Fellowship in the Word

Bill Gebhardt: So he turned to Jesus and he said, "Remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus said to him, "Truly, truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise." That's a remarkable statement. It says so many things. How about the first thing? Anyone can be saved. All he said to Jesus was, "Remember me when you come into your kingdom."

That's an amazing thing when you think about it. Also, people sometimes get saved on their deathbeds. This guy was within hours of dying. He was saved. Notice, he's not been baptized, he's not been confirmed, there's nothing like that. He's not going anywhere but paradise with Jesus.

Jason Gebhardt: Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church, located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world.

Bill Gebhardt: It says in verse 22 of Deuteronomy 21, "If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death and you hang him on a tree, his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day. For he who is hanged is accursed of God, so that you do not defile your land, which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance." And the Jewish axiom is, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree." And that's so true for Jesus, because Jesus Christ is going to become the curse. He is going to be cursed by God.

Now, what's interesting about that is let's go back again to Matthew and look at the next verse. And it says, "And they gave him wine to drink mixed with gall; after tasting it, he was unwilling to drink." He apparently got a taste of it and spit it out. He wouldn't drink it. Now, it's interesting why the Romans do this. This wine and vinegar mixing, from the Roman point of view, they believe it's like a mild narcotic. It can deaden pain. You say, "Well, that's kind of nice of them." They wanted to elongate the time you were there. They wanted you to suffer longer. Jesus tastes it and Jesus spits it out. He wants nothing to do with it.

One commentator says this, "Jesus did not want his senses numbed. He had come to the cross to be a sin bearer, and he would feel the full effect of sin that he bore. He would endure the full measure of the pain of sin." And I believe that's true. You know, way back in Psalm 69, a thousand years before Jesus, David said this, "You know my reproach and my shame and my dishonor; all my adversaries are before you. Reproach has broken my heart, for I am full of heaviness; and I look for sympathy but there is none, I look for comforters, I find none. They also gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." David wrote that a thousand years before Christ even showed up.

So far, he's been up all night, sweat droplets of blood. He's been slapped and punched in the Jewish courts. He has been scourged, Roman style. He's been mocked. He has a crown of thorns. He's been beaten with a reed. He's been spit upon and he's forced to carry his own cross, and we're not even to the cross yet.

The cross was invented by the Persians. They invented the cross. And the reason is they worshipped Ormuzd. Ormuzd is the god of the earth. The Persians worshipped him. And the Persians, when they executed a criminal, didn't want the criminal to touch the earth when he's executed. They wanted him above the earth out of deference to Ormuzd. Now, the Persians did it differently. They did it a lot like the Assyrians. The Persians just impaled you. They would go from the crotch and they'd have a sharp end and they'd just put your body snap over top of it. Now, you didn't last very long that way, but the effect was pretty amazing.

The Egyptians did it some, but the Romans took it to an art. The Romans really perfected this whole idea of what a crucifixion looks like. According to Josephus, the Jewish historian, after Herod the Great died, there was this big upheaval, a lot of people upset and grieving, and the Roman governor, Quintilius Varus, he crucified 2,000 men in Judea at that time, on that day. 2,000 crosses. In fact, if you look at the whole occupation of Judea, it is estimated that Rome crucified 30,000 Jewish men in Judea. I want you to understand dying on a cross is not that unusual in Judea at this time. That's not the case at all.

What a horrible thing in the way it works. A guy named Harvey Banscombe says this. He said that once you're on the cross, to be able to keep breathing, the victim on the cross had no way but to stay in constant motion. Because if he didn't, he would die shortly. You see, on a Roman cross, I know in our pictures we say you just hung like this straight. You didn't. You probably hung like a V. And the reason for it is way down on the cross, not where normally your hips would hit it, they put a little slanted board so you could just touch it. And the idea behind it is you could breathe in, but you can't exhale. To breathe out, you have to move your body up the thing to get your air back out. Then you can breathe it in. And that's the way the Romans liked to do it. You see, that was the way it worked.

And so he literally dragged himself up and down, up and down, constantly so as to make breathing possible. Eventually, he could no longer lift himself up sufficiently to continue breathing. With each second, the pain mounted. His arms, his legs, his entire torso screamed with pain. The nerves were pulled tightly, like strings of a violin across the bridge. Slowly and steadily, he was asphyxiated as though two thumbs were pressing against his throat. Some suggest the victims of the crucifixion died of suffocation, but others said sometimes they even died from hunger. Still others maintained that they died from sheer exhaustion as the body eventually wore out from the unending pain and unnatural suspension of the organs and muscles. He concludes, he says, "Few more terrible means of execution could ever be devised." Pain, thirst, torture of insects, exposure to brutal spectators, the horror of rigid fixation, all continuing intermittently, all of it as a nude human body hung on the cross. That's the picture. It's not exactly the Hollywood picture.

The way you see it, William Barclay said it's the most dreadful routine I can think of. A Jewish historian said crucifixion is the most cruel death ever devised. Cicero, a Roman poet, said it was the most cruel and shameful thing I've ever witnessed. That's what crucifixion is like. And that's the physical agony of the cross. But let me say something. It's not the worst. It wasn't why Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. You see, on a Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16, two goats are involved. You say, "Well, why two goats being involved?" Remember when Adam sinned? What did God tell Adam about the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? "You can eat of any tree in the garden, but not of that. And if you do, that day you will surely die." Did Adam die that day? He lived hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years later. But he did die that day, didn't he? He died spiritually. He died physically a lot later, but he died spiritually.

You see, and so on the Day of Atonement, you took two goats and cast lots for them. One goat died physically. The other goat was taken out into the wilderness and released. The symbol of him dying spiritually. And that becomes the most important thing about the death of Jesus Christ, is what happens to Jesus Christ on the cross. So, as we go on here, I'll pick it up in verse 38. At that time, two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. He was numbered with the transgressors. That's the way it was done. There are two robbers, one on each side of Jesus.

Now, what I find so interesting about that is if you read on, you find out that the criminals are mocking Jesus. I'll just read out of Luke for a moment. One of the criminals who were hanging there was hurling abuse at Jesus and said, "Are you not the Christ? Why don't you save yourself and us?" And the other rebuked him and says, "Do not you even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation that I am? We indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds. This man has done nothing wrong." So he turned to Jesus and he said, "Remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus said to him, "Truly, truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise."

That's a remarkable statement. It says so many things. How about the first thing? Anyone can be saved. Any single person can be saved. All he said to Jesus, "Remember me when you come into your kingdom." That's an amazing thing when you think about it. Also, people sometimes get saved on their deathbeds. This guy was within hours of dying. He was saved. Notice, he's not been baptized, he's not been confirmed, there's nothing like that. He's not going anywhere but paradise with Jesus. These are all inventions of man much later, but he tells us something about this.

Now, back to Matthew. It then says, "And those passing by were hurling abuse at him, wagging their heads and saying," he said, "you are going to destroy the temple and build it again in three days, why don't you save yourself? If you're the Son of God, come down from the cross." In the same way, the chief priest came along and the scribes and the elders, and they were mocking him and saying, "He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God rescue him now if he delights in him; for he said, 'I am the Son of God.'"

That's an amazing statement when you think about it. And all of this occurs from nine to 12. And then what really makes this sacrifice so amazing is what happens from 12 to three. You see, that we can identify with all this physical suffering. It sounds excruciating to us. But from 12 to three, something else happens. Again, go with me to Luke 23, verse 44. It was now about the sixth hour; that's noon. And darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. Now, that's an important thing to understand. I've actually read people that said, "I've actually thought about this a lot and I think if we did enough research, there was an eclipse then." For three hours. That would be a miracle in itself. No eclipse lasts three hours.

But the other thing is this word for darkness. This is a supernatural darkness. Almost every time in the New Testament that word for darkness is used, it's spiritual. You're in the light, they're in the darkness. You see the light, you come out of the darkness. And one writer said, "If you want to understand what this is from a physical point of view, go into a closet and close the door. And then when you can't see your hand in front of your face, that's the kind of darkness we're talking about." Now, I want you to understand that could be from noon to three possibility that that's the kind of darkness that was over the world. That darkness. That's an amazing thing when you think about what that darkness was. Or it could have been a lesser darkness because I don't think we know exactly.

We also know that exactly at the same time that that happened, next verse, because the sun was obscured, the veil in the temple was torn in two at that moment. Now, you think, "What's a veil? A wedding veil. I can tear that." Not this. This is the curtain between the holy place and the Holy of Holies, where God resides. It's 60 feet long and 30 feet high. It's four inches thick, all woven by hand. It comes in 75 panels. That's how it was put together. And according to the Mishnah, the Jewish Mishnah, it took 300 priests to hang it up. That's what that is. That's the veil. It's not a little veil. It had no light pass through. And it just rents from the top to the bottom and opens up access to the holy place. Now, remember, no one went into the holy place except the high priest and only once a year. No one else ever went in. Now it opens up and basically is saying what? Anyone can come in here. You want to come in, the veil is now open.

At the same time, there are resurrections of the dead. They ended up showing up with Jesus when he was resurrected from the dead. There are earthquakes, which signify the whole world is being judged by God. The darkness, the veil, the earthquakes. It's an amazing sight. Now, back to Matthew for just a moment. About the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That's the agony of the cross. All of the physical agony he said nothing. And now in this loud voice, he cries this out as loudly as he can. It literally says "to shout up." As weak as he is, he shouts this out with a very loud voice. He addresses him as father three times here. Forsaken. "Why have you forsaken me?" Because he who knew no sin became sin. He got the entire wrath of God for his sin. Explain it, can't. What's that like for the triune God to be split like this? Don't know. I know it was agonizing for the Son of God, though. I know what that must have been like and I can't even imagine how agonizing it was for the father.

You see, that's the real agony of the cross. The spiritual death of Jesus Christ. And then as we know the sayings, "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they do. Behold your son, behold your mother. Today you'll be with me in paradise." But the one I want to talk about right now just for a moment comes in John, and I'll just read it. "Therefore when Jesus had received a sour wine at the end, he said, 'Tetelestai.'" One word. "It is finished." By the way, still alive. Please understand that. He's not dead. But it's finished. The spiritual thing, it is finished. He has a declaration of victory on his part. Tetelestai. Mission accomplished.

One writer said this, if you remember the response of the Centurion right after that all the way down to verse 54 is simply this. Now, he said, on the basis of that sacrifice, those words that Jesus uttered, the Centurion said this. Verse 54, "Now the centurion, and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, they became very frightened and he said, 'Truly this is the Son of God.'" This is a Roman centurion who's been to hundreds if not thousands of these type of executions. It's an amazing thing. One writer said this, "The centurion was no stranger to finality. This crucifixion plagued him. As the hours wore on, he didn't know what to do with the Nazarene silence and then his kindness. But most of all, he was perplexed by the black sky all mid-afternoon. No one could explain it. When Jesus suddenly sliced the silence by crying out 'It is finished,' it wasn't a scream. It was a roar, like a lion's roar. Perhaps that's what made the centurion say 'This is no normal man; this was the Son of God.'" And the centurion not said it, I'm sure the other soldiers would have. And if they hadn't spoken, the rocks would have surely said it. "Truly this is the Son of God."

You see, that's the totality of the cross. Now I want you to see what that means for you and me. I'm just going to read Colossians 2:13 and 14. "When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all of our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross." Every single sin that you and I have ever committed. You see, when we go through the story, often we say the Jews are the ones who crucified Jesus because they hated him, and there's some truth to it. And then the Romans, they're the ones who literally crucified him and they mocked him. I crucified him. So did you. You crucified Jesus Christ. You see, that's where this goes. That's the whole point of this. I crucified Jesus Christ. He was crucified for my sin and for yours. You see, that's the point of all this. That's the totality in the sense of the cross. That's the way this works. Why would he do that? Because God loved me so much that he sent his son into the world to live a perfect life and to die as my substitute and your substitute. That's really what the cross represents, physical death.

Now, would you join me in prayer, please. Father, I am afraid that so often when we come to the Lord's table, we sort of view it as a necessary ordinance, and we just do it and that's kind of good for us. But I wonder often, Father, do we really, really every time we partake of it think of the totality of the cross? Not just what was accomplished at the cross, but the unbelievable agony of the cross for the Son of God? That's why, Father, I pray that this day when we partake of it and every time we do in the future, we think of the totality of the cross. We are so grateful. You loved us so much you sent him. He loved us so much he died as our substitute. Father, may we live our lives not just in this life but in the life to come full of eternal gratitude for the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. The cross for us is our only hope. And we thank you. In Jesus' magnificent name. Amen.

Jason Gebhardt: You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the radio ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you'd just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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