{"id":915,"date":"2019-04-14T20:27:51","date_gmt":"2019-04-14T19:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=915"},"modified":"2019-04-14T20:27:52","modified_gmt":"2019-04-14T19:27:52","slug":"the-seven-last-words-from-the-cross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=915","title":{"rendered":"The Seven Last Words from the Cross"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE SEVEN LAST WORDS FROM THE CROSS
\nLUKE 23 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals\u2014one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, \u2018Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.\u2019
\nWhen Jesus\u2019s life was almost at an end, when the pain was worst, Jesus didn\u2019t pray for his mother Mary watching nearby. He didn\u2019t pray for his dear disciples Peter James and John. Jesus didn\u2019t pray for the church which would come into being as a result of His death.
\nAt that moment of agony instead we find Jesus praying for His enemies. And not praying in revenge that God\u2019s judgement and punishment would fall on those who were torturing and executing Him. But praying for their forgiveness!
\n\u201cFather forgive them. They don\u2019t know what they are doing.\u201d
\nJesus is praying for those who were torturing and murdering him. Praying not that they be condemned and punished, but that they be forgiven. Father forgive them!
\nFalse accusations. Condemnation for speaking the truth. Rigged trials. Unjust imprisonment. Misunderstanding. Jealousy. The innocent dying while the guilty get off free. Good men doing nothing! \u201cFather forgive them.\u201d LUKE 23:34
\nFlogged, crowned with thorns, and mocked. Bystanders, chief priests, elders, teachers of the law, soldiers, Pilate, even his own disciples lettting him down \u2013 \u201clone and friendless now he climbs the cruel hill!\u201d Father forgive them, they don\u2019t know what they are doing,
\nJ.C. Ryle, the famous Anglican Bishop of Liverpool expressed so well, \u201cWhile the blood of the greatest sacrifice started to flow, the greatest of all high priests started to intercede.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaiah 53:12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
\nbecause he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.
\nFor he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.<\/p>\n

LUKE 23 39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: \u2018Aren\u2019t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!\u2019
\n40 But the other criminal rebuked him. \u2018Don\u2019t you fear God,\u2019 he said, \u2018since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.\u2019
\n42 Then he said, \u2018Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.\u2019
\n43 Jesus answered him, \u2018Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.\u2019<\/p>\n

Scourged and mocked, nailed to a cross, crowned with thorns, on the point of suffering an agonizing death, here we see Jesus speaking some of the most wonderful words he ever spoke. Not to the religious leaders, not to his own disciples, but to a complete stranger, the criminal hanging on the next cross.
\n\u201cI tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.\u201d LUKE 23:43
\nThe story of the thief on the cross reminds us that the only person God cannot forgive is the person who will not ask for forgiveness. However evil we are \u2013 however much we have hurt God and rejected God, however many of His laws we have broken, we can be forgiven. NO-ONE is too wicked. Our sins may be very great \u2013 but God\u2019s mercy is greater! If those very people who crucified Jesus can be forgiven, so can we! If that thief can be forgiven, so can we!
\nAmazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me
\nI once was lost but now I\u2019m found, was blind but now I see
\nI\u2019ve quoted before, \u201cGrace is love that cares and stoops and rescues.\u201d John R. W. Stott
\nWhen we sin \u2013 receiving the punishment we deserve would be justice. Not getting what we deserve would be mercy. But getting what we don\u2019t deserve \u2013 eternal life, the hope of heaven, the gift of the Holy Spirit, getting all these blessings we dont deserve \u2013 that\u2019s what the Bible means by grace.
\nWhen a person works an eight-hour day and receives a fair day\u2019s pay for his time, that is a wage. When a person competes with an opponent and receives a trophy for his performance, that is a prize. When a person receives appropriate recognition for his long service or high achievements, that is an award. But when a person is not capable of earning a wage, can win no prize, and deserves no award\u2013yet despite that he receives all these and much much more \u2013 that is God\u2019s unmerited favor. This is what we mean when we talk about the grace of God. We could never earn or deserve our salvation \u2013 it\u2019s all of grace! Praise God!
\nAnd that\u2019s what this thief receives \u2013 amazing grace!
\nI tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.
\nYou \u2013 you singular \u2013 the repentant thief. Only he is saved, and for no other reason than that he asked to be saved. In his hour of need he reached out to Christ and Christ answered his prayer. He feared God! He recognised he had done wrong and that he deserved his punishment. He recognised Jesus\u2019s holiness and he recognises Jesus as King! And this thief cries out for help. Jesus, remember me
\nNot the labour of my hands Can fulfil thy law\u2019s demands.
\nCould my zeal no respite know, Could my tears forever flow,
\nAll for sin could not atone. Thou must save, and thou alone.
\nNothing in my hands I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling.
\nNaked come to thee for dress. Helpless come to thee for grace.
\nFoul I to the fountain fly. Wash me Saviour or I die.
\nHere is the scandal of grace. That a prisoner on death row, or a lifelong sinner on his death bed, can cry out to God and find forgiveness and assurance of all the blessings of heaven. Today you WILL be with me in Paradise.
\nJOHN 19 25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother\u2019s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing near by, he said to her, \u2018Woman, here is your son,\u2019 27 and to the disciple, \u2018Here is your mother.\u2019 From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
\nThere on the cross, almost on the point of death. Jesus is still thinking not about himself but about his mother Mary. He entrusts her to perhaps his closest disciple, the disciple whom he loved, the apostle John.<\/p>\n

MARK 15 33 At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 34 And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, \u2018Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?\u2019 (which means \u2018My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?\u2019).
\nJesus was rejected by His own people as a blasphemer. He was condemned by the Romans as a dangerous rebel. He was deserted by His closest friends. But more important than all these rejections, on the cross God the Son felt the full reality of being abandoned by God the Father. Mark\u2019s Gospel chapter 15 verse 34 records Jesus\u2019s cry of dereliction from the cross. \u201cMy God, my God, why did You abandon me?\u201d (Mark 15:34) Why have you forsaken me?
\nHere is an experience of complete rejection. These were not just feelings of apparent desertion, but the reality of total abandonment. The Son had come to reveal God as the heavenly Father. Jesus had shocked traditional Judaism by daring to teach His disciples to address God as Abba, Daddy. But on the cross for the first time in His life Jesus cannot pray \u201cMy Father\u201d but only \u201cMy God\u201d. Why have you deserted me? Why have you forsaken me? Why have you abandoned me? Why have you handed me over? Given me up? Betrayed me? WHY have you forsaken me? How those words would have pierced the Father heart of God!
\nThese words as Jesus was on the point of death give us a glimpse into eternal realities. As Jesus was suffering on the cross something very profound was happening deep within God Himself. Martin Luther put it this way. \u201cChrist saw Himself as lost, as forsaken by God, felt in His conscience that He was cursed by God, suffered the torments of the damned who feel God\u2019s eternal wrath, shrink from it and flee.\u201d
\nIn his book \u201cThe Crucified God\u201d the German theologian Jurgen Moltmann explains the cross this way. \u201cIt was a deep division in God Himself, insofar as God abandoned God and contradicted Himself. The Son suffers in His love being forsaken by the Father as He dies. The Father suffers in His love the grief of the death of the Son.\u201d
\nSo the cross of Christ was just as hard, just as painful, just as heart-breaking for the loving Father as it was for the obedient Son. Any father would suffer handing his son over to such agony and desolation. God the Father was not an aloof spectator at Calvary. The Father was looking on with grief and tears that the world could only be reconciled and redeemed at the inestimable cost of alienation from His only beloved Son.
\nAmazing love, oh what sacrifice, the Son of God given for me!
\nMy debt he pays and my death He dies, that I might live!
\nThe sacrifice of the omnipotent Father is as great as the sacrifice of the helpless Son. God\u2019s deity is divided! The Holy Trinity, God eternally three-in-One, is split apart by OUR sin as Christ the Son shares our rebellion and experiences our separation from God the Father!
\n\u201cChrist was without sin, but God made Him to BE sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God!\u201d (2 Corinthians 5:21)
\nIn place of rejecting us \u2013 God the Father rejects his one and only Son. The Son who was one with the Father from eternity, before space and time were created. The Son who from the very moment of his human birth lived in unbroken fellowship with God. The Son who was always the delight of God\u2019s heart. There was absolutely nothing in the Son to cause the Father to turn His back on Him. Yet there on the cross that is what happens. The Son of God is hung up to die, forsaken, abandoned, rejected.
\nAgain Moltmann helps us to understand. \u201cThe suffering in the passion of Jesus is abandonment, rejection by God His Father. Jesus humbles Himself and takes upon Himself the eternal death of the Godless and the Godforsaken, so that the Godless and the Godforsaken can experience communion with Him.\u201d
\n\u201cMy God my God, why have you forsaken me?\u201d \u201cWhy have you abandoned me?\u201d THAT is how much it cost God to bring us back from hell! THAT is how much God loves you and me! Give thanks as we remember just how much it cost Jesus to die for us.
\nJOHN 19 28 Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, \u2018I am thirsty.\u2019
\nSomebody has commented, \u201cWho would have thought that the one who came as a source of living water for all men would one day suffer from thirst?\u201d Simple words reminding us that Jesus of Nazareth was 100% human. Everything he suffered on the cross was as agonizing for him as it would have been for us.
\nJOHN 19 30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, \u2018It is finished.\u2019
\nJesus was the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep. He was lifted up to defeat the devil and set human beings free from the grip of evil.<\/p>\n

John 12 31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.\u2019 33 He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.
\nJohn 3:14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.\u2019
\nJesus was the seed sacrificed so that there could be a harvest.
\nJohn 12:23 \u2018The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
\nAnd Jesus died as the Lamb of God.
\nJohn 1 29 John (the Baptist) saw Jesus coming toward him and said, \u201cLook, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
\nThe Lamb of God is a reminder of the Passover Lambs, sacrificed so that the Israelites would be spared when the angel of death passed through Egypt and the Tenth Plague killed every firstborn child and animal. The Lamb of God was also the sacrifice made once a year on the Day of Atonement to take away the sins of the people. And seven centuries earlier Isaiah had foretold a Lamb in his the Song of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53
\nhe was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
\nBut sacrifice of the Suffering Servant was God\u2019s way of dealing with the sins of the world.
\nSurely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows,
\nWe all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
\nAnd though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
\nby his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
\nAnd this sacrifice by the Lamb of God indeed took away the sins of the world
\nBut he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
\nThat was what was happening on the cross as the Son of Man was giving his life as a ransom for man. And at the end of it all we find Jesus saying just one word, which translates into English, “It is finished!” Not “I’m finished” but “IT is finished.” Not “I’m done for”, not “I’m done in”, but “It is done”, “I’ve done it!”. It is completed. It is finished!! God\u2019s cosmic masterplan of salvation has been accomplished. The lamb of God has taken away the sins of the world. The price is paid!
\nAnd so we come to the end of the story of the life of Jesus Christ with one final abrupt saying.
\nLUKE 23 44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, 45 for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, \u2018Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.\u2019 When he had said this, he breathed his last.<\/p>\n

THE END<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE SEVEN LAST WORDS FROM THE CROSS LUKE 23 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along…<\/span><\/p>\n

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