Jesus was crucified, but not yet dead. He had a “reputation” to maintain. Even skeptics knew that Jesus had saved others. He had brought many from death back to life. Surely, they had assumed that He was mimicking Simon the Sorcerers magic. They needed proof that He is the Christ. Th chief priests may have secretly wondered, but if they confessed Jesus as the Christ, then their own power as priests in charge would have been diminished. There was a power struggle in progress, and vulgar tactics would be used. The chief priests mocked Jesus with their taunt: “He saved others; himself He cannot save. If He be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the Cross, and we will believe him” (Mat 27:42).
Now consider that scenario if done their way: Jesus just walks
off the cross toward them. Salvation would be by the “way” of the priests rather
than the Way of Jesus. If Jesus had stepped off the “throne,” removed His feet
from their “foot stool” (more on that tomorrow) and saved Himself, then neither
the chief priests nor anyone else would have been saved! In the story of
Lazarus and the rich man, the latter thought that hearing about Moses and salvation
by water, that would prove to his brothers that God is for real. Jesus said
this about that: “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be
persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (Luke 16:31).
Provenance that Jesus is God is that he died and was raised
from the dead on the third day. Simon Magus failed that feat although he
levitated. Simon remains in the grave to this day, but Jesus has arisen and is
alive to the present time. The chief priests may have had an inspiration; that if
Jesus overcame his adversaries on Earth, that they just might believe in Him.
They laughed at that thought, but when Jesus arose it was no laughing matter.
They came up with ridiculous accusations and conspiracy plots. Although Jesus
defeated death His Way, just like Jesus predicted, they would not
believe.
The Holy Cross is proof that Jesus lives up to His Name.
Jesus means, “Yahweh saves.” He did not save Himself, but he saved some.
We think that Jesus saved all men, but he did not; he paid the price for all
(redemption). His death was so that none should perish, but most still choose
to perish. Undoubtedly, the chief priests chose to perish. If Jesus had not
agonized because of His grace, He could have had the “last laugh.”
Because the Cross is empty provides the proof. Because Jesus
died and yet lives is the ultimate proof. Jesus suffered death, but he did not
die because His soul is immortal. (Remember that “death” is isolation from
God). He suffered death to demonstrate that if He could do that, all who
accepted that proof would be persuaded that the Cross is the Way
to salvation. Stepping off the Cross would not be sufficient. Jesus had to die,
then His Ghost “step off,” and that is exactly what happened!
Oddly enough, the chief priests, if they had truly been priests
of Yahweh, should have recognized this event because prophecy was all
about this day. The Romans knew little of the strange religion of the Jews, but
look who was convinced — “When the centurion, which stood over against Him, saw
that He so cried out, and gave up the Ghost, he said, ‘Truly this man was the
Son of God.’” In his “blindness,” the centurion saw Jesus “walking” His Way off
the Cross. (It was not by walking, however, but flowing). God’s Holy Ghost just
went off, but not toward the priests, but toward the repentant thief on the
other cross. The Holy Ghost performed His first “magic” that day, and saved the
thief from perishing, not because he deserved saving, but that He saw that
Jesus IS Yahweh. In like manner, the centurion saw that Jesus IS God by the
Holy Ghost.
The Son of Man — the Flesh of God — had been sacrificed, but
the very Soul of God — the Son of God — had been preserved. The chief priests
were too smart for this “trickery” because they had all the knowledge of scripture.
The centurion was like a child and believed what he had just witnessed!
If Jesus had come down and saved Himself, few would have believed
that He IS God. Jesus did it His Way, and as a result, billions of people have believed
in Him. Whose way was best? His Way or the way of the priests? To this
day, the point of the Cross is that is the Way to enter Paradise. Doing
it the way of the priests would have not been by sacrificing Himself but saving
Himself.
What do you think of when you see the Holy Cross? Catholics
still see Jesus, and Him crucified, as if there was no Way to defeat death.
Most protestants look at the Cross and see it empty. It is not empty because
Jesus pulled the nails and walked away, but because He suffered the nails and
was carried off!
Normally, portions of sacrifices were given to the priests
for their consumption. The other centurions divided Jesus’s clothing. If he had
been a lamb, the priests would have divided His flesh. They failed to realize that
Jesus is the precious perfect Lamb of God promised to them for centuries. If
so, they would have shared Him, not His Flesh but His Spirit. That did not
happen. The Spirit of God walked off, or perhaps flowed off as a dove. However,
the centurion surely recognized that the Holy Ghost of Jesus had been given up!
The very idea that the centurion would have realized that
seems ludicrous; as if he had seen the Ghost of Jesus! That is not so questionable
if the others had opened their eyes and saw what the centurion saw.
What do you suppose he saw? The same things witnessed when Jesus was baptized, but in reverse: “The Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him, and a Voice came from heaven, which said, ‘Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I AM well pleased” (Luke 3:22). The people baptized by John saw that; not a dove coming down but a Ghost in the shape of Jesus, flowing like a dove. The centurion, perhaps, saw the Holy Ghost descending like a dove.
The Chief Priests did not see that because they had never truly repented
through the baptism of John. However, the thief repented right there, and the
centurion was “born again” because the Cross persuaded him that Jesus is
God. Right there on the spot, Caesar was no longer king and “god,” but Jesus had
proven Himself TO BE God, not by escaping the Cross but suffering it!
This commentary was intended to be about the characteristics
of the Cross, but it turned out to be more about the character of Yahweh.
That “Character” is the Person of God, Jesus. Tomorrow, God Willing, I will
write more about the Cross.
It is my bet that you have not ever heard the Purpose of the
Cross in this manner before, but it is not my thoughts, but thoughts given to
me by One whose thoughts are greater than mine. The Lord said, “For as the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my
thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa 55:9).
It turned out that God’s Way was higher than the Chief Priests’
ways, and His thoughts not their thoughts, and before I considered the Cross,
that was true for me as well. Jesus did not escape death using the power of His
Flesh, but the Power of God — the Holy Spirit. Yahweh was there with the
escape Plan, and that was escaping in stealth as the Holy Ghost of Jesus. That
was according to Plan, to wit:
38 He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of Living Water. 39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.) 40 Many of the people therefore, when they heard this saying, said, “Of a truth this is the Prophet.” (John 7:38-40)
The process of glorification was in progress: Jesus had been transfigured
as His identity as God was manifested, and then on the Cross, His identity as
the Holy Spirit had been revealed. The Cross changed Jesus. Not that His Flesh
had changed. That would happen when he went to His Father and the glorification
process finished.
The Spirit in Jesus changed. His Spirit suffered death and as the “spirit
of a dead Man,” that Spirit was transformed into the Ghost of Jesus, and the centurion
saw that transfiguration. The “Godhead” had been revealed to him. The Cross was a significant event in the
glorification of Jesus. His Holy Ghost did not truly descend alive as a dove,
but flowed out of His belly as Living Waters.
With the water mixed with blood (John 19:34), Jesus’s identity was
revealed on the Cross: “This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus
Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that
beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth” (1 John 5:6). Apparently, the
centurion did not see merely water and blood, but the Blood of the Son of Man,
and the Living Water of the Son of God. The Spirit bore witness to the
centurion by the Water, and with that manifestation, the centurion realized the
truth.
True to His Words to the rich man in Hades, the chief priests who knew the
water of Moses, [1]
did not recognize the Living Water of Yahweh.
Neither was it the moving water of John!
(picture credit: "Divine Mercy;" Doug Lawrence's Catholic Weblog - Wordpress.com)
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