An arduous trial, a horrendous scourging, and a foot-numbing-load-bearing trek to Golgotha, Jesus had endured all of our falling down, then onto a ruggedly hewn cross, He was brutally nailed…9:00a.m.
He hung upon that cursed tree.
By 12noon, the time when the heat of the day is most intense, complete and utter darkness fell upon the whole earth for 3 hours,
and, at the end of the darkness, Jesus, looking up, cried out “It is finished!”
– the Lamb, was dead.
Callously nailed through His hands and His feet to inflict the maximum suffering and humiliation that could be meted out, Jesus hung on the cross for 6 excruciating hours.
Too many of us do not really understand the work that was finished on the cross.
Jesus died on the Jewish Feast of Passover.
He was the Passover Lamb.
What Jesus finished on the cross enables our spiritual
Passover from darkness into light.
On the cross, God took everything back to Adam to effect the
Passover of every single human being, just as He did in the time of Joshua,
when the whole nation of Israel was given the opportunity to pass over as the
flow of the Dead Sea was completely cut off.
“Then the waters which came down from above stood and
rose up in a heap far off, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan; and those
flowing down toward the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt [Dead] Sea, were wholly cut
off. And the people passed over opposite Jericho.” – Joshua 3:16
(AMPC)
Jesus’ crucifixion stopped the flow of death.
He removed the barrier of death.
Everything happened on the cross for a spiritual reason.
Jesus suffered the physical so that we can enjoy the benefits of the spiritual.
There’s knowledge beyond what you can see.
On the cross, Jesus was fulfilling our death sentence. As
you know, a sentence comes after judgment – Jesus was judged in place of you
and me, and every guilty sentence was laid upon Him so that we could be
acquitted.
He was the innocent paying for the crimes of the guilty.
“When He was hung on the cross, He took upon Himself the
curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, "Cursed is
everyone who is hung on a tree." – Galatians 3:13 (NLT)
Jesus became sin, He took all our diseases, all our pain,
all our anguish…
He became a curse for us so that we may become right with
God.
On the cross, even as Jesus took on all of our sinfulness,
we remained the object of His love and care. God poured our sin-dead lives into
His beloved Son and made us alive in Christ. He nailed our guilty verdict to
the cross. The One who brought grace was nailed in grace so that we might
experience the mercy of God, the antidote to the curse.
On the cross, Jesus showed the full extent of His love for
us. His death provided salvation for “whosoever will”. It was the completion of
His assignment on earth, and the glorification of His Father in Heaven.
Isn’t it time that we truly honour what Jesus did for us on
the cross?
Amen†
Shelley Johnson “On the Cross” © 2017 revisited April 18,
2025
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