The Crucifixion

Background Scripture: Psalm 22; Matthew 27:1–35
Lesson Scripture: Psalm 22:1–8, 11–18

Introduction

Modern civilization and its culture has shrouded much of the stark, unpolished reality of crucifixion. Christian terminology defines many aspects of Christ’s death, but unless it is coupled with a God-given vision, we may still be callow and insensitive to the sobering actuality of this monumental event. Cruel and unusual punishment is a crime in our time, which makes it even more difficult to grasp the graphic content of such horrific torment and suffering—a death so terrible that even the most sanguine may have difficulty facing it for what it truly is.

Key Verse

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth (Isa. 53:7).

Lesson Scripture

Studying the Lesson

Psalm 22 is a noteworthy prophecy of certain details surrounding Christ’s crucifixion. It also gives a clear inner look at the sinless Lamb of God’s suffering spirit as He carries the burden of sin and guilt for lost humanity. Most of this psalm could be interpreted as the language of a heart that is estranged from God and out of favor with men. The pain of being a reproach to others, of being rejected and ridiculed, is a hurt that in many ways exceeds physical pain. Jesus experienced this in a profound sense that has eclipsed anything that any human has been called to bear because everything that He endured was not on His own account. He bore the injustice of suffering for others’ sins without protest (1 Pet. 2:22–23). It is possible for us to experience how it feels to be wrongfully accused, and we can understand to a small degree the soul anguish Jesus must have suffered. However, very few people willingly accept the liability of another’s guilt. Jesus accepted this in addition to His bodily torture.

The Lord’s cry of feeling forsaken by God portends the awful misery of a sinner without hope, the torment of being alone in hell and beyond redemption. Jesus took the weight of the curse of sin to Calvary, and in dying He experienced the full fury of God’s judgment on sin. All the vehement, righteous hatred of God against sin was heaped upon His only blessed Son. Did God turn from Him because He could not bear to see His beloved Son carrying the world’s sin? Was it necessary for Jesus to experience the doom of being lost to accomplish the complete plan of salvation? In any event, God is just, and the Scriptures state that He saw the travail of His Son’s soul and was satisfied. Strictly speaking, God saw the sinless, suffering Savior assuming the penalty of His holy law, and He pronounced that this sacrifice satisfied its demands once and for all (Heb. 10:9–10).

Practical Truths for Today

Jesus Redeemer, name above all names! How acquainted are we with His death and crucifixion and what it means? For the Christian believer, it remains the central pillar of salvation; without it, the essence of the resurrection loses its power. The crucifixion teaches us the wretchedness of our depraved, sinful condition and the grave and serious measures that God took to rescue a fallen race. “Fools make a mock at sin” (Prov. 14:9), but we do well to contemplate the disturbing facts of the death of Christ. For in doing so, we will be moved to an honest and truthful look at how heaven views sin. It is not to be trifled with or reckoned as a light matter. “Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God” (Rom. 11:22). To ponder that God loved us so much as to put His only begotten, perfect, beloved Son through this kind of pain, misery, and torment just to save us is to dwell on love incomprehensible.

One thing that we may find troubling about the crucifixion is the resentment of Jesus’s own people toward Him. They called for His innocent death and, without realizing what they were doing, killed the Son of God. Is there a parallel for us? Are there times we do not realize that we are counting the saving grace of God and the blood of the covenant an unholy thing by what we do and allow in our lives? Possibly, without fully realizing it, we resent calling self-will, lust, pride, and disobedience what they really are—sin. In so doing, we join our voices with the taunting, mocking crowd calling for Jesus’s death.

May we let the grisly scene pass in review once again. See the bestial cruelty of the torturers and executioners as they pierce, tear, and mangle the flesh of the Lord’s body, giving little heed to who He is. Hear the moans, sighs, and groans of a Man in mortal anguish and pain, and the loud, coarse talk of soldiers accustomed to seeing suffering and cruelty while dealing with hardened criminals. Watch in horror as they place the point of those spikes in the tender palm of the hands that had healed so many and done so much good. Witness the indignities as He is humiliated, accused to the world as a blasphemer. Observe the Jewish royalty standing by in their clean, ecclesiastical vestments. Haughtily, they watch this Man get what they believe He deserves, scorning Him for what He said He was. There is tension in the air, including the heavy tread of Roman law, the sorrow and pity of Jesus’s loved ones who lingered, the self-righteous satisfaction of the temple authorities who finally accomplished what they had plotted so long, and the aura of an unsettled atmosphere—truly a foreboding of something that seems terribly wrong.

Furthermore, let us consider the shame and reproach Jesus suffered as an innocent man wrongfully condemned as a common criminal, scorned by those whom He had tried to help. He was helpless and lonely, having no one to intercede on His behalf. Most remarkably, He chose it. He had the power to stop the whole process, but in doing so he would have forfeited our only hope of salvation.

Contemplating this, does not our heart become soft and responsive to the Savior? Oh, how He suffered and what pain He endured to bring many sons and daughters to glory! (Heb. 2:10). Is self-denial too much to ask, the narrow road too difficult, loving Him above all else a requirement too fine? “For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” (Heb. 12:3–4).

What does the cross stand for in our lives? To be crucified with Christ is a living experience that is far more than just a concept or a frame of mind. It consists of knowing by personal participation what it means to have the self-life mortified, deliverance from the base desires of the flesh, the freedom of living above the law of sin and death, to be at peace with God, and to receive His forgiveness.

One of the fallacies confronting Christians today is the concept of easy grace. This is a false gospel that promises a life with Christ without the cross. It is a misguided belief that often focuses on praise and worship and enjoying the blessings of what God has done for us, but it does not recognize the necessity of the flesh going to the place of death. In this manner, lust and pride remain in power, and the world is not reckoned as a hostile environment. It is a road that runs parallel to the Christian path with its themes of doing what is right and being of service to others. But, alas, it fails to confront one’s self-will and ulterior motives. This counterfeit is a compromise that bargains for a blend of the old fleshly pleasures by relabeling them as “such clean fun,” “diversity,” “normal for this age,” “self-improvement,” or “quality time.” Learning, improving, and redirecting fit well in this compromise and, considered only at face value, are commendable and not wrong. But the deception is that one is promised salvation without coming to a place of unconditional surrender where self-will, our dearest and most prized possession, is slain.

The cross of Jesus marks a violent and bloody end to self-life; it is not a makeover. The man who takes up his cross has already said goodbye to the world because he knows that for him it is over. The old, fallen nature cannot be improved upon or remade. Jesus’s express purpose in salvation is to create new life by resurrection, and this can be accomplished only when there is first a death.

“But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal. 6:14). God prohibits placing credit in anything other than the cross, signifying not just an appreciation for God’s part in the plan of salvation but a sacred realization that without the cross the old flesh remains alive, unrestrained, and enthroned. Without the presence of the cross, we do not comprehend repentance and turning to God; the cross places a continuous judgment of death on the sin nature.

Through Jesus’s substitutionary death on the cross, we receive the atonement for sin and justification before God though our faith in the blood that was spilled at Calvary. As we own our guilt and see, with the light of truth, our desperate need of a Savior, Jesus stands ready to forgive. After the bitterness of judgment and the pain of dying and losing our self-life, tasting the goodness and love of God through His grace and forgiveness binds our hearts to Him in ways that have no earthly equal. It is a love connection so strong that it supersedes everything that lies within the temporal reaches of time. “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus” (Rev. 14:12).

Questions

1. Is Christian life hard or easy?
2. Does the cross put an end to besetting sin?
3. Is a form of godliness that lacks power a sign of unbelief in the cross?
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Source: COGICM Daily Bible Readings (Daily Bible Readings, PO Box 124, Glenn, CA 95943).