More on the Crucifixion

Tom: We’re continuing with the gospel. We’re in the Gospel of John. We’re in John:19:16Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away.
See All...: “Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. [That is, Pilate has delivered Jesus to be crucified.] “And they took Jesus, and led him away. And he, bearing his cross, went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: [v. 18]: where they crucified him and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.”

Dave: Wow! That is some passage of Scripture, Tom. Pilate has said he didn’t want Jesus to be crucified. He’s claimed Jesus was innocent, which he was. He’s going to wash his hands of the affair. But as we mentioned last week, for political reasons he wants to be on the good side of Caesar, although he finally was on the outs with Caesar, but nevertheless. “Okay, guys, this is unjust, it’s not the right thing, but go ahead, kill him.” So he delivers Him to them to be crucified.

And Jesus is led away. You know this is the Lord of the universe; this is the Creator. This is the one who stilled the waves, the wind. He could have just finished them off in a moment. And yet He allows His creatures to lead Him to be crucified. If you want to see what sin is, you look at the cross. You want to see God’s love, you look at the cross. That He would allow them to this to Him! But in fact, this was why He came. The whole reason of His coming into this earth was to die on the cross to pay for our sins; pay the penalty for our sins.

But it must have been shocking to the disciples, who knew Jesus in a different way. The power—He could heal the sick, raise the dead. “He, bearing his cross, went forth into a place called the place of the skull, where they crucified him.” Wow! They’re driving the nails in His hands and feet.

Tom: Dave, they didn’t understand. First of all, they’re going through this physically. They see Jesus being physically taken. I’m sure that shook them. But they didn’t understand what was taking place here. Could we have expected them to understand? I mean, Jesus said to them over and over again this is what was going to take place; this is what was going to happen. But could they have understood that He was going to pay the full penalty? We’ve said that over and over on this program.

Dave: Well, they should have, if they had known the Scriptures. So, in Luke 24, when Jesus comes alongside the two walking on the road to Emmaus, and they’re so sad, you know. He says, “What’s your problem?”

“Are you a stranger? You don’t know about Jesus of Nazareth? A man mighty in word and deed before God and all the people and we thought he was the one who would redeem Israel.” They even used that language! How’s He going to redeem Israel? He has to die for their sins.

But they don’t know that, and Jesus says, “You fools, slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.” And he says this: “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things to enter into his glory? If you knew what the prophets said, you would know that the Messiah had to be crucified.” And then it says, “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”

And they say later on, “Didn’t our hearts burn within us as he talked with us and he opened the scriptures?” Wow! Jesus said to the rabbis, “You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life. These are they that testify of me and you won’t come to me that you might have life.” So that must have been quite a Bible study there, but if they had heeded the prophets, they would have known; they would have understood what was happening.

Tom: Well, Dave, this raises an even more, I think, critical question. Never mind the disciples. What about others looking forward to the cross? What did they understand?

Dave: I think very, very few, if any, understood.

Tom: Then how were they saved?

Dave: Oh, well, they believed that God had a provision. They believed that the sacrifices were looking forward to what God would do, but they didn’t understand that this would be the Messiah. That the Messiah would die. I don’t know. They were looking to God for His salvation and they believed that somehow the sacrifices of the animals looked forward to something, some provision.

On the other hand, there was Abraham, and Jesus said, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad.” There was David, who foretold the crucifixion, Psalm 22 and so forth.

Were the disciples even saved before? I don’t know. I think they were on their way to getting saved. That’s a good question.

“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” And yet He sends them out, and they have—He gives them power to heal the sick, open the eyes of the blind and so forth. And yet even Judas apparently was able to do that. We don’t read that he didn’t. Tom, [there’s] a lot of questions here that I just don’t have the answer to.

Tom: But, Dave, I think it’s an important question. Dave, as you say, this raises other questions, but we’re saved by putting our faith and trust in the Lord. And they certainly did that. They had time of weakness, they had time where they didn’t understand and so on, but their trust was in Him, in the person of Christ and what He was about to do. They submitted to that.

Dave: There were others, like Mary of Bethany, the home of Martha, Lazarus, and so forth. And she took the alabaster box of ointment and anointed Jesus with it. And the disciples complained, “This could have been sold for 300 pence and given to the poor.”

Jesus said, “You will always have the poor, but she had done this for my burying.” Now, again, to what extent she really understood that, I don’t know. The disciples certainly did not believe He would be crucified. They didn’t even believe He would be raised from the dead. So they did not believe or understand the gospel as we preach it today. But the understanding that they had was they were trusting God, they were looking forward to God’s provision. But we can’t preach the gospel that way any more because Christ has come. He’s died for our sins and now we declare this.

Tom: Dave the reason I’m raising these questions is that as you know in the last newsletter, that is, the May newsletter, we talk about where and how Christ paid the full penalty for our sins. And we’re making a distinction between His physical sufferings vs. His separation from God—the three hours on the cross, in which God poured out His wrath on Him. Now if somebody doesn’t understand the difference, how critical is that?

Dave: Well, now you’re raising another question that’s not here, Tom. You’re talking about whether the disciples understood.

Tom: Yeah, I’m just bringing it right up to today.

Dave: We’ve got another one. Well, Tom, I don’t know that a person to whom—for example, the Philippian jailer: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

Paul says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and though shalt be saved.” Now he wasn’t just saying, “Well, some guy named Jesus. Believe that he existed…” and so forth. No, I’m sure he had preached the gospel, and in fact, in Acts 16, it goes on and it says, “And he declared unto them the word of the Lord.”

Now, how often does a preacher—ever hear Billy Graham say, “Now we want you to understand there’s a distinction between the physical sufferings and the spiritual sufferings, what He suffered at the hand of God?” Probably very few Christians even thought of that. But they have believed that somehow Christ died for their sins. They didn’t believe that we are saved by His scourging. But they believe that “God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, the death of the cross.”

So they recognize that He died for their sins. I don’t think that they understand the depths of what that means as we just tried to explain it: the lake of fire, the second death, death and hell cast into the lake of fire. There’s much that we understand as the Lord gives us a deeper appreciation of what He’s done. And that should give us a greater love for Him, to think of what he endured for me! The lake of fire! For eternity! And He had to be God to endure that in three hours. But I don’t think I understood that when I came to Christ. I just knew that He died for my sins. I just knew that whatever He did, it paid the penalty for my sins. I didn’t understand it in depth. And I think that was true of the disciples, and true of others today.

Now if a person wants to argue and say, “Oh no, I don’t believe that He had to pay any penalty at God’s hands. I think the scourging, as Mel Gibson tries to indicate, oh I think that took care of it.” Physical sufferings, that paid the penalty for the sins for an eternity in the lake of fire for billions of people? I think they’ve got problems. But to have to understand that when you just believe that Christ died for your sins, I wouldn’t say that that was essential.