Chapter Twenty - The Trial, Crucifixion, Dead and Burial of Christ

This chapter, divided into fourteen major divisions, is a careful study of the sequence of events of the trial, crucifixion, dead and burial of Christ:

1. We will examine the soul-anguish of Christ at Garden Gethsemane;

2. We will examine the trial of Christ;

3. We will examine the majestic silence of Christ;

4. We will examine the word of forgiveness of Christ;

5. We will examine the word of assurance of Christ;

6. We will examine the word of devotion of Christ;

7. We will examine the word of dereliction of Christ;

8. We will examine the word of agony of Christ;

9. We will examine the word of triumph of Christ;

10. We will examine the word of confidence of Christ;

11. We will examine the Calvary miracles;

12. We will examine the atoning work of Christ;

13. We will examine the dead and burial of Christ; and

14. We will examine what Christ accomplished when He died and went to Hades.

The order of narration in any Gospel is not necessarily chronological, for each Gospel has its own objective and organizes its material for effect rather than for temporal sequence. The below table provides the chronological order of events in the life of Christ in the Passion week. I hope that it can help the readers to understand the order of events in the trial, dead and burial of Christ.

(References: Merrill C. Tenney, Revised by Walter M. Dunnett, New Testament Survey, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Inter-Varsity Press, 1985 Edition, pp. 206-210; Irving L. Jensen, Lesson 10, The Life of Christ, Moody Bible Institute, 1993 Edition; James Stalker, The Life of Jesus Christ, Rev. Ed., Old Tappan, N.J. Revell, 1891, p. 146)

The Gospels: The Chronological Order of Events in the Life of Christ during the Passion Week

1. THE SOUL-ANGUISH OF CHRIST AT GARDEN GETHSEMANE (12 a.m. - 2 a.m. Friday)

"Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death" (Matthew 26:38).

Only a few minutes before entering the garden, Jesus had offered His high-priestly prayer (John 17). But what striking contrast there is between those two prayers. How can the serenity of the one and the agonizing of the other be explained? The first prayer was intercessory, this was personal, the prelude to Calvary. Before entering the garden of Gethsemane He had partaken of the Last Supper with His disciples, and they had joined in singing the Hallel (Psalms 115-118). The hearts of the disciples were heavy with foreboding. The heart of Jesus was weighed down with the anticipation of the Cross.

He took with Him His three dearly loved intimates, that they might share with Him the midnight vigil. Alas, His sentinels slept at their post. Luke tells us that they were "sleeping for sorrow" (Luke 22:45). We should be charitable in our judgment of them, however, for their Lord did not judge them harshly. "The spirit indeed is willing," He said, "but the flesh is weak" (Matthew 26:41). He commended their willingness of spirit while marveling at the weakness of the flesh in such an hour of crisis. We must remember that it was long past the retiring hour of these erstwhile fishermen, and the past few days had held tremendous emotional stress for them.

The place of His prayer was named most appropriately - Gethsemane, the oil press. Did not our Saviour under the pressure of a great agony yield here precious oil that has been the balm of many a wounded soul? The garden was well-known to the traitor who had already departed on his last dastardly errand. Leaving His disciples, Jesus penetrated a little farther into the garden. "He was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast" (Luke 22:41). The word "withdrew" means literally "tore himself away," evidence of what it cost Him to leave His disciples and fight the dread battle alone. He "began to be sorrowful and very heavy" (Matthew 26:37).

1.1 The Poignancy of His Sufferings

At least six statements, each presenting a different facet of our Saviour's suffering in the garden, are preserved in the Gospel records:

1. He became "exceeding sorrowful" (Matthew 26:38). He had always been a "man of sorrows," but now He enters on sorrow so intense that everything He had suffered in the past seemed as tiny ripples when compared with the curling billows that now engulfed Him.
   
   

2. He "began to be sore amazed" (Mark 14:33). Long as He had forseen the Passion, when it came closely into view, its terrors exceeded His anticipations. His human soul received a new experience, and the last lession of obedience began with a sensation of inconceivable awe. As He saw the ingredients of the terrible cup that was being mixed for Him, He was dazed and overwhelmed.
   
   

3. He "began to be ... very heavy" (Mark 14:33). This word points to a confused, restless and half-distracted state. The root idea is being "away from home." And was He not in a very real sense away from home? And did that fact not make His sufferings the more poignant?
   
   

4. He was "exceeding sorrowful, even UNTO DEATH" (Matthew 26:38). The word used here indicates "an unfathomable depth of anguish and sorrow." Satan, who had left the Lord for a season after the encounter in the wilderness (Luke 4:13), had now returned, and endeavored to terrify Him with "all painful things, as before with all pleasurable," in the hope of turning Him aside from His allegiance to God and truth. Since he could not allure Him, he would terrify Him. The significance of the words "unto death" might be that the weight of sorrow and agony was so great that He feared His physical frame might collapse before He reached the Cross. In order that this might not take place, God sent an angel to infuse fresh strength (Luke 22:43).
   
   

5. He was "in an agony" (Luke 22:44). The Hebrews epistle tells us that He prayed "with strong crying and tears" (Hebrews 5:7). As the powers of darkness closed in on Him, and the imminence of the Cross pressed upon Him, He found Himself in a conflict the like of which He had never before experienced.
   
   

6. He sweat "as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground" (Luke 22:44). It was a cold night, but as He prayed in agony, the course of nature was reversed. The blood, instead of rushing to the aid of His overburdened and breaking heart, forced its way out through the pores to fall in great drops to the ground. We stand in awe and magnify this evidence of His matchless love.

There will always be mystery in the agony of Gethsemane, because the mystery of the hypostatic union is involved.

1.2 The Ingredients of the Cup

These were at least three:

1. The renewed attack of Satan. "This is your hour, and the power of darkness," He said to the chief priests (Luke 22:53). Foiled in every previous attempt to deflect the Lord from the way of the Cross, the massed powers of darkness launched a terrific blitzkrieg during the next hours in one final attempt to overthrow Him. This was no mock battle, but a struggle to the death of Light with darkness.
   
   

2. The anticipated assumption of the guilt of a world of men. "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all" spoke Isaiah prophetically of the Messiah (Isaiah 53:6). Nothing less than penal suffering for our sin can explain this unparalleled agony. Our sin being imputed to Christ, and Christ being made sin and a curse for us. He drank a cup of wrath without mercy, that we might drink a cup of mercy without wrath. The agony was not the fear of death but the deep sense of God's wrath against sin that He was to bear. His pure and holy nature shrank, not from death as death, but from death as a curse for the world's sin.
   
   

3. The anticipated averting of His Father's face. Before many hours He would be asking, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). It was bad enough that He should be in an alien country, about to be betrayed by His friend, deserted by His followers, denied by one of His intimates - and this was not hidden from His knowledge - but to be forsaken by God because He was being "made ... to be sin for us!" (2 Corinthians 5:21). This was an utterly new and bewildering experience, the anticipation of which produced the blood-letting agony.

1.3 The Prayer in Gethsemane

Expositors differ in their interpretation of the verse "Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared" (Hebrews 5:7), or "for His godly fear." In considering our Lord's petition that the cup might pass from Him (Luke 22:42), it is certain that He was not seeking some alternative to what He knew to be His Father's plan for Him. Had He not insisted on the necessity of His being uplifted on a Cross? Is He now trying to escape it? Unthinkable!

It has been suggested that a fourth ingredient in "the cup" may have been not the future Cross, but the possibility of death in Gethsemane before He reached Golgotha. This suggestion is based on Christ's statement "My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death" (Mark 14:33-34). If that was indeed the case, His prayer was answered by His Father sending an angel to strengthen Him (Luke 22:43). His strength was renewed, and He went forward to accomplish our redemption, and finally to dismiss His Spirit by an act of His will.     

2. THE TRIAL OF CHRIST

Never were legal proceedings more irregular or verdict more unjust than in the trial of Jesus. From arrest to crucifixion every principle of justice was violated, and provisions of both criminal (Romans) and ecclesiastical law (Jewish Mosaic) flouted. We shall consider some of the irregularities:

1. the arrest;

2. the ecclesiastical trials and the verdict;

3. the Roman trials; and

4. Pilate and Herod.

2.1 The Arrest

The irregularities of the arrest are as follows:

1. The arrest that was instigated by the ecclesiastical authorities was effected through a bribed traitor (Matthew 26:14-16), contrary to the Mosaic law, which prohibited the taking of a gift (Exodus 23:8). 

2. The judges themselves participated in the arrest (Matthew 26:47), for some members of the Sanhedrin, in their anxiety to see that their schemes did not fail, had joined in the crowd that intruded on the Saviour's agony in the garden.

2.2 The Ecclesiastical Trials and the Verdict (3 a.m. - 5 a.m. Friday)

The irregularities of the ecclesiastical trials are as follows:

1. inappropriate place;

2. inappropriate time;

3. inappropriate legal procedure;

4. false witnesses;

5. unfair trial;

6. the judges were not neutral and impartial;

7. the judges failed to exercise their duty;

8. inappropriate voting procedure; and

9. inappropriate verdict.

2.2.1 Inappropriate place

As today, secret trials were illegal. All criminal cases had to be heard in public. In this case the Sanhedrin conducted a secret trial in a private place.

2.2.2 Inappropriate time

Jews could not hold court on a feast day-Passover (see John 18:28, 39) any more than our courts sit on Sunday. Three ecclesiastical trials before the religious authorities, including Annas, Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin were not conducted at daytime. According to the laws of the Sanhedrin, the taking of any steps in criminal proceedings after sunset was expressly prohibited. Each ecclesiastical trial was illegal because it was conducted before the morning sacrifice.

2.2.3 Inappropriate legal procedure

Between the arrest and the death of our Lord were only 18 hours. The Mishna wisely provided that in a case involving capital punishment, the verdict could not be given on the same day. At least 24 hours must elapse between trial and verdict, thus guarding against arriving at a hasty decision.

2.2.4 False witnesses

The trials before Annas and Caiaphas, when they sat alone, violated the legal provisions (Deuteronomy 19:15-18). The requirement of two or three witnesses was conveniently ignored (Deuteronomy 17:6). The witnesses against Him were known perjurers (Matthew 26:59-60), were not sworn, and their evidence was not consistent (see Deuteronomy 19:16-21).

2.2.5 Unfair trial

Jesus' words were distorted (John 2:19-21; cf. Matthew 26:60-61) and His defense was not heard.

2.2.6 The judges were not neutral and impartial

The charge of blasphemy against Jesus actually originated with His judges (Matthew 26:59; John 18:19)! The Sanhedrin did not and could not originate charges, it only investigated those that were brought before it. Caiaphas contravened the provisions of the Mishna by seeking to get Christ to incriminate himself (Matthew 26:63). The judges were to be humane and kind, but Caiaphas was abusive and Jesus was struck over the mouth before any charge against Him was proved (Matthew 26:65-67; Mark 14:65; Luke 22:63-64; John 18:22). The high priest defied the Levitical code by rending his garments (Leviticus 21:10).

2.2.7 The judges failed to exercise their duty

The function of the Jewish judge was not merely to try the case, but to defend the prisoner who was presumed to be innocent until proved guilty. Thus every accused person should be given every opportunity of establishing his innocence. Between Jewish and Western jurisprudence there are many differences, and one of those is that if the vote of condemnation of the judges was unanimous, it was considered that the judges had failed in their duty of defending the accused, who would be released. Instead of releasing Jesus, however, they unanimously condemned Him on His own unsupported testimony (Deuteronomy 19:15).

2.2.8 Inappropriate voting procedure

The voting in a capital case was to be individual, beginning with the younger men, lest they be influenced by the voting of their elders. But they voted simultaneously in contravention of their own law (Matthew 26:66).

2.2.9 Inappropriate verdict

Thus the ecclesiastical trials were shot through with prejudice, fraud, and illegality. The religious leaders were determined to secure a conviction at all costs, whether the evidence justified it or not.

2.3 The Roman Trials (6 a.m. - 9 a.m. Friday)

Fearing that Jesus might appeal to Pilate, the Jews sought to forestall Him by changing their charge from blasphemy - the issue in the ecclesiastical trials, which they knew would be rejected by Pilate - to that of sedition (Luke 23:2). Jesus, they alleged, was establishing a rival empire, a charge any Roman governor must seriously examine.

The devout and punctilious Jews were too pious to enter a Gentile dwelling on a feast day! This is the culminating instance of religious scrupulosity going hand in hand with cruel and bloodthirsty criminality. Respecting their scruples, Pilate came out and asked, "What accusation bring ye against this man?" Their answer made it clear to Pilate that they desired him not so much to give justice to the accused, as to confirm their own condemnation of Him. Pilate was joking that, "Take ye him, and judge him according to your law." But this was not to their liking, for they had no power of capital punishment (John 18:31). Finally Pilate demanded a formal accusation, which they brought under three counts:

1. He perverted the nation.

2. He forbade tribute to Caesar.

3. He claimed to be their king (Luke 23:2).

The first two unsubstantiated counts were dismissed by Pilate, but the third was so serious that he could not ignore it, since it was treason against Rome. Contrary to Roman law, however, Pilate attempted to make the prisoner incriminate Himself. Having heard Jesus (John 18:34-37), Pilate brought the trial to an end by the prouncement, "I find in Him no fault" (John 18:38).

That acquittal should have been followed by the immediate release of Jesus, but no! Instead, it brought a fresh violent outburst of accusations that caused the weak Pilate to change his mind. A chance mention of Galilee afforded the welcome opportunity of passing on his problem to Herod, who had jurisdiction over that district and who by a happy chance was in Jerusalem at the moment (Luke 23:5-7).

Herod had long wished to see this miracle-worker, but Jesus' refusal to perform to his order hurt his royal pride. Since no evidence was adduced that would warrant a conviction, he contented himself with mocking Him, and sent Him back to Pilate. 

2.4 Pilate and Herod

A significant sentence occurs in Luke's record of that important day. "And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together" (Luke 23:12). Why? Secular history supplies the answer. Pilate and Herod, it appears, were fellow-conspirators against Caesar, hence Pilate's concern when the Jews said, "If thou let this man go, thou are not Caesar's friend." Had news of his participation in the conspiracy leaked out? He must not do anything that would seem in any way disloyal to Caesar. The prisoner (whether innocent or guilty matters not) must be sacrificed to save his own skin.

Then followed a travesty upon law as well as upon justice. Pilate resorted to every stratagem to secure the release of Jesus and yet not endanger his own position at Rome. He endeavored to get the Jews to consent to His release, since none of the charges against Him had been substantiated, but all to no avail. They would be appeased by nothing less than blood. Barabbas the murderer was much to be preferred to Jesus, the sinless Son of God. Though declared innocent, He was scourged, clothed in purple, crowned with thorns. Only at the last did the true charge come to the surface. "By our law he ought to die," cried the Jews, "because he made himself the Son of God" (John 19:7).

At last the craven Pilate yielded to their threats and delivered Him up to be crucified. But he took his revenge by placing upon the Cross the superscription that was so galling to them, "The king of the Jews." Then he washed his hands, according to the Jewish custom, saying, "I am innocent of the blood of this righteous man. See ye to it." "His blood be on us and on our children" was their fateful response.

On what legal grounds was Jesus condemned? None! He was four times tried and three times acquitted, and yet was condemned to die. The Light of the world had shone with such a searching beam that a guilty world must extinguish it.

2.5 The Importance of the Trial

Wherein does its importance consist? W. Robertson Nicoll say,

"It lies in the fact that the issue raised was Christ's claim to be the Son of God, the Messiah of Israel, and a King. He was tried unfairly and judged unjustly, but the true issue was raised. He died, then, because before the Jews He claimed to be the Son of God and the Messiah, and before Pilate to be Christ and King."

3. THE MAJESTIC SILENCE OF CHRIST

"Jesus answered nothing" (Mark 15:3-4).

With the background of our Lord's trial and all its irregularities and illegalities, His silence is all the more vocal. His bearing and deportment during those proceedings were worthy of His Father. He maintained the dignified calm, the loving forbearance that had always characterized Him. An examination of the gospel records reveals:

1. His dignified bearing;

2. His eloquent silence;

3. His consistent claims;

4. His sublime indifference; and

5. His perfect composure.

3.1 His Dignified Bearing

Throughout the biased proceedings of His trial, Jesus was never other than calm and dignified. No matter how great the provocation, He never descended to abuse or retaliation. Even when struck in the face by a minion of the high priest simply because He had rightly suggested the propriety of calling witnesses to establish the Sanhedrin's case, Jesus replied with dignity and restraint (John 18:21-23).

A comparison of Paul's reaction under similar circumstances is very revealing. Paul could not resist hurling back a stinging rejoinder that conveyed his contempt and indignation. He quite lost his temper (see Acts 23:1-5), but Jesus maintained a sublime calm.

3.2 His Eloquent Silence

It is always more difficult to remain silent than to speak. But on three occasions it is recorded of the Lord that He was silent before His enemies:

1. before the Jewish rulers (Matthew 26:62-63; Mark 14:61);

2. before Pilate (Mark 15:3-5); and

3. before Herod (Luke 23:8-11).

In each case His silence was immeasurably more eloquent than any spoken word could possibly have been.

3.2.1 Before the Jewish rulers

When the bitterly prejudiced Sanhedrin with its perjured witnesses endeavored to make Him incriminate Himself, "Jesus held his peace" (Matthew 26:63). He listened in silence to the witnesses contradicting each other but volunteered no reply to the high priest's interruption. When the high priest said to Jesus, "I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God." Now he was at the heart of the matter, and in those words clearly revealed his secret purpose. If he could induce Jesus to assert His deity, then He was in their power.

Knowing that His answer would without doubt seal His doom, Jesus answered, "Thou hast said." But He added these prophetic words, "Hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." It was as if to say, "You are My judges now, but the hour is coming when roles will be reversed, and it will be you who will stand before My bar to answer for your action in condemning Me."

3.2.2 Before Pilate

When He appeared before Pilate, "He answered nothing; so that Pilate marvelled" (Mark 15:3-4). His silence was more crushing than a spate of words.

In the silence of this interior hall, Jesus and Pilate stood face to face, He in the lonely prisoner's place, Pilate in the place of power. Yet how strangely, as we look back at the scene, are the places reversed. It is Pilate who is going to be tried. All that morning Pilate is being judged and exposed; and ever since he has stood in the pillory of history, with the centuries gazing at him.

3.2.3 Before Herod

Before Herod, whom Jesus called "that fox" (Luke 13:32), Jesus maintained a similar lofty silence. Herod had long desired to see this man of whom he had heard so much perform some miracle. Herod "questioned with him in many words; but he answered him nothing" (Luke 23:9). Jesus had counseled His disciples not to waste their pearls of truth on those who would not appreciate them (Matthew 7:6), and He was practicing His own precept. Herod was merely seeking entertainment, and Jesus refused to gratify his vulgar desire.

3.3 His Consistent Claims

Throughout the crowded closing hours of His life, Jesus did and said nothing that could in any way be construed as a withdrawal or watering-down of the astounding claims to kingship and deity He had made. Although He did not disallow the claim that He was King, He hastened to make clear that His kingdom was not of this world, but a spiritual one (John 18:36). Nor did He deny that He was "the Christ, the Son of the Blessed" (Mark 14:61), but quietly accepted the ascription. He always spoke and acted in a manner entirely consistent with such a claim.

3.4 His Sublime Indifference

Nothing could be more impressive than His total indifference to the threats of his unscrupulous judges. For various reasons Pilate obviously desired to release Jesus, but He did nothing to make it easy for Pilate to do so, or to assist him to this end. An unusual prisoner this!

When for the last time Pilate sought to release Jesus, he said, "Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and I have power to release thee?" (John 19:10). Jesus answered, "Thou couldst have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above." Both by His silence and His words, Jesus made clear that it was Pilate and the Jews who were on trial before Him, and not He before them.

3.5 His Perfect Composure

Jesus said but little, but He said enough, and no word of His ever bore testimony to the truth, or revealed more fully the majesty of His divine life than the uncomplaining patience and self-possession and composure of His conduct under the hideous treatment to which He was subjected.

When, after the surrender of Pilate, the whole band of the governor's soldiers took Him, stripped, put on Him a scarlet robe, with a crown of acanthus thorns still pierching His brow and staining His face crimson like His robe, and giving Him a reed for a sceptre, played with Him as a mock king, spitting on Him and seizing His sceptre from His hand and smiting Him on the head with it, driving the thorn's cruel spikes deeper into His bow; when at last they led Him away to Calvary, stripped of His robe, but still wearing His crown.

"Behold the man!" was Pilate's jeer. That is what all the ages have been doing since, and the vision has grown more and more glorious. As they have looked, the crown of thorns has become a crown of golden radiance, and the cast-off robe has shined brightly like the garments He wore on the night of the Transfiguration.

4. THE WORD OF FORGIVENESS OF CHRIST (9 a.m. - 12 p.m Friday)

"And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:33-34).

Jesus is now being impaled on a Cross, the most shameful punishment to which a criminal could be subjected. The Roman soldiers callously drive the spikes through His quivering flesh and raise aloft the instrument of torture. While they are still engaged in their grim task, the lips of the victim are seen to move. But that is by no means uncommon. It was usual for the victims of that dread doom, frenzied with pain, spit at, and curse the spectators.

But what is He saying! Is it some word of righteous indignation because He Knew His own innocence? Is he hurling maledictions at His torturers? Is He pleading for mercy? No, none of these. He is praying.

For whom does He pray? For Himself? Again, no. We are privileged  to listen in to those gracious words of intercession. Had Isaiah not prophesied that the coming Messiah would make "intercession for the transgressors" (Isaiah 53:12)? This is what He is praying, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34).

The consistent habit of a lifetime persisted even in the hour of death. His first word was a word of prayer. His hands can no longer perform acts of love for friend or enemy. His feet can no more carry Him on errands of mercy. But one form of ministry, and the highest, it still open to Him. He can still pray.

4.1 Father - the Invocation

How natural and appropriate it is that this should be the first word to fall from His lips. The sufferings He was enduring could not prevent Him from holding fast to His Sonship. The indignities and injustices surrounding His arrest and trial have in no degree shaken His faith in the love and approval of His Father. Break His mortal body they may, but they cannot break His communion with His Father. Although the dread cup does not pass from Him, He is still able to say, "Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight" (Matthew 11:26).

4.2 Forgive them - the Petition

In the manifesto of His Kingdom, our Lord had said, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you" (Matthew 5:44). Now He is putting His own precept into practice, leaving an inspiring example of the way in which trouble can be turned into treasure.

The time element of this petition is significant. When? When man's enmity and hatred for God and holiness reached its climax in the rejection and crucifixion of His Son! In such an hour as this the holiest of men, conscious of their sinfulness, would have prayed, "Father, forgive me." But Jesus did not do so. There was no consciousness of guilt in Him that called for forgiveness. He prayed, "Father, forgive them."

During His ministry Jesus had claimed that as Son of Man He had "power on earth to forgive sins." Why, then, does He now call on His Father to exercise this prerogative instead of exercising it Himself, as He had done when He said to the palsied man, "Thy sins be forgiven thee"? The answer is that on the Cross He was taking the place of sinful men and expiating their guilt. They could be forgiven because He was standing in their place as their representative. He had "power on earth to forgive sins" (Matthew 9:6), but now He is "lifted up from the earth" (John 12:32). He is no longer in the place of authority, but of condemnation, numbered with the transgressors, yet making intercession for them.

Here is seen love triumphant over evil. His heart overflowed its banks in a prayer that must have caused the amazed angels to burst into doxology as He prayed for His persecutors.

What Jesus' prayer really meant was, "Father forgive them and condemn Me." The word "forgive" has the meaning of "remit, dismiss," but the divine dictum is, "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins" (Hebrews 9:22). With the words of this petition, He covered the heads of His murderers with the shield of His love, to secure them from the storm of the wrath of God.

"Forgive them." To whom did our Lord intend His prayer to apply? His petition included not only those around the Cross, but also the world of sinful men.

4.3 For They Know Not What They Do - The Plea

Jesus was trying to find some extenuating circumstance that might lessen their guilt. This plea limits His "forgive them," so that Judas and Pilate and some of the religious leaders are excluded from the benefits of His intercession. Unlike the majority, they had not acted in ignorance. Judas and Pilate knew what they were doing. They had both weighed Jesus' claims and had acted deliberately. But to the minds of many of the Jews, blinded by hatred, Jesus was no more than a blasphemous impostor. He therefore pled that their action was due to ignorance not of the fact of their crime, but of its enormity. Their ignorance did not make their sin excusable, but it meant that they themselves were forgivable.

4.4 The Answer

Our Lord has never offered a prayer that went unanswered. "I knew that thou hearest me always," He claimed (John 11:42). In this case the answer was not long delayed. Before His body had been committed to the tomb, the centurion in charge of the execution squad had confessed his faith in Christ's deity (see Luke 23:47). Many see in the three thousand converts on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:41) not so much the response to Peter's eloquence as the answer to Jesus' prayer. Not long afterwards, "a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith" (Acts 6:7), and doubtless among them some of the very priests who hurried Him to His death.

It may be objected that not all who participated in the crucifixion were forgiven. The answer is that every act of forgiveness, two persons are involved. Forgiveness must be accepted as well as bestowed. The prayer of Christ made forgiveness available to every sinful man, but not all availed themselves of it.

5. THE WORD OF ASSURANCE OF CHRIST

"Verily, I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43).

Three men were hanging upon three Crosses. All three appeared to be criminals, for around the neck of each hung a board on which was written a record of their crimes. Two of them were patriots, doubtless associates of Barabbas in his ill-starred insurrection. In order to achieve their ends, they had resorted to robbery and even to murder.

And the One on the centre Cross, what was His crime? "He went about doing good" (Acts 10:38). "They wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth" (Luke 4:22). Even before He died, one of those hardened, blasphemous criminals who was crucified with Him said from deep inner conviction, "This man hath done nothing amiss" (Luke 23:41).

One of the most incredible facts of the whole event is that those seasoned criminals became anxious for their reputations through being crucified in His company! Lest they be credited with being His friends or associates, they joined company with the passersby, the chief priests, scribes and elders. As they taunted and mocked Him, the thieves "cast the same in His teeth" (Matthew 27:44). Hurling their abuse at a fellow-sufferer when they were so near their own end indicated the depth of their depravity. Their animosity toward One who had done them no ill was a revealing demonstration of the enmity toward God of the carnal mind (Romans 8:7).

A sudden change of attitude came over one of the thieves. He turned on his brother-robber:

"Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? and we indeed justly, for we receive the due rewards of our deeds. But this man hath done nothing amiss." Then, turning to Jesus he pleaded, "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom" (Luke 23:40-42).

5.1 The Thief's Rebuke

In his rebuke to his companion, the dying thief revealed a state of heart that made it possible for the Lord Jesus to answer him as He did. In the thief's statement, three elements are present:

1. reverence;

2. self-accusation; and

3. vindication.

5.1.1 Reverence

"Dost not thou fear God?" He showed not merely fear of the due reward of his deeds, but fear and reverence for God, the supreme Judge and Ruler of the universe. The fear of God is indeed the beginning of wisdom (Psalm 111:10).

5.1.2 Self-accusation          

"We receive the due reward of our deeds." He acknowledged the justice of his sentence - "we indeed justly" - and attempted no extenuation of his crime. A self-confessed sinner is not far away from a forgiving Saviour.

5.1.3 Vindication

"This man hath done nothing amiss." The deeper the conviction of his own sinfulness, the more sure he was of the innocence of the Lord Jesus.

Now that Jesus hung on the Cross, God opened the eyes of this robber to see the faultlessness of His beloved Son, and opened his lips so that he bore witness to His excellence.

5.2 The Thief's Prayer

We can find the following points in the thief's prayer:

1. a confession of Christ's deity;

2. a confidence in Christ's saviourhood; and

3. a conception of Christ's royalty.

5.2.1 A confession of Christ's deity

"Lord." His faith may have had only a small content of knowledge, but what a faith it was to see in a fellow-convict one who was worthy of his faith and devotion. And this in spite of the mocking challenge he had heard from the priests: "If thou be the Son of God, come down from the Cross." Even that sarcasm and sneer had been unable to quench the spark of faith that had been kindled in his heart.

5.2.2 A confidence in Christ's saviourhood

"Lord, remember me." To be remembered is the opposite of being forgotten, which means being excluded from the Kingdom. He had heard the Saviour pray for the forgiveness of those for whom His death would avail, and he dared to include himself in its wide embrace. Had He not believed in the Lord's Saviourhood, what would be the point of appealing to Him for remembrance?

5.2.3 A conception of Christ's royalty

"Thy kingdom." The superscription, The King of the Jews, placed in irony over His head, did not serve to make likely any imminent coronation, but the thief's faith pierced through the appearances of the moment. Dim though it was, he saw a vision that far outdistanced that of the Lord's intimate disciples. He anticipated the day of His coming to His kingdom. All the disciples saw was His imminent descent into a dark tomb.

5.3 The Lord's Response

"Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). It should be noted that Jesus did not answer the exact petition of the thief. He did something better. He granted the desire of his heart. The thief little knew that his request, as he had worded it, postponed the desired boon for the two millennia that would elapse before Christ came into His kingdom. And what an answer it was.

What certainty! "Verily I say unto thee"

What speed! "Today"

What glory! "In paradise"

What company! "With me."

There is a divergence of view among Biblical scholars concerning "paradise" here (please read Section 4 of Chapter 8: Death, Hell and Resurrection, for more information on this topic). Some saying it refers to:

1. the bliss of Heaven; or

2. the paradise was one part of Hades to which the blessed went, the other part, for the wicked to stay.

That paradise in Paul's time is said to be in Heaven, implies that at the resurrection a change took place, and Hades was emptied of paradise. If correct, this view would seem to explain the following passage:

"When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all Heavens, that He might fill all things)" (Ephesians 4:8-10).

5.4 The Related Truths

Among others, these comforting truths emerge from this second word from the Cross:

1. the survival of the soul after the death of the body;

2. the separate existence of soul and body;

3. the sudden entry of the redeemed upon the bliss of eternity; and

4. the Saviour's prompt response to penitence.

5.4.1 The survival of the soul after the death of the body

This word refutes the dogma of soul-sleep. Death is no sleep of the soul. Death is not the end of life, but the gateway to new life. It also deals a deathblow to the doctrine of purgatory preached by the Roman Catholic Church. If ever a man needed the cleansing of the purgatorial flame, it was this man.

5.4.2 The separate existence of soul and body

"With me." The body of the thief was not in the tomb with that of Christ, but his soul was in conscious presence with Him in the place of departed spirits. This was Paul's longing. "Having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better" (Philippians 1:23). What a joyous anticipation - not unconscious sleep with conscious union. If the dead are unconscious, this assurance would afford little comfort.

5.4.3 The sudden entry of the redeemed upon the bliss of eternity

"Today." Absent from the body, present with the Lord. Not purgatory but paradise.

5.4.4 The Saviour's prompt response to penitence

Our Lord Jesus can never resist the plea of the penitent. To the taunts and jeers of the mob He deigned to give no answer, but the plea of the repentant thief drew an immediate response. The thief asked only a place in Christ's memory. He was granted a place in His Kingdom.

6. THE WORD OF DEVOTION OF CHRIST

"Now there stood by the Cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple standing by, whom He loved, He saith unto His mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home" (John 19:25-27).

Stunned at the ghastly scene being enacted before their very eyes, a group of Jesus' devoted followers are clustered at the foot of His Cross. They are Mary, His mother; Mary, wife of Cleophas (whom Hegesippus tells us was brother of Joseph), an aunt of Jesus'; Salome, John's mother; and Magdalene.

If the previous word from the Cross struck a deathblow at the errors of soul-sleep and purgatory, this demolishes the system of Mariolatry. If, as is asserted, Mary is queen of heaven and mother of God, then surely Jesus should have committed John into her care, not her to John.

It is significant that He does not now address her as "mother," but merely uses the courteous title "woman," a highly respectful mode of address. He refrained from using a word that would spring naturally to His lips, but that could be twisted into authorizing idolatry through rendering worship to Mary as Mother of God. There is no ground here for the doctrine that Mary is patroness of the saints and protectress of the church. On the contrary, she needed protection herself.

6.1 Filial Devotion Exemplified

There is a yet deeper significance in Jesus' refusal to use the word "mother," the word above all others she would be longing to hear once again from His lips. Jesus was breaking to her the painful truth that henceforth the special relationship between them no longer obtained. From that moment she could be to Him no more than any other woman. He must have no rival in His mediatorial ministry. Was this the sharpest shaft that pierced her heart? But after Pentecost she was to have sweet compensation when she discovered "that she had been led from the natural union with Jesus to the mystical union with Christ."

In every relationship of life Jesus was the pattern Man. As child and as man He always honored His father and mother. His last thought was to make suitable provision for the one from whom He had derived His human nature. Her husband was dead. He could no longer make provision for her Himself. His brothers were evidently still unbelieving. He had nothing to bequeath to her. Mary would find a congenial home with the disciple who dearly loved Him. These two, of similar temperament and united by a common love, would be able to live over again together the hallowed days of His companionship and derive comfort from their recollection. It would appear that John was wealthy and could make ample provision for her needs. Tradition has it that they lived together for twelve years in Jerusalem, and that John refused to leave the city as long as she survived.

Our Lord left an example for all whose parents are still living. He honored His mother (Exodus 20:12). The growing disregard on the part of young people of their obligations to their parents is fraught with serious social consequences. There is no excuse that is valid before God for neglecting one's parents, and if there has been such neglect, the path of blessing will be to make amends at once. Read 1 Timothy 5:4, 8.

6.2 Natural and Spiritual Relationships

Jesus may well have been excused had He been so engrossed in His own sufferings as to overlook the future of His mother. Or He might have been so occupied with the stupendous work of redemption that He was achieving as to forget the ties of nature. But such was not the case. Although He was in extremis, He had leisure of heart to attend to a detail of ordinary family life. In His dying moments He made His verbal last will and teatament - almost a legal directive, yet prompted by tender love.

Jesus had a true conception of the relationship of the natural to the spiritual. He demonstrated that the fact of our having responsibilities in spiritual work does not relieve us of our natural obligations. It is never justifiable to sacrifice our families on the altar of meeting attendance. Holiness never thrives on neglected duties.

7. THE WORD OF DERELICTION OF CHRIST ( 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. Friday)

"Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46).

God forsaken God! Who can understand that? We need the Holy Spirit's enlightenment if we are to enter into their sacred mystery.

The first three words from the Cross were addressed to men. Now Jesus addresses Himself to God. For the previous three hours (9 a.m. - 12 p.m.), His body had been exposed to the burning rays of the pitiless Eastern sun. During the three hours of darkness (12 p.m. - 3 p.m.) His soul had been exposed to the merciless assaults of the powers of evil. Worse, infinitely worse than that, He had for the first time experienced the averted face of His Father. At the end of the sixth hour, the moment when He reached the very nadir of His misery, He broke the silence with the shuddering cry of desolation, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"

7.1 The Mysterious Darkness

The darkness was not caused by an eclipse of the sun. The Passover was celebrated at the time of full moon, when the moon is opposite the sun.

The experience of an eclipse by a Norwegian astronomer brought home to him something of the poignancy of the Lord's experience in the darkness. I watched the instantaneous extinction of the light, and saw the glorious scene on which I had been gazing turned into darkness. All the horizon seemed to speak of terror, death and judgment; and overhead sat, not the clean flood of light which a starry night sends down, but there hung over me dark and leaden blackness, which seemed as if it would crush me into the earth.

As I beheld it I thought, how miserable is the soul to whom Christ is eclipsed! The thought was answered by a voice; for a fierce and powerful seabird which had been sweeping around us, apparently infuriated by our intrusion into its domain, poured out a scream of despairing agony in the darkness. It is the picture of an eclipsed God and a lost soul; it is the hour and the power of darkness: the hosts of hell filled it, and the opaque sins of a world thickened it: it is Jesus bearing My sin in His own body on the tree. It is Jesus taking the place of a lost soul.

7.2 My God, My God

In His prayers, Jesus almost invariably addressed God as His Father, but here He does not say, "My Father," but, "My God." In this we discern the triumph of a sublime faith. Though forsaken by God, His faith did not suffer an eclipse, but rather laid firmer hold on the eternal. Feeling forsaken of God, He rushed into the arms of God and these arms closed around Him in loving protection.

The consciousness of His personal relation to God never for a moment left Him - "My God, My God," was His cry. In the gloom of His tragedy Job cried, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him" (Job 13:15), and the divine Lord does not fall behind His creature in the sublimity of His faith.

7.3 Why?

We can find in part the answer to His question in the very psalm from which He quoted (Psalm 22:1, 3). The question of verse 1 is answered in verse 3: "But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel." He was forsaken that we might learn from the anguish of His experience the greatness of our sin that made it necessary, and that we might know how entirely He took it and bore it away. During the hours of darkness He "who knew no sin" was made sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). That was the cause of His Father's averted face. It was not that God was ever hostile to His well - beloved Son - it was holiness turning away from sin.

7.4 Hast

We should never think that this was not an actual experience of the Christ of God. He could redeem us from the curse of the law only by "being made a curse for us" (Galatians 3:13). This necessarily involved His being forsaken by the God who "hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6).

7.5 Thou

It was no new experience for the Lord to find Himself forsaken. His own brothers neither believed in Him nor followed Him. His fellow-citizens in Nazareth had tried to kill Him. The nation to which He came would not receive Him. Many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him. Judas betrayed Him. Peter denied Him. They all forsook Him and fled.

But in this cry it is as though He was saying, "I can understand my kinsmen and fellow-citizens and my nation forsaking Me, for darkness has no fellowship with light. I can even understand My own disciples, because of the weakness of the flesh, forsaking Me. But this is My agonizing problem, "Why hast THOU forsake me?"

Up till this moment, when He was forsaken by men He had been able to turn to His Father, but now even that refuge is denied Him, and He is absolutely ALONE. Who can plumb the depths of that anguish?

7.6 Forsaken

The word "forsaken" means the forsaking of someone in a state of defeat or helplessness, in the midst of hostile circumstances. Who can assess the content of that word when applied to our Lord? A child forsaken by its parents, a friend forsaken by a friend in the hour of need - those are poignant enough sorrows. But a man forsaken by his God! And what shall we say of the sinless Son of Man when He was forsaken by the God with whom He had enjoyed eternal fellowship?

For the first time, an eternity of communion had been broken. The wrath of hell had already broken upon His soul in wave upon wave, but now it is the wrath of heaven. The psalmist claimed, "I have not seen the righteous forsaken" (Psalm 37:25), but the only One who was truly righteous is now forsaken. Ineffable love made Him willing to endure even this desolation of soul for our Salvation.

7.7 Me

There would be no mystery in God's forsaking us, for we would be receiving only "the due reward of our deeds." But why should God forsake His son who "knew no sin," "did no sin," "in whom was no sin," the Son in whom He testified that He found perfect delight? There is only one explanation. He was taking my place - and yours. He was being forsaken that we might be forgiven.

8. THE WORD OF AGONY OF CHRIST

"Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, ... saith, I THIRST" (John 19:28)

The previous word from the Cross, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" was a cry of spiritual anguish; this word, "I thirst" was the sob of physical agony. The climax of spiritual anguish synchronizes with the zenith of physical pain. The Maker of heaven and earth with parched lips! The Lord of glory in need of a drink! The Beloved of the Father crying, "I thirst!" What a word is this!

8.1 An Exclamation of Physical Agony

A review of the events crammed into the preceding hours will suffice to explain the acuteness of His physical suffering. After the tension of the mock trials came the merciless lashes of the whip, an instrument of torture in which were usually imbedded pieces of iron and bone. The blows were sometimes so severe that they issued in the death of the victim. Then followed the crucifixion itself with its varied and excruciating pains - hands and feet pierced with spikes, brow encircled with fierce thorns, limbs distended, bones dislocated, and all the time the relentless sun blazing overhead. But surpassing them all was the raging burning fever that consumed Him, until from swollen and cracked lips there fell one word of pent-up agony, "I thirst!"

8.2 An Evidence of Real Humanity

If the mediator was to fully enter into the experiences common to humanity, the experience of pain must of necessity be an ingredient of His own life-experience. Remarkably enough, up to the time He uttered this cry, Jesus had given no indication of physical pain. Was He immune to pain, and thus above the level of the human? This cry dispels such a thought.

God does not thirst. The Man, Jesus Christ, did thirst, for He was God "manifest in the flesh" (1 Timothy 3:16). While not ceasing to be all that He was before the incarnation, so really did He partake of our humanity that all the sinless infirmities inherent in being man became His. "In all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren" (Hebrews 2:17).

There is nothing in the realm of pain that was not experienced to the full by the Son of Man. It was this that qualified Him to be "a merciful and faithful high priest" (Hebrews 2:17).

This word from the Cross refutes the error of a denial of the real humanity of Christ. In the days of the early church, the Docetists taught that Jesus was not a real man, but God dwelling in a semblance of mortal flesh; that His body was a phantom, that the reality was God. But a phantom does not thirst. It is the Man Christ Jesus who thirsts.

8.3 An Example of Fulfilled Prophecy

"Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst." So runs the record (John 19:28).

Our Lord met the qualifications of the blessed man described in the first psalm, of whom it was said that his delight was in the law of the Lord, on which he meditated day and night. In common with other Jewish boys, Jesus had committed to memory large portions of the Old Testament, if not the whole. On every possible occasion He resorted to the synagogue, so that He might immerse Himself in the sacred Scriptures. The prophets had become His own familiar friends, while in the psalms He found the expression of every mood and aspiration of His soul.

Now every prediction of Scripture concerning the Messiah had been fulfilled in Him - except one. In the prophetic word of the psalmist, He saw an indication of His Father's will. Had he not written, "They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink" (Psalm 69:21)? Then it would not be contrary to His Father's will if He gave vocal expression to His physical agony.

When hungry in the wilderness, He had resisted the seduction of the Satan and had refused to perform a miracle for His own benefit, for He had no indication of the divine will. But now He was free to open His parched lips and cry, "I thirst!" Thus naturally an opening was given for the prophecy to be fulfilled.

Vinegar was the common drink of the Roman army, and was likely to be at hand among a company of soldiers. Already one draught had been offered to Him - the medicated potion to which myrrh had been added to deaden the pain, but this He had rejected (Matthew 27:34; Mark 15:23). The Son of Man refused to meet death in a state of stupefaction. But He accepted the sour wine as a refreshing draught. He would not allow one drop of the cup of agony His Father had placed in His hand to trickle down the side untasted. He refused the anodyne, yet did not refuse the natural solace which His Father's hand had placed before Him. He did not want to lapse slowly into unconsciousness, but to be able to utter a shout of triumph.

8.4 An Expression of Spiritual Thirst

Are we wrong in thinking that He was consumed by a thirst even more intense than that of which we have been thinking? Did He not thirst to be thirsted after? He is still athirst for the fellowship and devotion of those for whom He thirsted on the Cross. His was a thirst that could assuage the thirst of the whole world.

"I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink," He said to His surprised listeners. "Lord, when saw we Thee athirst and gave Thee drink?" they replied in amazement. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matthew 25:40).

We can still hold the cup to His lips by going to those who are needy and ministering in His name.

9. THE WORD OF TRIUMPH OF CHRIST

"It is Finished" (John 19:30).

"When Jesus received the vinegar, He said, It is FINISHED." The two previous words from the Cross voiced its tragedy. This saying shouted its triumph. The three English words, "it is finished," are the equivalent of a single Greek word, tetelestai. With ample justification, this has been called the greatest single word ever uttered.

It was a priestly word. When some devout worshipper overflowing with gratitude for mercies received brought to the Temple a lamb without blemish, the pride of the flock, the priest, more accustomed to seeing blind and defective animals led to the altar, would look admiringly at the pretty creature and say, "tetelestai.

And when the Lamb of God offered Himself on the altar of the Cross, a perfect, flawless sacrifice, He cried with a loud voice, "tetelestai!" and yielded up His Spirit.

9.1 Suffering Was Ended

Some have read Christ's "It is finished" as a cry of despair, "It is all up! I have tried and failed!" But that is exactly the reverse of its significance. True, there would be in it a sigh of relief in that the eternity of anticipation of the Cross was now over; that His absence from His heavenly home was now at an end; that never again would He experience the averted face of His Father; that the burden of a world's sin had been removed. But there was in this cry no note of disappointment or despair.

To Him it had been a foregone conclusion that He must suffer, and that on Him would meet the accumulated guilt and sin of a lost world. He must experience the loneliness and rejection, the desolation and desertion, the sneering and scoffing, the physical agony and mental anguish incidental to His taking our humanity and our guilt. The cup of suffering was indeed full for Him. Having drained the cup, He held it up inverted when He said "It is finished!" and not a drop trickled down the edge. He drank it all that we might never need to drink it.

9.2 Revelation Was Finalized

John affirmed that "no man hath seen God at any time," but he added a statement indicating the purpose of Christ's advent. "The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him," or made Him known (John 1:18). Our Lord confirmed this when He said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9).

In Jesus, God became visible and tangible. In His humanity He interpreted the Father to us in terms of human life. To discover what God is like, all we need to do is to look at Jesus. If we desire to know how God would act, we need only turn the pages of Scripture and discover how Jesus acted in similar circumstances.

9.3 Shadows Became Substance

The types and shadows of the Old Testament had been necessary and had fulfilled an invaluable ministry in the education of God's people. But they were temporary, transient. The very constancy of the animal sacrifices was a declaration of their insufficiency and imperfection. The fire must burn and the blood must flow - and yet the sacrifice of an irrational creature could never make satisfactory atonement for the sin of a rational being.

But in the death of Christ the centuries of sacrifice found their culmination. The letter to the Hebrews speaks of "sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God" (Hebrews 10:11-12). Never again need one drop of sacrificial blood be shed.

Jesus had offered up the perfect sacrifice. Every Mosaic sacrifice was a type and symbol, and there remained no more need of offering for sin. The old covenant was finished.

9.4 The Father's Will Was Fulfilled

Early in His ministry He had claimed, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish the work" (John 4:34). At the close of His ministry He claimed, "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do" (John 17:4). He alone could review His whole life approvingly, conscious that in every detail His Father's will had been faithfully carried out. He had done what the first Adam had failed to do - He had kept the law of God perfectly, and so obtained a righteousness that is now available for all who believe in Him.

Compare our Lord's triumphant "telelestai" with the great Cecil Rhodes's cry of frustration as he lay dying: "So much to do, so little done." Christ entertained no regrets, for no ground for regret existed.

9.5 Satan Was Defeated

The truceless conflict between God and Satan forms the unifying theme of the Scriptures. From the very hour of man's Fall in Eden, the adversary of God and man channeled all his hellish ingenuity into an endeavor to frustrate God's purpose of grace for mankind.

His slimy trail may be traced throughout the Old Testament, but with the advent of Christ, his assaults became more direct and open. On the Cross he launched his final attack against the seed of the woman who was to deal him his deathblow (Genesis 3:15), and at first it looked as though he had been the victor. But it only seemed so. The resurrection demonstrated that Christ was Victor. The moment of Satan's triumph was the moment of his defeat. The Victim on the Cross became the Victor through the Cross.

9.6 Redemption Was Accomplished

God had entrusted to His Son the most stupendous task of the ages - the redemption of a world of lost and enslaved men. What irrepressible joy must have surged through Him as He cried in triumph, "It is finished!" Every obstacle standing between man's fellowship with God was removed, every demand of His law satisfied. There was nothing to add - the redemption He had secured was perfect and complete. Henceforth the way to God was open to all men. Henceforth they would know Him as a God of love.

The joy set before Him (Hebrews 12:2) was already in sight, and now He could gladly summon His servant, death, and dismiss His Spirit.

10. THE WORD OF CONFIDENCE

"Father, into Thy Hands I Commend My Spirit" (Luke 23:46).

The eternal Son of God dismisses His Spirit. "When Jesus had cried with a loud voice, He said, "Father, into thy hands I commend my Spirit: and having said thus, He gave up the ghost" (Luke 23:46). The body that had housed the Christ was about to be laid in Joseph's tomb, but before He took leave of the earth, Jesus uttered His last word from the throne of His Cross, and not in subdued tones, but with a loud, triumphant voice.

10.1 His Death Was Voluntary

The word "commend" could be translated "lay down." When opening His heart to His disciples, the Saviour had said, "I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh 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 commandment have I received of my Father" (John 10:17-18).

In Matthew's account of the crucifixion (Matthew 27:50), it is stated that He dismissed His Spirit. Although from one point of view it is true that man did take His life from Him, it was only by His permission. Before allowing His tormentors to arrest Him, Jesus demonstrated His innate power by causing them to fall backward to the ground (John 18:6). But having done this He steadfastly refused to exercise this power to deliver Himself from death. He chose the death of the Cross. He could have saved Himself, but for our sakes He refused to do so.

The bitterest ingredient in the cup of His suffering had been the midnight gloom that enveloped not only His body but also His soul, when His Father made the iniquity of us all to meet on Him (Isaiah 53:6). Three hours of torture at the hands of His creatures were succeeded by the infinitely darker three hours into which an eternity of suffering was compressed.

But now He is in the light again. In the midst of His awful desolation there came the renewed realization of His indissoluble union with His Father. "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30). He does not now cry, "My God, my God!" but, "Father." The communion He had enjoyed from eternity is restored, never again to be interrupted. Small wonder that He cried with a loud and triumphant voice.

10.2 His Trust Was Unshaken

It is to be questioned whether Christians realize sufficiently that our Lord's life on earth was a life of momentary faith and trust in His Father. John's gospel especially reveals the extent of His dependence on His Father. Such characteristic statements as "I can of mine own self do nothing" (John 5:30) and "The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself" (John 14:10) reveal the important part trust played in His relationship with His Father.

Will Jesus trust Him fully in the hour of death? Has His trust been impaired by the awful experience of the Cross? Here as everywhere He is our example. He will show His disciples in every age how to deport themselves in the hour of death - no yielding to craven fear, but an attitude of calm, assured confidence.

10.3 The Secret of Our Security

Our Lord obviously entertained no thought that death ended all. Already He had assured the penitent thief of a place with Him in paradise. Now He speaks as though "He was making a deposit in a safe place, to which, after the crisis of death was over, He would come and recover it. Such is the force of the word.

Who would be afraid of death when it means that our spirits are in His hands? How safe and strong they are! "My Father, which gave them [His sheep] me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand" (John 10:29). When we are called upon to face that last enemy, death, let us look on it in the same manner as did our Lord.

As our Lord closed His eyes in death, a truly human death, His Spirit reposed in His Father's hands as restfully as a babe on its mother's breast. His final act of self-committal was a simple and genuine act of faith. Nothing more remained to be done. All was completed perfectly according to the divine planning, so by a definite act of His will He dismissed His Spirit. Redemption was completed, awaiting only the resurrection as God's seal of final acceptance of His Son's sacrifice.

11. THE CALVARY MIRACLES

"There was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour" (Matthew 27:45). "And, behold, the vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent" (Matthew 27:51). "And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose" (Matthew 27:52).  

It was perfectly appropriate that a career ushered in by a miracle, and a ministry replete with miracles, should conclude with a series of miracles. Jesus was dead and His lips silenced, but now God spoke in an awe-inspiring language of His own. The accompaniments of His death were startling signs to an unbelieving world, each of which underlined the tremendous significance of the Saviour's death.

11.1 The Mysterious Darkness

"There was a darkness over all the earth" (Matthew 27:45; Luke 23:44).

In a previous chapter, attention has been drawn to the fact that this was no ordinary darkness. God darkened the sun by means of His own. It was not caused by an eclipse. The longest eclipse can last but a few minutes, but this darkness continued for three hours. Again, it occurred during the Feast of the Passover, the time of full moon, when the moon is opposite the sun (i.e. the moon was at her farthest from the sun).

This unique occurrence is not without extra-biblical historical support. In Egypt, when Diogenes saw the darkness, with unconscious insight he exclaimed, "Either the Deity Himself suffers at this moment, or sympathizes with one that does."

This darkness was unique and symbolical. The darkness was not caused by the absence of the sun. It was darkness at noon-time, a darkness in the presence of the sun, and while the sun was uneclipsed by the intervention of another celestial body, a darkness we might say, which was the antagonist of light and the overcomer of it. The darkness of Calvary smothering the sun at noon! What an impressive thing! What a trembling conception of the almightiness of God!

But why this darkness? Darkness and judgment go together. It assuredly was an awesome sign to the sign-seeking but Christ-rejecting Jews. It was an inspired commentary on the character and extent of His sufferings for us, while He was being "stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted" (Isaiah 53:4).

The onlookers might well be smitten with fear at this divine and miraculous intervention. "All the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts, and returned" (Luke 23:48).

11.2 The Miraculous Rending of the Veil

"And, behold, the vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom" (Matthew 27:51).

The Holy Place in the Temple was divided from the Holiest of All by a great and beautiful veil. It was suspended by hooks from four pillars of gold. It measured sixty feet long by thirty feet wide, worked in seventy-two squares, and was reputed to be as thick as the palm of the hand. So heavy was it that the priests claimed it took three hundred men to handle it.

The purpose of the veil needed no explanation. It was not a gateway, but a barrier. It effectively excluded the ministering priests from entering the Holiest of All. Only once a year was it drawn aside to admit the high priest - on the Day of Atonement. He entered the sacred presence-chamber to sprinkle the Mercy Seat with blood, making atonement for his own sins and those of his people.

For centuries the veil had hung gracefully in its place, but suddenly, at the very moment the Crucified uttered His loud, expiring cry, the ministering priests heard a tearing sound, and as if an unseen hand severed it by starting at the top, the veil fell apart before their awe-stricken gaze.

Who could express the solemnity of the moment when they found themselves gazing into the sanctuary where for centuries God had deigned to dwell, and into which none had dared enter under pain of death. Tradition has it that the priests, unwilling to accept the implications of this divine act, sewed up the curtain and resumed their ritual, as though no world-shaking event had taken place.

That this was a miraculous act of God was evident, for the rent was from top to bottom. Some have seen in the earthquake that accompanied the rending of the veil the cause of the phenomenon. One writer suggests that a cleavage in the masonry of the porch, which rent the outer veil and left the Holy Place open to view, would account for the language of the gospels, of Josephus, and of the Talmud. But the thickness of the veil would make that seem most unlikely. That some great catastrophe had occurred in the sanctuary at this very time is confirmed by Tacitus, and the earliest Christian tradition, as well as by Josephus, and the Talmud. So widespread a tradition must have some historical basis.

Again, if the earthquake rent a veil of such thickness, why did it not disintegrate the building at the same time? Be that as it may, it was a deeply significant sign wrought by the finger of God.

The rending of the veil signified the end of the old order and the ushering in of the new. J. Gregory Mantle sees in it a four-fold significance:

1. It was the end of symbolism. The old economy had fulfilled its purpose and yielded place to the new. Christ, the great High Priest, was the perfect fulfillment of the shadows and ritual of the law.
   
   

2. It envisaged the end of sin. The veil was rent at the very moment Jesus, who was "made ... to be sin for us" (2 Corinthians 5:21), "put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (Hebrews 9:26).
   
   

3. It was the end of sacerdotalism. No longer was there any need for a priesthood and sacrificial system. The ministration of the priesthood that had held a central place in Jewish national life had come to an end.
   
   

4. It betokened the end of separation. The veil that had for a millennium and a half been a barrier to God's presence now became a gateway. Every penitent soul is now invited to enter the Holiest of All by virtue of the blood of Jesus (Hebrews 10:19).

11.3 The Mighty Earthquake

"And the earth did quake, and the rocks rent" (Matthew 27:51).

Our Lord's victorious shout was followed immediately by a shattering earthquake. Earthquake shocks are not uncommon in Jerusalem, but through divine overruling this particular quake synchronized with the tremendous event that had just transpired in the spiritual realm, as though to attest the might and majesty of Him whose lifeless body now hung limp on the Cross.

This was no small earth tremor, for "the rocks rent," and not merely lined across with just perceptible cracks, but wrenched asunder into such fissures as to lay open the interior of the rocky graves which abounded in Golgotha. The visitation was of such magnitude that even the Roman soldiers "feared greatly."

This was not an isolated phenomenon attributable to natural causes. The coincidences are too striking. It exactly coincided with two other miraculous manifestations, the mysterious darkness and the rending of the veil. It coincided with the loud cry and the death of the Son of God. It coincided with the opening of certain graves, apparently only the graves of saints.

11.4 The Momentous Appearance of Dead Saints

"And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many" (Matthew 27:52-53).

The earthquake shock and the rending of the rocks resulted in the opening of the rock-tombs similar to that of Joesph of Arimathea, in the vicinity of Calvary. It was not blind force that rent the rocks. They were rent with rare discrimination, for there was every evidence of intelligent design. Only selected graves were opened, the graves of saints. There is no evidence that graves other than these were breached by the quake.

It must be noted that, while the tombs were opened at the moment of Christ's death, the bodies of the saints are recorded to have come "out of the graves after His resurrection." The tombs thus remained exposed for the period the body of Christ remained in the grave. The later appearance of the saints would be all the more striking and significant, showing as it did the "better resurrection" yet to come, of which Christ was the first-fruits.

The opening of the graves was a vivid and eloquent symbolic demonstration that by His death Christ had for ever broken the bonds of death. His death by dying slew and for ever robbed the grave of its terror and victory.

The resurrection of these saints was a clear indication that the prison doors of hades had been wrenched from their hinges. The words "they were raised" surely mean what they say. They rose, but not in order that they might have again on earth. They "appeared to many," but not to stay.

That this event is mysterious and difficult of explanation we concede. But must it therefore be apocryphal? Would not the same mode of reasoning discount our Lord's own resurrection? It is no more miraculous than the mysterious darkness, or the rending of the veil. It gives point to the opening of the graves, for the saints who appeared were not "risen" saints but "revived" saints, as was Lazarus when called back to life. Their bodies were apparently revived for this purpose, but it was not their final resurrection.

In this momentous event we have a sign that Jesus had conquered death, and a foreshadowing of the glorious resurrection that awaits the believer.

12. THE ATONING WORK OF CHRIST

"The Son of God ... loved me, and gave Himself for Me" (Galatians 2:20)

In the words "The Son of God ... loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20) lies the heart of the atonement. In love, the Son of God literally gave Himself for me. This puts in personal terms the great transaction of Calvary. It is as true today as when it happened. Inexhaustible in depth and meaning it may be, but it is neither irrational nor beyond comprehension when the illumination of the Spirit is present.

In the three simple words, Himself for me, is enshrined the great mystery of the ages. They declare that "the forfeiting of His free life has freed our forfeited lives." The most astute intellects of all time have delved into the inner meaning of Christ's death on the Cross, but all have failed to plumb its infinite depths. Like Paul, they have withdrawn with the cry of bafflement. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!" (Romans 11:33). The sin of the first Adam posed a stupendous problem. How could God let His heart of love have its way in justifying guilty men and women, without condoning their sin and thus violating His own holiness? It was a problem to which only His own infinite wisdom could find a solution.

At the Cross, God took the initiative and so dealt with sin in His Son, that now He can justify the repenting sinner and not compromise His holy character. The death of our Lord was unlike every other death. It was not an incident in His life, but the very purpose of it. It was the chosen vocation of the God-man. In this section we shall present some of the main features of the atonement.

12.1 Theory of the Atonement

According to W.H. Griffith Thomas, in order to be satisfactory, any theory of the atonement must include and account for these three factors:

1. The proper and adequate interpretation of the Old Testament sacrificial system.

2. The full meaning of Christian experience. One of the great essentials is a working theory adequate to the experience of ordinary men and women.

3. The adequate exegesis of the New Testament teaching, both Godward and manward. Every theory must start with the Godward side or it will go wrong (Romans 3:25).

12.2 Methods of Presentation

In presenting a truth of such vast reach and with such tremendous implications, the Holy Spirit employs a variety of figures of speech, each of which emphasizes a fresh facet of truth. Here are some:

1. The atonement is moral in character, for it originates in and manifests the unselfish and disinterested love of God. This love as manifested in the voluntary death of His only Son, is a source of moral stimulus to man, and has broken the resistance of the hardest hearts (Hebrews 2:9; 1 John 4:9).
   
   

2. It is represented as a commercial transaction. A ransom paid to free men from the slavery of sin. In those passages which represent Christ's death as the price paid for our deliverance from sin and death, the preposition of bargain and exchange - anti - is used (Matthew 20:28; 1 Timothy 2:6).
   
   

3. It has a legal significance, for Christ's death was an act of obedience to the law that sinning men had violated (Galatians 4:4-5; Matthew 3:15). It was a penalty borne in order to rescue the guilty from their merited punishment (Romans 4:25).
   
   

4. It is medicinal in its effects. In Scripture sin is frequently represented as a hereditary and contagious disease (Isaiah 1:5-6), for which Christ's atoning death provided a panacea (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24). Jesus Himself presented His work under this figure (Matthew 9:12-13).
   
   

5. It is sacrificial in nature. The atonement is described as a work of priestly mediation that reconciles man to God (Hebrews 9:11-12, 14, 22, 26). This is the consistent and prevailing conception throughout both Old and New Testaments. Hence any view of the atonement that does not provide a sufficient place for this aspect is inadequate.

12.3 Substitutionary/Vicarious Atonement

This view of the atonement may be summarized in the words of F.F. Bruce:

"At the Cross, all the sin of the ages was placed on the heart of the sinless Son of God, as He became the racial representative of all humanity."

It is our belief that this is the only theory that meets all the conditions suggested above, and that it is the true Bible doctrine. Although not a Bible word, substitution is certainly a Bible idea. By substitution we do not mean the saving of a life by mere assistance, as in the throwing of a rope to a drowning man; or by the mere risking of one life to save another; it is the saving of one life by the loss of another. As substitute, Christ took on Himself the sinner's guilt and bore its penalty in the sinner's place.

Substitution is a law of nature as well as of grace. Before there can be harvest, the grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die (John 12:24). The lion lives only because a weaker animal has died. This law has been instinctively felt from the earliest days of human history and can be seen in operation the world over.

It is the teaching of Scripture that there are two principles in God, the proper relation between which must be born in mind in our theology. They are the principles of love and justice. The former desires to save sinners. But since God is the eternal, infinite, and ethically perfect being, He cannot and will not violate the latter. Some way must be found for mercy and justice to meet - and this they did in the transaction of the Cross.

When approached without preconceived theories, the Scriptures relating to this subject appear clear and unequivocal. Christ taught His disciples that He came to give His life "a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28). He told them He would give His flesh and blood for the life of the world (John 6:51-55). He said that as the Good Shepherd He would give His life for the sheep (John 10:11), and the great Shepherd of the sheep did actually take the place of the sheep. He said that His blood would be shed for the many (Matthew 26:28). This is also the consistent teaching of the epistles. Of these examples, these three are presented:

1. He who knew no sin was made sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21).

2. He who was under no curse was made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13).

3. He who had done no sin, bore our sin in His own body on the tree (1 Peter 2:22, 24).

12.4 Objections to the Substitutionary Idea

Among the objections advanced to the foregoing view of the atonement are these:

1. it is unnecessary;

2. it is impossible; and

3. it is immoral.

12.4.1 It is unnecessary

It is unnecessary, since God might well forgive sinners upon repentance and without any additional requirement.

We reply that in asserting that the objector is really assuming for himself the knowledge of deity. Who can say that God can or cannot do? And is repentance in fact all that is necessary to forgiveness? Does it remove the consequences of sin? In ordinary life, does repentance ward off just punishment or remove past guilt? Though repentance is necessary to forgiveness, it is not all that is necessary. Do not the expiatory sacrifices offered by men the world over bear mute testimony to the universal consciousness that sin demands the punishment of the offender or the death of a substitute? And in the act of forgiveness, is it not the one against whom the offense has been committed who suffers?

12.4.2 It is impossible

It is impossible, for guilt cannot be transferred from one person to another, nor can punishment and penalty be transferred from a guilty person to an innocent person. An innocent person may suffer, but his suffering will not be punishment or penalty.

It may be true that punishment for personal blameworthiness cannot be transferred from the wrongdoer to the well-doer. But the world is so constituted that it bears the idea of substitution engraved on its very heart. Wives suffer to deliver husbands from sufferings richly deserved. Are we wrong in teaching what Christ Himself taught, that He suffered in order to deliver us from sufferings we richly deserved? Furthermore, if we understand that Christ is both God and man and He is the Creator of the Universe, then nothing is impossible for Him to do.

12.4.3 It is immoral

It is immoral for the innocent to suffer for the guilty.

Our answer is that if this is the case, then sympathy is immoral, and love too, for this is what they do. It is not immoral for the innocent to suffer for the guilty when the innocent one by His own free-will assumes the burden (Hebrews 10:7) and retains the power to relinquish it at will (John 10:18). Since Christ did this voluntarily, no injustice is done to anyone. Nor is it immoral when He has power to bear the penalty to the uttermost, and having exhausted it to be free Himself and bring deliverance to others. And we may add, not when the redemption scheme provided an ample and unparalleled reward (Hebrews 12:2; Philippians 2:8-11). Christ was not permanently a loser.

Again, is it possible that an immoral doctrine should be the supreme cause of morality among men? History witnesses that the great moral advances of the human race have been brought about by the preaching of substitutional atonement.

It is a matter of question whether those who deny the element of substitution in the death of Christ reflect deeply on the logical consequences of their denial. There are only two possible alternatives presented in Scripture. Either Christ bore the burden and penalty of our sin, or we bear it. To deny that Christ bore our sins in His body on the Cross means that the idea of Christianity as a redemptive religion must be abandoned.

It remains to be said that the vicarious view of the atonement is not an optional alternative, one of several interesting theories that can be adopted or rejected at will. The whole tenor of Scripture is that this view lies at the very heart of the atonement.

The words of J.S. Stewart find the fullest support in Scripture:

"Not only had Christ by dying disclosed the sinner's guilt, not only had He revealed the Father's love: He had actually taken the sinner's place. And this meant, since 'God was in Christ,' that God had taken that place. When destruction and death were rushing up to claim the sinner as their prey, Christ had stepped in and accepted the full weight of their inevitable doom in His body and soul."    

13. THE DEAD AND BURIAL OF CHRIST

13.1 The Burial of Christ

After the death of Christ on the Cross, John gives a detailed description of what happened to the body of Christ:

And after these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate granted permission. He came therefore, and took away His body. And Nicodemus came also, who had first come to Him by night; bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight. And so they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been laid. Therefore on account of the Jewish day of preparation, because the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there" (John 19:38-42).

It was two members of the Sanhedrin who cooperated in the burial of the Lord. Neither of these two were known to be courageous or bold in their faith (John 19:38-39), but their love of Jesus outweighed their fear of their colleagues or of Rome. Joseph of Arimathea provided the tomb, while Nicodemus brought myrrh and aloes, spices customarily used in the preparation of the body for burial. Due to the lateness of the hour, things were done somewhat hastily (Luke 23:54-56; John 19:42), and the final preparations would be made after the Sabbath.

13.2 Evidences for the Actual Death of Christ

"The Jews therefore, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath for that Sabbath was a high day, asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. The soldiers therefore came, and broke the legs of the first man, and of the other man who was crucified with Him; but coming to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs; but one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water. And he who has seen has borne witness, and his witness is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe. For these things came to pass, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, “Not a bone of Him shall be broken.” And again another Scripture says, “They shall look on Him whom they pierced” (John 19:31-37).

The Bible gives us the evidences for the actual death of Jesus Christ. We may be assured that Christ physically died for the following reasons:

1. The appearance of Christ (John 19:30). Christ cried out; it was a cry of relief. He bowed His head and He expired for the last and final time. His actions signify death.
   
   

2. A lot of people witnessed His crucifixion (Matthew 27:35-36; Mark 15:24-41; Luke 23:33-49; John 19:18-30). The death of Jesus was undisputed by everyone who witnessed His crucifixion.
   
   

3. The legal expert announcement (John 19:31-33). The very fact that the Lord's legs were not broken was because legal experts on the subject of death knew He was dead already. They witnessed to this fact by not breaking the Lord's legs.
   
   

4. The dead was certified by the Roman soldiers (John 19:34). The Roman soldiers, who were experts in this field, were satisfied. Not only had they witnessed the unusual dismissal of His own spirit, but a spear was thrust into the side of our Lord, piercing the vital organs, probably including both His lungs and His heart. Since these soldiers dare not make a mistake, and since it would not hurt a dead body to have a sword thrust into His heart cavity to make certain He was dead, the Roman soldier did just that. Now there can be no question about it. Life as we know it could not function in a body with a gash into the heart sac large enough for a man to thrust his hand.
   
   

5. The medical evidence (John 19:34-35). Due to the fact that both blood and water pour forth from the spear wound, it medically verified that death had already occurred. Here was the postmortem performed upon the body of Christ. Since the blood had already separated or coagulated into the red clot "blood" and the limpid serum "water", it proves that Christ had not only died, but He had been dead some time.
   
   

6. The handling of the body (John 19:38-42). Anyone who has handled a corpse knows what I mean. There is no guesswork involved as to whether they are dead or not. There are two valid witnesses in Israel, both members of the Sanhedrin, who handled His body and they can witness to the fact that this man was dead. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus prepared the corpse, which would have revealed the normal evidences of death.
   
   

7. The dead was certified by the religious leaders and Pilate (Mark 15:43-45). All the Gospel writers mention Joseph of Arimathea and Luke tells us that he was a member of the Sanhedrin (Luke 23:50). Given the fact that all the writers implicate the religious leaders in Jesus' death, it seems rather odd that a member of the Sanhedrin should offer to bury Jesus, unless it really happened.
   
   

8. The dead was witnessed by the eleven disciples. None of the eleven disciples were there to claim the body of Jesus. They were afraid of the Jewish religious leaders and Pilate. They were hopeless because they thought that Jesus was actually dead and none of them believed that He would arise from dead.
   
   

9. The dead was witnessed by the women (Matthew 27:61; Mark 15:47; Luke 23:55). The women planned to return at a later time to further prepare the body (Luke 23:55-56). There was not one glimmer of hope that life remained in our Lord’s body.
   
   

10. Jesus was buried in a sealed and guarded tomb with a stone rolled over the entrance (Matthew 27:62-66). Why would the religious leaders still be wary, unless the way our Lord died evidenced a most unusual happening, the end of which was not yet in sight? (cf. Luke 23:44-48.)
    
    

11. The dead and burial were foretold in Bible Prophecies (Isaiah 53:5, 9, 10-11, 12; Psalm 22:16-18; 34:20; 69:21; Zechariah 12:10). Whatever man willed he did to the Son of God, but after Christ died, no unbeliever ever touched the body of Christ. Both Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus were believers, and their claiming Christ’s body forced them to expose themselves as His followers. This caused the Lord’s body to be buried in a rich man's tomb in a garden that was close to Calvary.
    
    

12. The earliest church tradition affirms that Christ was buried in a tomb after He had died (1 Corinthians 15:3-6; Acts 13:28, 29). The expression, "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried" indicates the emphatic nature of each part of the tradition. The tradition that Paul received indicated that Jesus had indeed been buried. The information supplied by Paul, which appears to be an early tradition in the church, along with the Gospel records, unanimously affirms that Jesus was buried in a tomb after He had died. Therefore the criterion of multiple attestation argues for the authenticity of the event. That the tradition is early (A.D. 30-36) negates the possibility of the development of a legend concerning his death and burial—there were still eyewitnesses living (1 Corinthians 15:6). Some of those eyewitnesses were indeed women (Matthew 27:61; Mark 15:47; Luke 23:55) who played a role in the early church in which the traditions developed (Acts 1:14; cf. with Luke 8:2, 3; 23:49 and 23:55-24:10).
    
    

13. The tomb in which Jesus was laid meets with archaeological discoveries. The "criterion of Palestinian environment" is satisfied in that the tomb in which Jesus was laid meets with archaeological discoveries, and the fact that Jesus, accused as a criminal, was buried in a new tomb coheres with the Jews not wanting to pollute other family members interred there. Also, it was Preparation day (Mark 15:42), the day before Passover, and Jesus' body would not have been allowed to remain on the Cross until the next day, lest the corpse defile the land (cf. Numbers 9:6-10). Therefore, the fact that Joseph was allowed to bury him is reasonable. And since he died around the sixth hour (Mark 15:33-37), Joseph probably had time to accomplish the burial before nightfall and the beginning of the Sabbath (Joel B. Green, Burial of Jesus," in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed., Intervarsity Press, 1992, 89).

13.3 Conclusion

Now by the mouth of two or three witnesses, the truth may be established. Here are many witnesses. All who were there at the Cross saw how He died. The soldiers witness to His death by not breaking His legs. The crowd again can testify as to the spear piercing His side. The writer of the Gospel is an eyewitness of the blood and water coming from His riven side. Finally, Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus are witnesses that they prepared a corpse for burial. There has never been another conflicting tradition about the fact of Jesus' burial. Therefore, it seems reasonable, based upon this and the foregoing discussion, to assert that the burial of Jesus Christ, as outlined in the New Testament, is a true and accurate account of what actually happened.

14. WHAT CHRIST ACCOMPLISHED WHEN HE DIED AND WENT TO HADES?

(Note: Please read Section 4 of Chapter 8: Death, Hell and Resurrection, for more information on this topic.)

14.1 Where Did Christ Go?

This brings us to the question: Where did the soul and human spirit of Christ go at death? The person of Christ was together in one place. He said to the thief on the cross in Luke 23:43, "Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise."

Did Christ and the thief on the cross go to heaven when they died, or did they go somewhere else? In order to answer this question it is necessary to understand what is spoken about the place of the departed spirits both in the Old Testament and also in the New.

14.1.1 Both just and unjust go to "Sheol" (Genesis 37:35)

Read Genesis 37:35. The place where the soul or spirit of man went at death was called by the Hebrews 'Sheol.' It meant simply, "the place of the departed spirits." The Greeks had the word Hades for identically the same concept. Neither the term Sheol nor Hades designated anything concerning the righteousness or unrighteousness of the person involved. All - righteous and unrighteous - went to Sheol or Hades before the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

14.1.2 Sheol is in the earth (Numbers 16:29-33; Matthew 12:40)

We learn further in both the Old and New Testaments that Sheol and Hades were within the earth itself. One passage in both Testaments will suffice. In Numbers 16:29-33 we have the rebellion of Korah. From this it may be seen that Sheol is in the earth. The Lord Himself verified this, and said: "As Jonah was three days and three nights in the sea monster's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:40). Thus Sheol or Hades is not only a place in the earth, but it is in the heart of it.

14.1.3 The place where believers are sent after death is described as "Abraham's Bosom" or "Paradise" (Luke 16:19-31)

From the teaching of the Lord in Luke 16 concerning the rich man and Lazarus we learn that there are two compartments to Hades. There is an upper portion where the righteous go which is a place of bliss, and a lower portion for the unrighteous which is a place of torment. In this place where there is full capacity of personality with intellect, emotion and will, the righteous and unrighteous sections are divided by a great gulf fixed so that none can traverse from one to the other.

With this background we are ready to consider where Christ went when He died. He went to Sheol or Hades which was in the heart of the earth. But He went to the upper portion of this place. It may be called "Abraham’s bosom" (Luke 16:22) because it is a place of endearment and blessing. It was called by Christ, speaking to the thief on the Cross, "paradise." The Lord told this man: "Today thou shalt be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). This again signifies a place of bliss. Paradise is a word of Persian origin signifying "a royal park or garden." Paradise, then, is equivalent to Abraham’s bosom or the upper portion of Sheol or Hades.

14.1.4 The just will not remain forever in "Sheol" (Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:29-32)

Peter is quoting from Psalm 16 which speaks of the Messiah, and there the Hebrew word is "Sheol." The soul of Christ did go to Sheol or Hades, but it was not left there.

"Brethren, I may say to you confidently of the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that He would set one of his descendants upon his throne, he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses" (Acts 2:29-32).

14.1.5 Christ descended into Hades when He died on the Cross

The Lord Himself said: "As Jonah was three days and three nights in the sea monster's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:40). This is the reason the Apostles’ Creed says: "He descended into Hades." Christ definitely descended into Hades when He died on the Cross (cf. Romans 10:6-7).

14.2 Where Did Christ Do?

This brings us to what did Christ do there in Hades? The Lord never went anywhere but that He did something. He had a purpose and a plan, and He accomplished it. We find that there was both a proclamation and a liberation performed by Him. He both spoke a message and did a work.

14.2.1 Christ proclaimed a message to the spirits who were in prison in the upper portion of Hades

"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that Je might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison" (1 Peter 3:18-19).

It was by His death He went and proclaimed a message to the spirits who were in prison in the upper portion of Sheol or Hades. This verse has nothing to do with offering Salvation a second time to the lost. The word “preach” means to make a proclamation. Christ told them that the sacrifice for their sins had been made. He had made it on the Cross (cf. Romans 3:25). All through the Old Testament sins were only "atoned" or covered over temporarily. Now there had been a complete taking away and remission of sins that are past. They were saved by grace through faith, and Christ’s death had made their Salvation complete.

14.2.2 When Christ ascended He took with Him all of those that were held captive in the upper portion of Hades to Heaven 

The passage that tells us about what Christ accomplished when He died and went to Hades is Ephesians 4:7-10:

"But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says, 'When He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, And He gave gifts to men.' Now this expression, 'He ascended,' what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things" (Ephesians 4:7-10).

Verse 7 states that the church, the body of Christ, has received grace gifts from the head of the church that ascended on high. Verse 8 then states that when Christ ascended, He did two things. First He led captivity captive (we will come back to this in a moment), and second, He gave gifts unto men. These gifts given to the church on earth are enumerated in verse 11 as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors-teachers. Completing the passage we find in verse 9 that before Christ ascended He first descended. Furthermore, His descent was into the lower parts of the earth. It was not into the lowest parts for He did not descend into the lower part of Sheol or Hades, but was in the upper portion. Verse 10 gives the wonderful truth that the Lord’s ascending was not half way from Sheol, but all the way above all heavens. Christ ascended, not just to the earth’s surface after being in the heart of the earth, but He ascended to the highest heaven, even to God’s throne where He sat down. He assumed His original position in the trinity.

With this background, let us consider the phrase, "He led captivity captive." Literally, "He captivated captivity." When an Old Testament believer died, he could not go into heaven because the way had not yet been provided. The blood was not on the mercy seat. Christ had to die and be resurrected and He has provided a new and living way whereby we may approach the Father on the basis of the blood of Christ (Hebrews 10:19). But more than this, Christ had to be the firstfruits of death. No one could enter in God’s presence through death before the Son did. He is "the forerunner" (Hebrews 6:20), and the leader of many others being their Captain (Hebrews 2:10).

Thus believers in the Old Testament died in hope of a future day of victory and of resurrection (cf. Hebrews 6:2), yet they had to wait in the upper portion of Sheol until the blood was on the mercy seat and until Jesus Christ led the way. The Old Testament believers were held captive then in Sheol, but Christ came and proclaimed that they were able with His resurrection to go free from their prison house, and when Christ rose from the dead He took all those held captive in the upper portion of Sheol to Heaven with Him. He captivated captivity.

Thus the Lord’s ministry was not only on earth, but under the earth. With this in mind we can understand what we read in Isaiah 61:1:

"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me … to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound."

This is exactly what Christ did. He first made the proclamation and then He captivated captivity. When He ascended, He took with Him into God's presence all of those that were held captive in the upper or righteous portion of Sheol. He emptied it completely of any inhabitant.

14.2.3 Christ closed down Hades from receiving any more righteous souls when they die 

But this is just the beginning. Not only did Christ empty the righteous portion of Sheol or Hades, and lead them all to Heaven, but He closed down Hades from receiving any more righteous souls when they die. He changed the place where the righteous go at death.

When a righteous person dies, he no longer descends into Hades, but he immediately goes to be with Christ. The moment the believer is absent from the body, he is present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). Paul was "hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better" (Philippians 1:23). Furthermore, he was one who was caught up into paradise and this was none other than God's throne or the third Heaven (2 Corinthians 12:24). Paradise was no longer a place in the heart of the earth, it was up in Heaven (cf. Revelation 2:7). Christ had changed its location by His work in death and His work through death.

This is why Christ said: "I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18). Not one person will ever be saved and descend into Hades where the gates of Hades will open to receive this person. The Lord will not lose one. Thus through death Christ destroyed both the power and the fear of death.

14.3 Conclusion

Thank God for the deaths Christ died. He tasted death for every man. He through death has conquered death, and stands the Victor over death. He is the One who could say: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die” (John 11:25-26). He said: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my sayings, he shall never see death” (John 8:51). Christ has changed death for every believer.

15. REFERENCES AND RECOMMENDATION FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. The Incomparable Christ - The Person and Work of Jesus Christ, Chapters 20-31, Moody Press, 1971 Edition, by John Oswald Sanders.

2. The Life of Jesus Christ, p. 146, Rev. Ed., Old Tappan, N.J. Revell, 1891, by James Stalker.

3. New Testament Survey, pp. 206-210, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Inter-Varsity Press, 1985 Edition, by Merrill C. Tenney, Revised by Walter M. Dunnett.

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