Crucifixion

Crucifixion
Matt. 27:50

50 [de] Jesus [Iesous] , when he had cried [krazo] again [palin] with a loud [megas] voice [phone] , yielded up [aphiemi] the ghost [pneuma] . KJV-Interlinear

50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. NASB

Mark 15:37
37 And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last. NASB

Luke 23:46
46 And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, 'Father, into Thy hands I commit My spirit.' And having said this, He breathed His last. NASB

John 19:30
30 When Jesus therefore had received the sour wine, He said, 'It is finished!' And He bowed His head, and gave up His spirit. NASB

Through all that Jesus Christ had been through, the beatings and insults, the nailing to the cross and the greatest pressure of all, suffering for the sins of mankind, He still retained total and complete control of His own life. No one could take it from Him. No one could alter His life in any way.

John 10:18
18 'No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.' NASB

The work of the Cross is now finished. Jesus has stated it as so. He is very much alive when He makes that statement, 'teleo,' finished. It is finished in the past with the result that it now stands finished forever. This is eternal security. There is only one sacrifice. There is only one salvation. The plan of God was laid out in eternity past and now in time, it is executed with perfection.

Over 400 years earlier, Daniel had a visitor, Dan. 9:21, who appeared in the evening sacrifice, this is the same time frame (latter part of the day) as when Jesus died. The latter part of the day is that time just prior to the beginning of the next day. Remember that the Jewish days back then ran from 6 p.m. on the one day until 6 p.m. of the next day. It is just after 3 p.m., so we are near the end of the current day which is only a couple of hours away.

Jesus hung on the Cross no longer than was necessary. He drank to quench His thirst. One is always thirsty after an extremely difficult days work. He also teaches us that he was alive after the work of the cross was over. He did not bleed to death.

Also, He yells out with a loud voice. A person who has not slept since the night of the previous day, who has been beaten as He was, who has been through the stress of six trials, who has been executed and has taken on the sins of the world - then one would think that He would be extremely tired. Not so.

Jesus Christ was in complete control of all His faculties throughout this whole ordeal. He still had great strength. He called out His last command and willed the departure of His soul and spirit from His body.

That is something that neither you, nor I, nor anyone can do. We cannot will our life out of our physical body.

Of His own conscious will, Jesus Christ gave up, sent away, let go, surrendered, dismissed His soul and spirit. He pushed forward and exhaled His last breath, and thus died physically in that instant.

His body will go into the grave in the next couple of hours, Lk. 23:53.

His soul will go to Paradise, Eph. 4:9, Lk. 23:43, 1 Pet. 3:18-21, Psa. 16:10. That is the compartment in the underworld which houses all believers who have died prior to this date. And of all believers, who will die during the next forty days up to the ascension, including the one criminal who was executed along with Christ, but has not yet died.

His spirit will travel to a couple of places. First it will go to Tartarus and make an announcement of the victory of the Cross:

1 Pet. 3:19-20
19 in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, 20 who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah NASB

Then His spirit will go to heaven, Lk. 23:46, and be with the Father until it is recalled at His resurrection, in three days, one of our current passages.

From His own physical birth, when He caused His own life to come into the infant child with its first inhale, until His last exhale and physical death, Jesus Christ was in total and complete control over His entire life. Jesus Christ as God controls history. Nothing can be done in history that He does not will or permit. Nothing can be prevented in history unless He wills or permits that too.

Now you would think that this day would end here. But not so. This day is far from over. The question often arises, 'Who killed Jesus Christ?' And that can be answered very easily. Those who ask the question are invariably looking for someone to blame. They are shallow and judgmental. They, like Pilate, try to wash their hands of this whole affair and try to blame someone. But for what purpose? They just want to blame someone for their problems, or have a scapegoat conveniently available when the need arises. They just want to stir up dissension. Those who ask are probably anti-Semitic themselves (a very dangerous sin for them), but they veil their hate through their innocent sounding questions to others.

But we need to ask ourselves, why did He go to the Cross in the first place? And that answer is to pay the price for the sins of mankind. If man had not sinned, then there would have been no need for the Cross. So, we are all guilty of sending Jesus Christ to the Cross. Unless you are perfect, then you are exempt from this blame. But go look in the mirror really close and check to see if your body is made of flesh. If so, then you are the guilty party.

Jesus Christ controls history. He brought exactly the right people into this world at exactly the right time in history, knowing that they would make the decisions that they made, and take the actions they took that would accomplish the Cross. He did not force anyone to make their choices. They did it all on their own.

Because of the Cross, we have an opportunity to live with God in heaven forever. For that we should be totally grateful to the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders, and Pilate, and Annas, and Herod - odd as that may seem. But our deepest gratitude goes out to Jesus Christ who made salvation possible and gave it to us as a gift. We can neither earn nor deserve it otherwise.

Now the real earthly show is about to begin. Actually it began the very instant of Christ's death, but we will begin that study tomorrow.

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