Awesome Words From the Cross

Seven is God’s number for completion — the whole of any Biblical truth. Seven days was His initial design in all of creation. From that moment in the Garden of Eden, God has always required a seventh day of rest. When the Ark finally came to rest and Noah opened the door to step out into a new beginning, it was the first day after the Sabbath. When Moses walked down onto a highway in the midst of the Red Sea, it was another new beginning — the day following the Sabbath. Jesus Christ was first seen after His death at the sunrise of our new beginning. This is why we worship on the Lord’s Day. “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet” (Revelation 1:10).

It is arresting to study the seven great pronouncements of Jesus Christ on the Cross. These were not happenchance words, but the perfect mastery of all redemption. There isn’t any part of the Gospel or the hope of His sacrifice that is missing from His dying words.

As a mob of haters encircled His cross of death hurling angry words, He was overwhelmed with the guilt of all their sins. They railed on Him, mocking His claim of rebuilding the temple when He could not even save His own body. They cried, “If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him” (Matthew 27:42b). The air was thick with malice and with the sounds of railing and it rang with demonic laughter. He suddenly proclaimed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34b). It was the prayer of the Gospel, all inclusive of every soul. He did not pray for these — a narrow term. He prayed for them — an inclusive word.

Calvary was a universal event and the Son of God was sure to show that all regions of creation were in His scope. A thief hanging on His right side at first railed on Him, but then fell under conviction. He could watch the Divine scene in his unbelief no longer, but cried, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom” (Luke 23:42b). The Son of God was ready to save the thief, but also ready to reach back to the first covenant and marry the two Testaments together. He spoke with absolute authority, “Verily, I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43b). The Son of God was not just defeating the devil on earth. He was defeating Him all the way back to the first Adam and right down into Abraham’s bosom, where the righteous dead were waiting for a highway to the sky.

The human family was on His heart and He revealed a love of His earthly pilgrimage. He exemplified our responsibility for one another by taking care of the mother of His sinless birth. Did He cast His eyes at her while she was weeping behind the throng of angry priests? That is unknown. But, He said, “Woman, behold thy Son!” (John 19:26b. Then, so that all present knew that He spoke of John, He declared, “Behold thy mother!”(John 19:27b).

After hours of extreme suffering, a beating of many lashes by strong and cruel soldiers, and the inner horror of a world of sin, His body was like a dried shell. So unwilling to complain, His flesh ushered the simple words, “I thirst” (John 19:28). What an understatement to escape His lips. His body was a sacrifice and the total destruction of His flesh was necessary to complete the penalty of sin. There could be no life left in Him; yet, no man was able to take life from Him. He is hanging on the cross but stripped of all except the Divine that existed somehow between the flesh and the sacred.

In that moment, the Father turned His head, the sun went out, and the universe began a slow and escalating tremor. For three hours, the world was in the balance. Then, the railing ceased, the dark blasphemies were finished, and God on the tree tasted a world of shame. When the darkness began to subside, the Son of God explained the mystery. “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34b). In those simple words He described the entire three hours of hell.

Then, He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). The only possibility of those words, “It is finished,” being perfectly fulfilled is the truth of the first five utterances from His lips. From that moment, there would never be another drop of blood needed in all eternity for sin. In a few hours He did what rivers of blood had failed to accomplish for centuries. When His death was finished on Calvary’s Hill, the Temple hill was out of business. He declared, “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46), and quickly slipped down to Abraham’s bosom to announce His triumph. The greatest death in human history would become the greatest victory in three days and three nights. He would be back an d the world would never be the same. The sun has risen in the garden of His entombment.