Jesus to come into my heart and take control
of my life. I want You to be my Lord, Savior, and my God. Amen...
Sincerely in Christ,
Clifford D. Tate, Sr.
Author of “Silent Assassins of the Soul - Are you
Broken by Pornography and Masturbation? You can be Restored by the Lord Jesus
Christ and brought into Deliverance, Freedom, and Victory! A Guide for Men and
Women in the Enemy’s Crosshairs” e-book available now @ Amazon Kindle, @ Apple
I Bookstore for IPod, Barnes and Noble for Nook, Reader Store for Sony Reader,
Kobo, Copia, Gardners, Baker and Taylor, and eBookPie…
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