Archives for March 2014

Discard the idea that because Jesus was divine He really did not experience as much torment as we would have under the same circumstances. He felt more, much, much more. He emptied Himself of divine rights, surrendering glory, power, His own life and, cruelest of all, His fellowship with the Father. The Father — and in fact the totality of God, the Godhead – had  been one with Jesus from Jesus’ conception in Mary’s womb. It was a unique bond of love and fellowship and the two (Jesus and the totality of God) had been inseparable. But Jesus was now tainted with the loathsomeness of sin and had become, by a voluntary substitution, identified with the same loathsome sin that the Father abhorred. The Father had to totally reject Him. At this point Jesus was a Man being torn in two. His very Person was being wrenched apart. It was for Jesus a horrible brush with hell.

I have been questioned on the belief that Jesus could promise the dying thief that he the thief would be in paradise that selfsame day with Jesus although Jesus was immediately plunged into the torments of hell. This is my answer: As God could not die but Jesus could and did die, so God could not suffer in hell after a death that was totally impossible to His divinity, but the human Jesus (who voluntarily became sin for us all) could and would yet experience the torments of hell.

We have concluded previously in this discourse that there is no dichotomy (split) within the Godhead. But the human side of Jesus was fully human and consequently He could both suffer and die. Therefore, when the humanity of Jesus deliberately took on Himself the sins of mankind, the divinity of Jesus (Father. Word or Logos and Holy Spirit) could no longer reside within the human Jesus: He was now blackened by sin. They rejected the human Jesus. It was all part of an eternally conceived plan, sponsored in love, to save mankind.

A vast chasm was now in the process of opening up between Jesus and the Father. Such a blackness and horror and emptiness could be known only by this one supreme Person being riven within Himself by the abomination of sin.

They led Jesus, bloodstained and bedraggled, from the garden to a succession of “hearings” before Annas, the former high priest; Caiaphas, the present high priest; the Sanhedrin; and finally to Pilate, the Roman Procurator of Judea. The meeting with Annas was brief. (John 18:13-23) The former high priest questioned Jesus about His disciples and His teachings.

“I spoke openly to the world,” Jesus said, “in the synagogues and in the Temple. Why ask me? Ask them who heard me.”

One of the officers standing by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, exclaiming, “Is that any way to answer the high priest?”

“If I have spoken wrongly, bear witness to it,” Jesus retorted. “But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?” Annas then sent Jesus to Caiaphas.

During the time Jesus had been on His way to Annas, Peter and John, having overcome their first unseemly panic, followed Jesus and His captors at a distance. John, who was known to the high priest, entered the courtyard in which Annas’ residence was located. Peter meanwhile waited outside at the entrance. John spoke to the maid who kept the door and she let Peter in while John went farther into the courtyard. The maid looked closely at Peter.

“Aren’t you also one of this man’s disciples?”

“I am not,” Peter stated as positively as he could; and off in the distance a cock crowed. What must Peter have thought at this time? Jesus had told Peter that he would deny Jesus three times before the cock crowed. Matthew, Luke and John all say “before the cock crows,” meaning one time (Matthew 26.33, 34; Luke 22.33, 34; John 13.37, 38). Only Mark has Jesus saying, “before the cock crows twice you shall deny me thrice.” The NIV also informs us concerning the passage in Mark, “Some early manuscripts do not have twice.”

Peter had so strongly declared he would never do such a thing. But now he had already denied his Lord the first time! His heart smote him as he sought some way to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.

Mat. 26:57-68; Mark 14:53-65; Luke 22:54,63-65; John 18:24

The council had already assembled informally at Caiaphas’ house by the time Jesus was brought there from His appearance before Annas. Caiaphas’ house, along with that of Annas, was more than likely one of a cluster of buildings surrounding a common courtyard. Jesus was a forlorn, battered figure as he stood silent before Caiaphas and the scribes and elders. This surely could not be the Lord of glory, the King of the Jews; not the Messiah! If there was anything aesthetic or beautiful about the entire panorama that unfolded slowly from the Garden of Gethsemane to the cross, it certainly was not in the physical appearance of Christ. Nor was it in the damning evidence of human callousness and depravity the panorama revealed. The beauty could be found only in the love that looked beyond such moral bank­ruptcy and perceived the wretchedness and dire need of all men.

The witnesses they produced against Jesus could not get their lies to agree until two of them brought forth the true statement Jesus had made: “I will destroy this Temple that is made with hands and in three days I will build another not made with hands.” But neither did their stories fully agree.

The high priest stood up with a gesture of impatience and demanded of Jesus, “Have you no answer to make? What is this they’re saying about you?”

Jesus answered not a word. But then Caiaphas asked Jesus a question that was certain to get a response: “I adjure you by the living God that you tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”

It could be that Caiaphas, by some devilishly ingenious reasoning, assumed that Jesus would never deny this charge, which was a claim for Himself that He had made or implied in His teachings. Jesus did not disappoint him.

“You have said so,” He said, meaning, in the Jewish idiom, Yes. “And I tell you that hereafter you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

The high priest tore his robe in horror at such supposed blasphemy. “He has spoken blasphemy! What do we need with more witnesses?”

Turning to the council, Caiaphas asked them, “What is your opinion?”

“He is guilty of death!” they cried in unison.

Then, in their trumped-up fervor (some of them surely knew Jesus spoke truth) they buffeted Jesus and spit on Him. That was not enough for them; they had to humiliate Him further. Covering His face, they slapped the Lord of glory and said in derision, “Prophesy to us now and tell us who struck you!” The servants even joined in the sacrilegious scene, smiting Jesus along with the others.

Mat. 26:69?75; Mark 14:66?72; Luke 22:55?62; John 18:25?27

Down in the courtyard, Peter, the erstwhile staunch disciple who had already fled from his Master’s side and denied Him once, had gone into the forepart of the courtyard. There a maid once again alerted the others to him: “This man is one of them!”

Peter felt all eyes turn toward him and, as before, his courage melted away. “I swear I am not one of them!” We can only guess at what turbulent thoughts were going through Peter’s mind after this second shameful denial of his Friend and Master who would never, never have turned His back on Peter.

About one hour later, a kinsman of the servant whose ear Peter had cut off, said to Peter, “Didn’t I see you in the garden with this Jesus?”

“No; not at all.” Peter was becoming alarmed for his safety.

“You ARE one of them. We can tell by your speech you’re a Galilean!”

Losing whatever little loyalty he might have had at this point under a cascade of fear, Peter swore that he did not know Jesus, and even called a solemn curse upon himself if he were not telling the truth. Immediately a cock crowed (again?) somewhere in the chilly night.  Peter had now completely disowned Jesus and in so doing had fulfilled the dismal prophecy Jesus had made concerning him.

Jesus, still standing before His adversaries in a room looking out on the courtyard, turned at this moment and looked down across the milling throng straight into Peter’s eyes. It was a damning look, not because Jesus’ eyes had the intensity of judgment in them. Quite the contrary: they were eyes filled with a love and pain that Peter’s conscience could not endure. The look burned into Peter’s soul and the enormity of his defection flooded over him. This strong surge of emotion had to have an outlet and Peter’s eyes became blinded with sudden-springing tears of remorse. Peter groped his way out of the courtyard into outer darkness where he could weep freely in the bitter­ anguish of his soul.

Jesus waited near the garden’s entrance with His disciples, possibly trying to comfort them short of telling them He would be delivered; that could not be. Jesus had sealed His own fate in Gethsemane when He submitted to the Father’s will.

Soon Judas arrived on the scene with a motley crew of Jews and a number of Roman soldiers sent with him by the chief priests and Pharisees. According to a prearranged plan, Judas kissed Jesus to indicate to his mixed crew whom they were to seize. Judas had the effrontery not only to betray the Lord of glory, but to betray Him with a kiss, the token of love and friendship! He betrayed his Lord with a kiss! And so another heinous sin was loaded onto this mortal Being who was guilty only of loving us to death.

“Judas,” Jesus said, and He was genuinely grieved despite His foreknowledge of Judas’ betrayal, “would you betray the Son of man with a kiss?” That was all. No instant thunderclap and a vaporized Judas; no overwhelming wrath; just a simple rebuke from a pained heart saying, Would you, could you, break faith with me so?

Jesus then turned to the rabble pressing in upon Him. “Whom seek ye?”

“Jesus of Nazareth.”

“I am He,” Jesus said simply. But the simplicity of the words did not veil the power of Eternal Being in them. Jesus, we have already learned, is the I AM of the Old Testament who, alone of all creatures and things, is completely self-existent and eternal.

Upon hearing Jesus say, I AM, with the deliberate aim of showing His power only briefly, the entire mob fell backward as one man to the ground. They had been blasted by the force and majesty of the Almighty, who even then in His mercy left them alive and sane. The great power of divinity had been unleashed, but only partially, else they had been consumed in their iniquities. And here is a related thought: It is possible that the wondrous grace of God turned some of these same enemies and detractors of Jesus  around and caused them to repent of their sins after Jesus’ resurrection in the early days of the Church. (Acts 6.7) Grace is such an amazing quality! ¹

Jesus asked them again, “Whom seek ye?” and this time, after they had answered Him, Jesus leashed His power, as He would throughout the rest of this surreal night.

“I have told you that I am He…therefore…let these go their way.”

Jesus was battered and feeling utterly alone. Yet He was not so broken nor so brokenhearted that He could not still have compassion on one who needed it although completely undeserving of it. In their consternation, the disciples had cried out, “Lord, shall we smite them?” and Peter, in his customary brashness, had drawn his sword and slashed down at the head of a servant of the high priest. Peter meant to cleave the man’s skull, but the victim had dodged the blow and the descending sword, like a meat cleaver, had sliced off his ear. Here again Jesus displayed His love even for His enemies.

Jesus said to Peter, “This is enough. Put up your sword,” and then touched the man’s head where the ear had been and restored it whole as before! Jesus was love alive and in action.

The love of God, coursing throughout the history of man and coming supremely to life in one short span of thirty?three years, is literally “out of this world.” Such a unique love should stir the dead embers within men, inherited from Adam, into a burning flame of respondent love. Never a man spake like this nor ever a man loved like this. ²

“Don’t you know I could ask my Father for thousands of angels and He would send them to deliver me?” He said to the disciples, trying to alleviate their fears somewhat. He was making them to know, if they had ears to hear, that He would not be delivered, but that nothing had gone wrong: This was the Father’s will, therefore it was Jesus’ will also.

This type of submission was not possible for the disciples. They could have physically grappled with their adversaries, but to surrender meekly was contrary to their basic natures.

“Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled,” including a young man whose only clothing was a linen cloth he had hastily thrown about himself. When the mob seized him he fled the scene naked, leaving the linen cloth in the hands of his would-be captors. Jesus had been deserted in spirit before; He was now fully and devastatingly alone. The Father Himself was in effect on the threshold of Jesus’ being, ready to depart. Jesus the Son of God and man was now being abandoned to the enemy.

There are moments in our hours of meditation when God grants us a more telling glimpse into the loneliness and stark dejection that came down on Jesus. It is unquestionable that these most grievous moments of empathy that we have with Jesus are not overblown. They are, in truth, not so grievous nor so anguished as the reality we seek to fathom. It is an unfortunate error to look on the blood?marked path from Gethsemane to Golgotha as anything but grotesque. At the least it was altogether backward, reason and logic in reverse. The immac­ulate Son of God should not have had to come into the world He had made and be ridiculed, buffeted, spit upon and put to death in one of the cruelest and most shameful ways known to man. It is unthinkable and perverse in the extreme. ³

All emotional and physical support were stripped from Jesus ? except for the angel’s strengthening His body that He might suffer more.

1. The grace of God is a unique commodity that only mankind can experience. The animals in the forest or your pet Chihuahua can never benefit from it. Angels would like to inquire into this mysterious grace because they have never been the recipients of it. Fallen angels did not receive grace; they were forever condemned to hell.

   Any good we have in our lives is due originally to the goodness of God. Even before Adam fell into sin, all that he had around him sprang from the goodness of God. It did not come from grace; grace was not then an essential in the life of man nor was there any apparent evidence of its existence. Grace is needed only where there is sin, thus: “But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound…” (Rom. 5.20b)

   When Adam fell from his position of favor with God, which was accorded to him by God’s universal goodness, he immediately needed grace because God’s goodness was shut off with Adam’s transgression. All the favor and goodness of God that we now know spring from the grace of God, which itself is born of the love of God.  (back)

2. How many times in past writings I have tried the impos­sible and essayed to share with my readers the magnitude of the love of Jesus and the unprecedented suffering He endured to purchase our salvation! I have not utterly failed in the effort, yet neither have I succeeded brilliantly. First, none of us can fully take into our minds how much Jesus loved nor how damnably He suffered. It is beyond our mental and physical capacity.

   Furthermore, the limited knowledge of Jesus that even the most spiritually astute among us have falls an infinity short of the reality of divine love and the awesomeness of the suffering Jesus experienced in His hour of Passion. Even now, in my quiet moments, I am struggling to grasp a love that is beyond my understanding and to come to grips with a gruesome, horrible suffering that no other human has yet known.  And how could we? As the humans we are we can never discern the heights of the love nor plumb the depths of the suffering of God. Only God Himself could ascend so high or plunge so precipitously – and He did it all for us. It is absolutely awesome.  (back)

3. The abnormality and perversity of the situation is in our human thinking, and rightfully so. But the love of God demanded the utmost of Him. Amazingly, love deemed it only fitting and proper that Jesus should have suffered such indignities for mankind. Love chides us: “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?” Luke 24:26  (back)