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It is finished.. + Death’s witnesses
The Sorrow of Souls Severed from each other

Have you experienced it — the death of a loved one?

Death pierces the flesh of those left to mourning in unspeakable ways, but most of all it severs from our soul that of another to which we have clung.

Having breathed His last some time before, Jesus’ crucified body receives yet another piercing by a Roman spear as John and others remain nearby.

.. and having come to Jesus, when they saw him already having been dead, they did not break his legs; but one of the soldiers with a spear did pierce his side, and immediately there came forth blood and water..
John 19:34-35 YLT

The Lord had loved these so much, the ones remaining at the foot of the Cross for six arduous hours, witnessing His life pouring out before them.

The Centurion in effect pierced their own hearts, severing their souls from the One they loved – Jesus, the One who loved them so much.

Witnesses to Emmanuel’s Death!

John records these events of the day of preparation and Passover feast, as we noted earlier in Crucifixion! – The Spirit of Grace, and retells the Good News to a generation near the time of his own death nearly sixty years later.

John 19:

23 When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they divided his clothes between them…

25-27 While the soldiers were doing this, Jesus’ mother was standing near the cross with her sister, and with them Mary, the wife of Clopas and Mary of Magdala…

..“Look, there is your son!” And then he said to the disciple, “And there is your mother!”

38-42 After it was all over, Joseph (who came from Arimathaea..).. came and took his body down. Nicodemus also ..

The short list of witnesses:
- Jesus’ mother Mary
- Mary’s sister, Salome
- Mary, the wife of Clopas
- Mary of Magdala
- The Apostle John (of course)
- (and let’s not forget) Roman Soldiers (not named here, but present)
Other Witnesses:

Although their meeting with Pilate likely took place during the time Jesus remained on the Cross, John records that two important Jewish officials succeeded in lobbying Pilate to allow Jesus’ body to be buried in the new tomb of Joseph. They may have witnessed His death and most certainly could confirm His mortal wounds.
- Joseph of Arimathea
- Nicodemus the Pharisee
What about Matthew?

The Apostle Matthew also records Jesus’ crucifixion and was, in fact, a tax collector with political connections to Roman and Jewish authorities. Matthew records earlier events of the evening preceding Jesus’ trial:

Matthew 26: Complete Jewish Bible
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As reminder that John, Matthew and the Apostles are ALL Jewish,
I offer this cultural religious look of the CJB version of Matthews's Gospel about the Messiah Jesus (in Greek, Christ).
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30 After singing the Hallel, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Yeshua then said to them,

“Tonight you will all lose faith in me, as the Tanakh says, ‘I will strike the shepherd dead, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you into the Galil.”

59 The head cohanim and the whole Sanhedrin looked for some false evidence against Yeshua, so that they might put him to death. But they didn’t find any, even though many liars came forward to give testimony…

Matthew 27: Early in the morning, all the head cohanim and elders met to plan how to bring about Yeshua’s death. 2 Then they put him in chains, led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor…

The Apostle Matthew seemingly was present not only in Gethsemane, but for Jesus’ trial by the Jewish officials who condemned their Messiah. Matthew also tells the horrific story of Jesus’ scourging.

27 The governor’s soldiers took Yeshua into the headquarters building, and the whole battalion gathered around him. They stripped off his clothes and put on him a scarlet robe, wove thorn-branches into a crown and put it on his head, and put a stick in his right hand. Then they kneeled down in front of him and made fun of him: “Hail to the King of the Jews!” They spit on him and used the stick to beat him about the head.

Add to the list of witnesses:
- The Apostle Matthew
Matthew adds detail of other witnesses to Jesus’ crucifixion:
- a man of Cyrene named Simon
- a Roman officer & other Roman soldiers at Golgotha
32 As they were leaving, they met a man from Cyrene named Shim‘on; and they forced him to carry Yeshua’s execution-stake. When they arrived at a place called Gulgolta (which means “place of a skull”), they gave him wine mixed with bitter gall to drink; but after tasting it, he would not drink it…

54 When the Roman officer and those with him who were keeping watch over Yeshua saw the earthquake and what was happening, they were awestruck and said, “He really was a son of God.”

There were many women present

55 And many women were there watching from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee while caring for Him.
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Matthew's Gospel helps clarify who some of these women were and their importance to the Christ Jesus and His beloved friends.
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56 Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.

Miryam of Magdala (or from Magdala)

Miryam the mother of Ya‘akov and Yosef, or James and Joses in some translations of common Hebrew names. She is Mary, wife of Clopas and sister of Mary, widow of Joseph.

He also confirms the presence of James’ and John’s mother.

Mark, referring to these same three women gives her name, Salome. Due to the importance of family in Jewish tradition she may also have been a sister of Mary, therefore confirming her sons James and John to be not only Jesus’ closest Disciples but also His cousin.

Why do the Apostles mention these women?

Because the women would survive as witnesses even as all of the Apostles but John were martyred for their witness of Jesus as the Christ and resurrected Messiah of God.

It is the same reason that some Jews, even some of the house of Herod, became believers in Christ. And gentile Romans in every major city would call Jesus Christ Lord by the time John writes his Gospel.

John 19:

40 They took Yeshua’s body and wrapped it up in linen sheets with the spices, in keeping with Judean burial practice.

41 In the vicinity of where he had been executed was a garden, and in the garden was a new tomb in which no one had ever been buried. So, because it was Preparation Day for the Judeans, and because the tomb was close by, that is where they buried Yeshua.

παρασκευή +++ All must remember the Sabbath

There they buried Jesus, His body taken from the Cross on the Day of Preparation for the Passover.

“And it shall be from new moon to new moon
And from sabbath to sabbath,
All mankind will come to bow down before Me,”
says the LORD.
Isaiah 66:23 NASB
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To be continued...
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Page TWO - Please click Page 2 below for the questions.
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Pages: 1 2
November 13, 2020
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