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CRUCIFIXION! – The Pangs of Sin
So he then handed Him over to them to be crucified.
John 19:16 NASB

Tarrying on the road of Suffering

“Father, the hour is come,” the Lord Jesus had prayed in a most personal prayer just hours before.

Then in the darkness of Gethsemane Jesus had asked Peter, “Am I not to drink the cup the Father has given me?”

It it the Cup of the Blood of His suffering; some by scourging just witnessed, when 39 times Jesus had NO SIN to confess.

“Crucify ben ‘elyown ‘elyown,” they had shouted; CRUCIFY the SON OF GOD!

And shortly Jesus will cry out from His final pain:

“ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” which is translated, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?”
Mark 15:34 NASB

What Father remains silent on suffering?

And what Man must suffer silently for sin?

Crucify! Crucify!

John 19:17 They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, carrying His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which in Hebrew is called, Golgotha.

Hours before: Sanctification of the Sacrifice

Jesus spoke these things; and raising His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, so that the Son may glorify You, just as You gave Him authority over all mankind, so that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life.
And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
John 17:1-3 NASB – The Son’s High Priestly prayer

The Pangs of Death

‘I feel your pain,’ some must have mocked toward Jesus at His suffering the 39 lashes of scourging. No one ever truly feels the pain of another’s suffering.

But for His dear friends the Apostles the Son of God had assured:

“A little while, and you no longer are going to see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.”
John 16:16 NASB

Jesus had not dwelled on His prophesied suffering. Yet by the scriptures perhaps the Disciples denyingly sensed what He must suffer this day.

Isaiah 53:

Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

The Apostles did not want to believe all of it, but to them the LORD revealed the Son embraced by the Father’s right arm.

For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.

They also grew up near Him and even though some knew Jesus’ family, they were not attracted to Him until by Him they were called. In these three years Jesus became their Lord, Teacher and beloved friend.

He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

Jesus was despised by the ruling council and leading Jews. The Disciples continually witnessed the Jews hatred for Him.

Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
Isaiah 53:4 NASB

John 8:

Temple officials had previously despised and did not esteem Him. These Jewish scholars had never believed His message or the Prophets.

21 Then He said again to them, “I am going away, and you will look for Me, and will die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come.”

25 Then they were saying to Him, “Who are You?”

These politically powerful religious officials most likely asked this mockingly, as they did while striking their blindfolded Messiah during the mockery of a trial before Caiaphas High Priest of the Jews and later in the presence of Pilate.

‘Who are YOU to talk of God or teach us the Law?‘

So Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am, and I do nothing on My own, but I say these things as the Father instructed Me.
John 8:28

And the Apostle John adds this witness then in his Gospel:

30 As He said these things, many came to believe in Him.

Many believers will follow Jesus Christ in a victorious procession to the place of worship, but only a remnant remains following a captive King to the Cross of Calvary.
Roger Harned – talkofJesus.com

The Pangs of Pain

Returning to Jesus’ metaphor of suffering, He prophesies this day to His Apostles:

John 16:

20 Truly, truly I say to you that you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy!

As the Disciples had scattered as sheep from the wolves, surely they did not recall this at the time of Jesus’ arrest, trials, scourging and crucifixion.

Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come;

but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world.

22 Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one is going to take your joy away from you.

And why this suffering? – SIN!

The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die!

..Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

The LORD God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this, Cursed are you..

And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.” – Genesis 3

The Prophesy of Christ’s Suffering

But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5 NASB

..

‘By oppression and judgment He was taken away,‘ prophesied Isaiah in the generation of Uzziah king of Judah. It was more than seven centuries Before Christ.

Isaiah, by the mouth of the LORD, indicts those who falsely convict Jesus.

They have just sent innocence to the Cross as the Substitute Lamb of Sacrifice for their own transgressions (sins).

‘And as for His generation,
who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living
for the transgression of my people,
to whom the stroke was due?
Isaiah 53:8 NASB

The Good News of John:

1:¹⁰He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

¹¹He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

מֵעֲמַ֤ל נַפְשֹׁו֙ יִרְאֶ֣ה יִשְׂבָּ֔ע בְּדַעְתֹּ֗ו יַצְדִּ֥יק צַדִּ֛יק עַבְדִּ֖י לָֽרַבִּ֑ים וַעֲוֹנֹתָ֖ם ה֥וּא יִסְבֹּֽל׃
Yeshaiya 53: WLC

²⁹.. “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

And now sinners take the sinless Sacrifice to the altar of the shedding of Blood.

They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, carrying His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which in Hebrew is called, Golgotha. There they crucified Him, and with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between.
John 19:17-18 NASB
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To be continued...
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November 4, 2020
The Hour Is Come – Glory to the Son AND the Father
Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer of intercession begins simply and humbly.

Even from the confines of a dark upper room in Zion which Judas has now left on the eve of Jerusalem’s great darkness, Jesus looks up to the light of a glory the Son once had – the glory of the LORD God our Father in heaven.

Glorify your Son

Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee…
John 17:1 b KJV

John 17:

When Jesus had finished saying these things, he looked upward to heaven and said,

“Father, the time has come.

… glorify your Son, so that your Son may glorify you— just as you have given him authority over all humanity, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him.
John 17:1b-2a NET

Our eternal High Priest has much more to say in His prayer of high importance to sinners for whom He intercedes. These include eternal life and as previously mentioned who the Father has given to the Son.

Yet today let’s focus in on why Jesus prays for the Father to glorify the Son – His reason for entering the Holy of Holies beyond the veil of our distanced understanding, on behalf of these eleven witnesses and more.

What is GLORY?

The Apostle John, one of the Eleven remaining had previously witnessed the glory of Jesus.

Luke 9:

The Transfiguration
28 Some eight days after these sayings, He took along Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while He was praying, the appearance of His face became different, and His clothing became white and gleaming…

… when they were fully awake, they saw His glory and the two men standing with Him… a cloud formed and began to overshadow them; and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.

35 Then a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him!”

δόξα – doxa –

From the base of δοκέω (G1380) – generally used meaning to ‘think.’

The LORD God is a thinking All-powerful, Ever-existing Being!

Think about it. As created and fragile beings our worship of the LORD God considers humbly our own humanity beneath His glory.

We who can think should glorify the LORD above all, but often we will not.
- δόξα dóxa, dox’-ah; glory (as very apparent),
  - in a wide application (literal or figurative, objective or subjective):—dignity,
  - glory(-ious),
  - honour,
  - praise,
  - worship.
These humble acknowledgements so rare in men of flesh, yet plainly evident in all creation, reflect the glory of God. Therefore a soul who thinks about the LORD our Creator and glorifies Him is a worshiper, flesh and spirit looking up and bowing down to our Lord and God.

Jesus prays to the Father as a Son of Man.

Having been sent by the Father to the world He has completed the work for which He was sent by the Father. The hour now approaches for Him to return to His former glory.

His former GLORY with the Father

Never forget, beloved Christian disciple of Jesus, that He and the Father are One.

Prior to creation and in the early history of God’s chosen, Jesus had the same former glory. You have read of it. Yet so often we remain blind to the LORD’S glory. How rare the time men bow before it.

The GLORY of the LORD is perhaps as foreign to 21st c. christians as hebrew.

וַיִּשְׁכֹּ֤ן כְּבֹוד־יְהוָה֙ עַל־הַ֣ר סִינַ֔י וַיְכַסֵּ֥הוּ הֶעָנָ֖ן שֵׁ֣שֶׁת יָמִ֑ים וַיִּקְרָ֧א אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֛ה בַּיֹּ֥ום הַשְּׁבִיעִ֖י מִתֹּ֥וךְ הֶעָנָֽן׃
וּמַרְאֵה֙ כְּבֹ֣וד יְהוָ֔ה כְּאֵ֥שׁ אֹכֶ֖לֶת בְּרֹ֣אשׁ הָהָ֑ר לְעֵינֵ֖י בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃
Exodus 24:16-17 WLC [click for translations]

כָּבוֹד
- כָּבוֹד kâbôwd, kaw-bode’; rarely כָּבֹד kâbôd; from H3513; properly, weight, but only figuratively in a good sense, splendor or copiousness:—glorious(-ly), glory, honour(-able).
Exodus 24:

15 Then Moses went up to the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain.

16 The glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; and on the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud.

17 And to the eyes of the sons of Israel the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the mountain top.

18 Moses entered the midst of the cloud as he went up to the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

the GLORY of a consuming FIRE

Moses later confirms in Deuteronomy [ דברים 4 ]:

“You said, ‘Behold, the LORD our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives.

This is the former glory the Messiah Jesus knew with the Father!

Later the prophet Isaiah would write:

Sinners in Zion are terrified; Trembling has seized the godless. “Who among us can live with the consuming fire? Who among us can live with continual burning?”
Isaiah 33:14

Jesus knew a former glory with the Father, a fearful and awesome consuming fire which refines and humbles men made of dust and ashes.

The writer of Hebrews, restating Moses warning of keeping the covenant, reminds of this glory:

Hebrews 12:

18 For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them. For they could not bear the command, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned.”

21 And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, “I am full of fear and trembling.”

Do you fear the LIVING GOD? And do you, O man, humbly bow down to the GLORY of the LORD?

What is the chief end of man?

Any teaching of faith must begin from the glory of God and consequent worship of God by man, for we are nothing more than a created being glorifying our Creator.

We have glanced at a Hebrew origin, then New Covenant Greek.

Moving beyond millenia of teaching from ancient latin we receive an English version of this elemental Christian teaching since the 1640’s during the Reformation.

The Westminster Catechism begins with God’s glory.

“Man’s chief end if to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.

Another foundational Protestant teaching, The Heidelberg Catechism, begins by asking, “What is your only comfort in life and in death?”

Perhaps the Disciples had wondered this often while following their Lord and Master Jesus for three years.

What is about to take place on the Cross will fully bring light to Jesus’ prayer to the Father asking Him to bring the Son His former glory along with the Father.

Jesus’ prayer for glory

4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed…

10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them…

(John no doubt realizes that Jesus includes the Eleven here, but our Lord’s prayer of intercession goes much further than praying just for the Disciples in the room.)

22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

(Much to think about here even beyond the glory of the Lord.)

24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

High Priest of the New Covenant

Jesus intercedes as High Priest on our behalf — between the Father and all sinners given to Him

From here the Son our High Priest will move deeper into the unseen Holy of Holies where Jesus will present Himself as a living and acceptable Perfect Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.
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To be continued...
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June 1, 2020
The Hour Is Come
These words spake Jesus

.. and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come…
The Gospel of John 17:1a KJV

The Gospel introduction to perhaps Jesus’ most pivotal prayer varies in other translations but agrees in the Lord’s focus on the moment:
- “Father, the time has come.
- “Father, the hour has come
The Lord Jesus spoke these four words to the Father of a specific time of fulfillment of God’s plan of grace – a plan from before time into a moment of completion on the Cross of Redemption.

Time and Eternity

First let us consider time itself.

We measure and divide our numbered days counting by millenia, century, year, season, month, week, day, night, hour, minute, second, instant even to a millisecond.

All time measured as a meter or mile, distinct with start and finish and definable to man, a creation of indefinite but comparable time on this earth.

Seasons and sundials only approximate time given to mortal man fading faintly into the shadow of death and disintegration.

We measure our mortal hours by digital devices, clocks ticking away, watches counting the seconds passing into that which will be long forgotten in generations to come.

Time

“Father, the time has come.
Glorify your Son, so that your Son may glorify you— just as you have given him authority over all humanity, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him.
John 17:1a-2 NET

What does Jesus mean by this— the time or the hour has come?

The context is this: Jesus is with the Disciples alone, having just finished the Last Supper. Judas now departed and after this all will leave this night for Gethsemane.

Jesus has just encouraged them promising the Holy Spirit.

John 16:31 Jesus responded to them, “Do you now believe?

32 Indeed, an hour is coming, and has come, when each of you will be scattered to his own home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone…

ὥρα – יוֹם – עֵת

Time – Specifically Hour from the Greek – a certain definite time or season fixed by natural law and returning with the revolving year.

Jesus points to this ‘certain definite time’ in a relational mortal sense. He may literally mean an ‘hour’ as this definite time, point of time, moment in which He and the Eleven must move on to His surrender to to sacrifice in Gethsemane. (It is now such and such an hour.)

Jesus, alone with the Father and the Eleven, knows that His time is come.

In a larger, immortal and timeless sense, His time has also come for completion of the redemption God planned for sinners before even the first sin of Adam.

Time from the Hebrew is: time (of an event), time (usual). experiences, fortunes, occurrence, occasion; however it can also point beyond the measurable timeline of history to perpetuity, for ever, continuing future, as well as ancient (of past time), for ever (of future time). Time may refer eternally of continuous existence and for ever (of God’s existence).

From נָצַח (H5329) – נֶצַח

From a root meaning preeminent, perpetual, an overseer; the Hebrew understanding of eternal time suggests:

eminence, perpetuity, strength, victory, enduring, everlastingness
- eminence
- enduring of life
- endurance in time, perpetual, continual, unto the end
- everlastingness, ever
From this, a prophecy known to the Jews, including Jesus’ disciples:

O LORD, You are my God

Isaiah 25:
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O LORD, You are my God;
I will exalt You, I will give thanks to Your name;
For You have worked wonders,
Plans formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness.
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The LORD of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all
 peoples on this mountain; 
A banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, 
And refined, aged wine.
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And on this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples,
Even the veil which is stretched over all nations.

He will swallow up death for all time,
And the Lord GOD will wipe tears away from all faces,
And He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth;
For the LORD has spoken.

וְאָמַר֙ בַּיֹּ֣ום הַה֔וּא הִנֵּ֨ה אֱלֹהֵ֥ינוּ זֶ֛ה קִוִּ֥ינוּ לֹ֖ו וְיֹֽושִׁיעֵ֑נוּ זֶ֤ה יְהוָה֙ קִוִּ֣ינוּ לֹ֔ו נָגִ֥ילָה וְנִשְׂמְחָ֖ה בִּישׁוּעָתֹֽו׃
Isaiah 25:9 Masoretic Text

And it will be said in that day,
“Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us.
This is the LORD for whom we have waited;
Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.”
Isaiah 25:9 NASB

“And it will be said IN THAT DAY…

this is ‘elohiym qavah yasha – יָשַׁע

GOD’S long-awaited SAVIOUR!

Isaiah 63: KJV

8 For he said,

Surely they are my people, children that will not lie:

so he was their Saviour.

9 In all their affliction he was afflicted,

and the angel of his presence saved them:

in his love and in his pity he redeemed them;

and he bare them,

and carried them all the days of old.

The Gospel of John 17:

When Jesus had finished saying these things, he looked upward to heaven and said,

“Father, the time has come.

Glorify your Son, so that your Son may glorify you— 2 just as you have given him authority over all humanity, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him.
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To be continued... Lord willing...
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May 21, 2020