I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet
not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I
live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Galatians2:20
One of the most important
things we have to understand about the Cross is the fact that we were in Jesus
when He was crucified. We were crucified together with Him.
There is a common analogy
that our salvation is like a kid who was crossing the road and somehow got injured
and stuck in the middle of a highway. Then this large truck was driving towards
them and yet they couldn’t get out of the way. Suddenly, Jesus appeared out of
nowhere, grabbed them and threw them out of the way and the truck crushed him
instead of crushing the kid.
Well, actually a better
analogy is this. You were that kid who got stuck in the middle of the road,
this truck was speeding towards you, suddenly Jesus appears out of nowhere,
runs towards you, grabs you and hugs you tight and sits right there in the
middle of the road. And the truck crushes both of you to death. Both of you die
instantly and are buried. But Jesus rises from the dead and leaves you in the
grave, dead forever.
Jesus’s death at the
Cross was our death. We were crucified together with Him. We died together with
Him.
Jesus suffered a great
deal prior to and during His crucifixion. He suffered untold pain and anguish.
Pain that none of us can ever imagine even in our wildest dreams.
THE CRUCIFIXION
Crucifixion was a
ghastly, gross and extremely painful process of death. A victim was taken
through extremely painful physical punishments that culminated with death on a
cross. Jesus wasn’t spared any of this and there is plenty of scripture both in
the new and in the Old Testament discussing this;
“O
foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth,
before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among
you?” Gal3:1
When Paul taught about the Cross, He taught it so
powerfully that to the Galatians it was as if Jesus was crucified right there
in front of them. His revelation was so vivid and profound. He had allowed the
Holy Spirit to reveal to Him what had happened that His witness of it became so
powerful. This is my prayer for myself and for you today. To allow the Holy
Spirit to reveal to us what really happened at the Cross. To enable us to see
it so clearly and so powerfully.
In this teaching I will leave out the suffering and
torture that Jesus was subjected to from
the time He was arrested to the time He was crucified. This included the crown
of thorns, the scourging and the actual crucifixion. (These are discussed in
detail on the blog and in my book The Cross. Crucified with Christ) Instead I
will focus on His death and what took place.
Terrible as the torture and crucifixion of Jesus
was, it was nothing compared to what He experienced from the Father on the
Cross.
When the torture by the soldiers ended and He was
put on the Cross, God Himself took over.
The Cross is where God started
releasing the fullness of His wrath and anger for all the sins of all the
people in the world for all time past, present and future in the body, soul and
spirit of Jesus.
The Cross is where Jesus started to pay the penalty for all
our sins and iniquities. It is where He took on our sin nature and received the
punishment and destruction we deserved. It is where He became our sin.
Not a single sin survived the judgment and wrath of
God. Prior to the Cross, men punished Jesus by
scourging. But on the Cross God punished Him with the curse. At the Cross Jesus
drank the cup of suffering that He had dreaded to the point of death and asked
God to take away if possible.
“Then
saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye
here, and watch with me. And he went a little farther, and fell on his face,
and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me:
nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” Mat26:38-39
Jesus didn’t fear the scourging by the Romans; He
dreaded the wrath of God, the curse of the law which He would bear on the
Cross. He had long told His disciples not to be afraid of those who would
destroy their physical bodies but to fear God who could do much worse;
“And
fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but
rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Mat10:28
He knew that this was what was waiting for Him on
the Cross. God had prophesied this cup of wrath in Isaiah 51:17
“Awake,
awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup
of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung
them out.”
God called it the cup of trembling. How many of you
know God doesn’t exaggerate? Jesus knew this very well. Later we shall look at
this cup of trembling, the cup of God’s wrath.
“Cursed
be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. And all the
people shall say, Amen.” Deut27:26
In Deuteronomy 27 God pronounces a curse on
everyone who does not fully and completely obey the law. In effect He
pronounces a curse on all of us because none of us are able to keep His law
perfectly the way He demanded. Most of us who want to live under the Law
misunderstand one thing about it.
The Law demands perfection. If you are not
perfect, you are under its curse. We see throughout the Old Testament that
whenever God told the people to obey the Law He told them to obey ALL of it.
Not the best they could. Not the ones they wanted. He said ALL of it. You
either keep all of it (which is impossible naturally) or you leave it alone and
trust in Jesus and His righteousness.
If you insist on keeping the Law and you are not
keeping it perfectly, you are automatically under the curse. Regardless of
whether you are keeping 99% of it or 1%. The Law demands perfection.
Because none of us were able to keep the Law
perfectly, all of us were under the curse of the Law until Jesus took it in
Himself on the Cross and redeemed us from it. This is what Paul means in Galatians
3:13 when He says that
“Christ
hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it
is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”
In Deuteronomy 28 we have a clear description of
the curse and what exactly will happen to whoever disobeys the law. This is
what we are going to deal with in some detail.
But before we do that, there is something the
prophet Isaiah prophesies concerning the Cross that is very rarely taught in
Church and that very few of us have ever considered or pondered regarding the
sufferings of Christ. And yet seeing it and understanding it casts our
understanding of the Cross in a very different light.
We realize that not a single sermon, book, song,
play or movie can perfectly convey what Jesus went through on our behalf. There
is no movie or story brutal or gross enough to portray the sufferings of Christ.
I want to start with this prophecy;
“Behold,
my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very
high. As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than
any man, and his form more than the sons of men” Isa52:13-14KJV
“Behold,
my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be
exalted. As many were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred,
beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind,
so shall he sprinkle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of
him; for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have
not heard they understand. Isa52:13-15 ESV
“Many
will be shocked by him. His appearance will be so disfigured that he won’t look
like any other man. His looks will be so disfigured that he will hardly look
like a human. He will cleanse many nations [with his blood]. Kings
will shut their mouths because of him. They will see things that they had never
been told. They will understand things that they had never heard. Isa52:13-15
GW
“(just as many
were horrified by the sight of you) he was so disfigured he no longer looked
like a man; his form was so marred he no longer looked human, so now he will startle
many nations. Kings will be shocked by his exaltation, for they will witness
something unannounced to them, and they will understand something they had not
heard about. Isa52:13-15 NET
“[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, So shall He startle {and} sprinkle many nations, and kings
shall shut their mouths because of Him; for that which has not been told them
shall they see, and that which they have not heard shall they consider {and}
understand.Isa52:13-15 AMP
Isaiah prophesies that Jesus on the Cross would be
so marred, destroyed and disfigured that He wouldn’t look like a human being.
Just by looking at Him you couldn’t recognize Him as Jesus OR even as a person!
Let me ask you a question, what do you think could have caused such
disfigurement and destruction of Jesus’ body so much that He couldn’t be recognized
as Jesus or even as a person? Do you think that it was the scourging?
I submit to you that no manner of scourging could
ever disfigure somebody to the extent of not being recognizable as a person! If
it had been the scourging then it would have been impossible for Jesus to walk
out of the city and go to be crucified. I believe the answer lies somewhere
else. Isaiah gives it to us in the next chapter. This is what he says;
“He
was despised and rejected by people, one who experienced pain and
was acquainted with illness; people hid their faces from him; he was
despised, and we considered him insignificant. But he lifted up our
illnesses, he carried our pain; even though we thought he was being punished,
attacked by God, and afflicted for something he had done. He was wounded
because of our rebellious deeds, crushed because of our sins; he endured
punishment that made us well; because of his wounds we have been healed. All
of us had wandered off like sheep; each of us had strayed off on his own path,
but the LORD caused the sin of all of us to attack him.”
Isa53:3-6 NET
“Surely
our sicknesses he hath borne, And our pains he hath carried them, And we, we
have esteemed him plagued, Smitten of God, and afflicted.
And he is pierced for our transgressions, Bruised for our iniquities, The
chastisement of our peace is on him, And by his bruise there is healing to us.
All of us like sheep have wandered, Each to his own way we have turned, And
Jehovah hath caused to meet on him, The punishment of us all.”
Isa53:4-6 YLT
“Surely He
has borne our griefs (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses) and carried our
sorrows {and} pains [of punishment], yet we [ignorantly] considered Him
stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God [as if with leprosy].But He was wounded
for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt {and} iniquities; the
chastisement [needful to obtain] peace {and} well-being for us was upon Him,
and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed {and} made whole.”
Isa53:4-5 AMP
This is what so disfigured and destroyed Jesus on
the Cross so that He didn’t look like a human being at all. It was sin, all
the sins of all the people in the whole world from the beginning of the world
to the end of the world. It was the punishment of God for all these
sins. It was the griefs and anxieties and sorrows of all people. It was the
sicknesses and diseases and pains of all people for all time. All of which came
from sin. This was the curse of the Law.
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