DESTINY’S BIBLE STUDY NOTES AND QUOTES

(The Life and Ministry of Jesus #48)

Calvary (See Matthew 27:31-53, Mark 15:20-38, Luke 23:26-46, John 19:16-30)

“And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him.” (Luke 23:33)

For transgression of the law of God, Adam and Eve were banished from Eden. Christ, our substitute, was to suffer without the boundaries of Jerusalem. He died outside the gate, where felons and murderers were executed. Full of significance are the words, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, “being made a curse for us.” (Galatians 3:13)

All through the disgraceful farce of a trial Jesus had borne Himself with firmness and dignity. But after the second scourging, when the cross was laid upon Him, His human nature could bear no more, and He collapsed beneath the burden.

When Christ rode into Jerusalem, the hopes of the disciples had been raised to the highest pitch. They had pressed close about their Master, feeling that it was a high honor to be connected with Him. Now in His humiliation they followed Him at a distance. Now they were filled with grief and disappointed hopes.

Christ pitied His abusers in their ignorance and guilt. He breathed only a plea for their forgiveness—“for they no not what they do.”

That prayer of Christ for His enemies embraced the world. It took in every sinner that ever had lived or should live, from the beginning of the world until the end of time. Upon all rests the guilt of crucifying the Son of God. To all, forgiveness is freely offered. “Whoever will,” may have peace with God and inherit eternal life.

In order to destroy Christ, the priests and rulers had been ready to sacrifice their national existence. They were united with Satan and his angels, and were doing his bidding. Christ could have come down from the cross. But it is because He would not save Himself that the sinner has hope of pardon, and favor with God.

How grateful to the Savior was the utterance of faith and love from the dying thief next to Him! While the leading Jews deny Him, and even the disciples doubt His divinity, the poor thief, upon the brink of eternity, calls Jesus Lord. Many were ready to call Him Lord when He wrought miracles, and after He had risen from the grave. But none acknowledged Him as He hung dying upon the cross except the penitent thief.

With amazement the heavenly angels behold the infinite love of Jesus, who suffering the most intense agony of mind and body, thought only of others, and encouraged the penitent soul to believe.

In Christ’s dying hour, He remembered His mother. Looking into her grief stricken face, and then upon John, He said to her, “Woman behold thy Son!” Then to John He said, “Behold thy mother!” John understood Christ’s words, and accepted the trust. He at once took Mary into his home, and took care of her.

Oh pitiful, loving Savior! Amid all of His physical pain, and mental anguish, He had thoughtful care for His mother!

Through familiarity with evil, humanity had become so blinded to its enormity. Christ saw how deep is the hold of sin upon the human heart, and how few would be willing to break from its power. He knew that without help from God, humanity must perish.

The withdrawal of the divine countenance from the Savior in His hour of supreme anguished pierced His heart with a sorrow that can never fully be understood by man.

The Savior could not see through the portals of the tomb! Hope did not present to Him His coming forth from the grave a conqueror, or tell Him of the Father’s acceptance of His sacrifice. He feared that sin was so offensive to God that their separation was to be eternal.

Christ felt the anguish which the sinner will feel when mercy shall no longer plead for the guilty race. It was the sense of sin, bringing the Father’s wrath upon Him as man’s substitute, that made the cup He drank so bitter, and broke the heart of the Son of God.

God and His holy angels were beside the cross. The Father was with His Son! Yet His presence was not revealed.

He who stilled the angry waves and walked the foam-capped billows, who made devils tremble and disease flee, who opened blind eyes and called forth the dead to life—offers Himself upon the cross as a sacrifice, and this because of love for us! He, the Sin Bearer, endures the wrath of divine justice, and for our sake becomes sin itself.

Amid the awful darkness, apparently forsaken of God, Christ had drained the last dregs of human woe. In those dreadful hours He had relied upon the evidence of His Father’s acceptance previously given to Him. Darkness settled upon the earth, and a hoarse rumbling like heavy thunder was heard. There was a violent earthquake. The wildest confusion and consternation ensued.

Right after Christ declared “It is finished,” priests were officiating in the temple. With a rending noise the inner veil of the temple is torn from top to bottom by an unseen hand. All is terror and confusion. The priest is about to slay the victim. But the knife drops from his nerveless hand, and the lamb escapes. Type has met antitype in the death of God’s Son.

Henceforth the Savior was to officiate as priest and advocate in the heaven of heavens.

It Is Finished

To the angels and the unfallen worlds the cry, “It is finished,” had a deep significance. Not until the death of Christ was the character of Satan clearly revealed to the angels or the unfallen worlds. The arch apostate had so clothed himself with deception that even the holy beings had not understood his principles. They had not clearly seen the nature of his rebellion.

Spiritual rebellion was not to be overcome by force. Compelling power is found only under Satan’s government. The Lord’s principles are not of this order. God’s government is moral, and truth and love are to be the prevailing principles.

In the councils of heaven, it was decided that time must be given for Satan to develop the principles which were the foundation of his system of government. He had claimed that these were superior to God’s principles. Time was given that they might be seen by the heavenly universe.

All the efforts of Satan to oppress and overcome Jesus only brought out in a purer light His spotless character. Heaven viewed with grief and amazement Christ hanging upon the cross, blood flowing from His wounded temples. All heaven was filled with wonder when the prayer of Christ was offered in the midst of His terrible suffering—“Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)

Satan saw that his disguise was torn away. His administration was laid open , and He had revealed himself as a murderer. Yet he was not then destroyed.

Because he, after his rebellion, had been banished from heaven, Satan claimed that the human race must be forever shut out from God’s favor. God could not be just, he urged, and yet show mercy to the sinner.

But even as a sinner, man was in a different position from that of Satan. Lucifer in heaven had sinned in the light of God’s glory. To him as to no other created being was given a revelation of God’s love. But humanity was deceived, their minds darkened by Satan’s sophistry. The height and depth of God’s love, mankind did not know.

God did not change His law, but He sacrificed Himself, in Christ, for man’s redemption. “God was in Christ , reconciling the world unto Himself.” (2 Corinthians 5:19)

It had been Satan’s purpose to divorce mercy from truth and justice. But by His life and death, Christ proved that God’s justice did not destroy His mercy, but that sin could be forgiven, and that the law is righteous, and can be obeyed.

It was because the law is changeless, because man could be saved only by keeping its precepts, that Jesus was lifted up on the cross. Yet the very means by which Christ established the law Satan represented as destroying it. Here will be the last conflict of the great controversy between Christ and Satan. By substituting human law for God’s law, Satan will seek to control the world. This work is foretold in prophecy.

Of the great apostate power which is the representative of Satan (The antichrist) it is declared, “He shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out (persecute) the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand. (Daniel 7:25)

(For an example of this prophecy fulfilled in history, one excellent resource is “Foxe’s Christian Martyrs of the World.” By John Foxe.)