Sam Mikhael - October 11, 2026
/Family Bible Hour featuring Sam Mikhael on “Christ Speaking of His Cross”. A teaching from the Gospels on the five ways the Lord Jesus spoke of His cross (a height, a baptism, a cup, an hour, and glory) and why His cross is unlike any other.
Transcript
Well, good morning, everyone. Somebody's been peeking at my notes. I didn't say it was a bad thing. Very good.
Very good. Well, in the will of the Lord, we're going to spend some time this morning. Having a look at how our Savior speaks of His cross. Now, we read a lot in the Word of God about the cross of Christ.
The Apostles discuss it. The Gospel writers discuss it. Evangelists throughout the Gospel discuss it. But how does the Lord Jesus Christ refer to His cross?
It's very interesting. It's something that maybe is a little bit unique. And this is what I want to start out with. Given the centrality of Christ's redemptive work on the cross, it is interesting that He never refers to it as His cross.
Throughout the Gospels, you will never see that the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of His cross. It's interesting. Now, that's not to say that He didn't clearly foretell of His crucifixion. By the way, this is somewhat of a summary, so I haven't put everything up here, but most verses are here.
Please feel free to refer to your Bibles and look up these verses at your convenience. He does refer to the crucifixion. He says in Matthew 20, and again in 26, that there will be those who will take the Son of Man and they will crucify Him. But this is actually speaking about the act of crucifixion rather than speaking of His cross.
Now, men of the day knew what crucifixion was. There was really no reason to describe it. It was something that was very well known. But His cross was far more than the act of crucifixion.
And this is what we want to spend our time on this morning. His cross is singularly unique. It is unlike any other crucifixion that has or afterwards took place. It's impossible to know how many people were crucified by the Romans.
Historians have estimated anywhere between tens of thousands, probably more likely hundreds of thousands, and it's conceivable that it even reaches into the millions. There were multiple crucifixions. History records that 6,000 men were crucified on one single day in 71 A. D.
It is a remarkably common, although tragic, sight. But again, the cross of Christ our Lord is singularly unique, and that's where we want to spend our time looking at this morning. But we will ask the Lord's help to do so before we get Thee for what He did the message. Father, we thank Thee again for our Savior, the Lord Jesus.
We thank Thee for what He has done on Calvary's cross. We readily admit to Thee that our minds on this side of eternity, limited as they are, plagued by sin, cannot fully understand what Christ has done. But we can say this, the Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me. Father, as we look at these things, open our understanding, help us to get a deeper appreciation of what the Lord Jesus Christ did.
And in so doing, in appreciating what He has done for us more, may we be better servants, may we be more conformed to the image of His Son. We ask these things in our Savior's name. Amen. Amen.
All right. Christ speaking of His cross. If our Lord indeed never referred to it as His cross, how does He speak of it? How does the Lord Jesus Christ refer to the cross if He does not say, My cross?
Well, let me tell you. There are five unique expressions that the Lord is going to use to refer to His cross. And in the will of the Lord, we're going to go through those this morning. Collectively, they describe the wonder of the Lord's work for His Father's glory and His people's good.
By the way, just as an aside, because I put this in after having done this series somewhere else, I was asked the question, does not the Lord refer to the crosses of the disciples? Yes, He does. He refers to them and their identification with persecution for His sake and the death of the old life, and the references are all there. But again, these are the crosses of the disciples, which are not the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is not the redemptive work of Calvary's cross. But yes, He does speak of those things as an aside. Well, the first time that the Lord speaks, at least chronologically, of these five statements, His cross's height is referenced. And it is spoken of in John chapter 3, verse 14.
And of course, He's speaking to Nicodemus. As Nicodemus came to Him by night, He says, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Now, the high and the lofty one who inhabits eternity stooped to taste death for every man. Now, I just want to stop here for a minute.
Have you ever thought what Isaiah is trying to reveal to us? The high and the lofty one who inhabits eternity. What do you inhabit? What period of time do you inhabit?
Yes, lifespan, indeed, absolutely, absolutely. But even in your lifespan, can you go back one minute or go forward one hour? Can you change what happened yesterday or appreciate what will happen tomorrow? We live literally a fraction of a second at a time.
And there's nothing more. James makes reference to this and he says, Our life is but a vapor. It appears and presently does disappear. Yes, the lifespan of man is short, but the inhabitant of that lifespan, what we can actually modulate and do with, is so infinitesimally small.
Boast not yourself of tomorrow. That's what the Word of God is telling us. But the God of heaven inhabits eternity all at the same time. A day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as a day when it is spent.
That's the concept that Isaiah is trying to describe. This is the one who inhabits all of eternity at the same moment. Time does not limit our God. As a matter of fact, time is a construct of our God.
In the beginning, time, God created the heavens, matter, and He created the earth. Sorry, in the beginning, God created the heavens, time. He created, oh boy, let me go that way. This is what happens when you go too fast, try to get everything.
Because I can't go back in a moment and change it. In the beginning, time, right? In the beginning, that's time. God created the heavens.
That's space. And He created the earth. That's matter. All of this was His creation.
He's external to these things. He's not limited by them. These things are things that He has made and are not things that control Him. Quite the contrary.
He controls them. The one who inhabits eternity stepped into time. And moreover, not only did He step into time, but He stooped to taste death for every man. Hebrews chapter 2 verse 9.
Now, I come to certain points in Scripture and we accept them. But I must suggest to you that it's almost impossible to understand them. God cannot die, but He who died was God. These two things are true.
How they are reconciled. Well, we'll wait to eternity to find out exactly what it was. The one who inhabits eternity tasted death for every man. He stooped.
It's interesting, you know. He speaks of it as being lifted up. Being lifted up. If I be lifted up, He said, I will draw all men unto me.
But what a stoop it was. Paradoxical in its concept. So, this phrase that we've read, this passage that we read in John chapter 3, is drawn from Numbers chapter 21, where God's judgment arrived in the form of fiery serpents. Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among, this is obviously Numbers 21.
Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many of the people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, we've sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that he take away the serpent from us. I want to look at three comparisons between what happened in Numbers and what the Lord is describing in John chapter 3.
Now, the serpent obviously recalls mankind's fall, Genesis chapter 3. Reptiles are associated with the ground. I don't know about you, but they're not really my friends. I don't care for them.
I know there are some people who like snakes. I don't mean to offend anybody, but if a snake is coming towards me, I'm typically going in the other direction. And I think most people are quite comfortable with that concept. They're associated with ground and humiliation, and it's a ubiquitous reminder of the curse.
Remember, there's going to be enmity between the woman and the serpent. Have you ever wondered why the method of Christ's sacrificial death was crucifixion? Now, I'm going to have to go down a little rabbit trail here. When we read of Psalm 22, which the Lord clearly references in crucifixion on the cross, that is roughly around 1,000 B.
C. , 1,000 years before Christ. Historically speaking, the first time that we read in history of crucifixion is probably in the neighborhood of 600 B. C.
, somewhere possibly in either the Far East or in what's commonly known as Persia today. Historians can sometimes argue back and forth, but there's at least a 400-year period between when David wrote Psalm 22 and when crucifixion first appears. Man didn't have any concept, thank God, of what crucifixion was when David wrote Psalm 22. They pierced my hands, my feet.
You stand in deep mire where there is no standing. That's suffocation that takes place on the cross. And yet, the Lord was subject to these things. Why?
Why crucifixion? Well, I'd like to suggest to you this. To answer this, we need to go back to Genesis, where the ground was cursed on two occasions. The ground was cursed, in Genesis chapter 3, for man's sake.
Cursed is the ground for thy sake, Adam. You sinned, and you cannot rule over an unfallen earth. As a matter of fact, there's many reasons why the cursing of the ground was actually a benevolence from God. But the ground was cursed for man's sake.
The second time is also in Genesis. It comes a little bit later, Genesis chapter 8, during the flood, where in retrospect, the Lord says, I will never again curse the ground because of man. In other words, the ground was cursed during the flood. So it was cursed in the Garden of Eden, and it was cursed in the flood.
But the Lord makes this statement after the flood. He says, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake. On these two occasions, it's clear that the ground was cursed. In the flood's aftermath, though, the Lord promised it would never happen again.
But there was a third time when a curse emanated from heaven, and it came hurtling down towards the earth. But it stopped short of the earth, because the Lord was lifted up. He was suspended between heaven and earth. It was a matter of the Lord receiving the blow that the earth deserved.
But God had promised He would not curse the ground for man's sake. That curse fell short, because the Lord Jesus Christ took it. It fell upon our Lord at Calvary's cross, who was suspended between heaven and earth, as if to say, neither had any place for Him. He was going to be the sin bearer, so He was not part of heaven.
And yet God, and I say that very cautiously, but God would not curse the ground, so He was lifted up, suspended between these two places. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. How? By becoming a curse for us.
It's a remarkable concept. He was cursed for us. That which was deserved by every living human being came down from heaven in the form of judgment and fell short because Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree because He was lifted up. It never touched the ground.
Now, two. Let's talk about man's plea and God's provision. Man's solution to the fiery serpents back in Numbers 21 was very limited. They merely wanted the serpents to be removed.
Lord, there are these serpents. They're biting us. Get rid of them. That's all we want.
We want to get rid of the momentary trouble. You know, that is the problem of mankind today. When they have problems in life, when we have problems in life, I won't say they. When mankind has problems in life, what do we do?
We cry to God and say, take it away. Take it away. And there were no different back in those days. The serpents are biting us and we want you to take it away.
But I want to point something out. God's salvation was far greater than just removing the serpents. You see, God would not remove the serpents, but He would remove their sting. It's a wonderful picture of what the Lord Jesus Christ did.
You see, had only the serpents been removed, all future bites would be, only future bites, sorry, would be resolved. But God's solution healed past, present, and future bites of these serpents. It's a beautiful picture of what Christ has done for us. Sin is gone.
Past sins, present sins, future sins, they're all gone because Christ was lifted up. You see, He did not remove the serpent, He removed the sting of the serpent. You know, we often go to funerals, probably too often. It's a terrible reminder of the consequence of what sin does in this world.
And we often hear Psalm 23. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. When was the last time a shadow hurt you? I have a wonderful house, and I'd like you to come and buy it, alright?
And you can buy the shadow. It casts a lovely shadow. It's beautiful. You can see the gables, and you can see the columns through the sunlight.
Who's going to buy that? When was the last time a shadow was of any value? When was the shadow ever going to harm? When was a shadow ever going to help?
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Why is it a shadow? Because Christ has removed the consequence of death from the believer. For me, to live is Christ.
Ah, but to die, that's gain. That's gain. Oh, death, where is thy victory? Oh, grave, where is thy sting?
It's gone. The Lord did not remove the serpent. He removed the sting of the serpent. And it is just merely for us, a shadow.
Believer, we are all going to walk that veil one day. Some of us sooner than later. I remember speaking very distinctly on this subject. Not this particular message, but this subject.
And days later, a young lad who was in the meeting was taken by the Lord in a motorcycle accident. It wasn't his fault. Absent from the body, he is present with the Lord. You see, the serpent is still there.
Death is still there. But the sting is gone. We don't fear death. We know what's on the other side.
We know who is on the other side. And who is awaiting us. So, believer, whether it's a long time away, God forbid, if it's sooner than later, don't fear what is on the other side. Christ is on the other side.
Why? Because he's removed that sting from us. He finally lifted up the humiliation of the cross. You see, initially the cross does not seem to be an elevated state.
Well, physically it was an elevated state, but certainly from a moral or from a pragmatic or from any other vantage point, it was not a place of honor. After all, this was a shameful place. The final end for humanity's worst criminals. But nonetheless, it was God's intent to use it as the centerpiece of his great plan of salvation.
Only God's Son was found completely sufficient for its propitiatory sacrifice for the world's sins. We marvel when the Lord said to his enemies, which one of you convinces me of sin? Boy, I wish some politicians would say that. You see, Peter writes of the Lord Jesus Christ, he did no sin.
No, that's good. He did no sin. But it also says there was no guile found in his mouth. I don't know if you're close enough to the sea, but where we live, many, many men make their living on the sea.
And they know all about this word guile. The word guile is actually where we get our word bait. Because when you go out to fish, what do you do? You want to beguile the fish.
Oh, this is good. This lure is tasty. Yeah. It's got the right little angle.
It flickers the light. This is a really good piece of fish that you need to eat. We beguile the fish. You see, what the Word of God is saying is not only did the Lord Jesus Christ commit no sin, He beguiled no man to sin.
Of course, when you come to the book of Colossians, we read that the beguiler of all men is Satan. But the Lord Jesus Christ was able to say, which one of you convinces me of sin? He was absolutely perfect. But His worst, greatest proclamation came from heaven itself when on at least two occasions, God Himself says, this is my beloved Son.
You remember the first occasion? It took place on the Jordan. And there it was that John the Baptist was baptizing. And the Lord Jesus Christ came to him.
And John says, hold on a second. I need to be baptized by you, not you by me. I think we've got things backwards here. And the Lord said, well, look, let's leave it because it is for righteousness' sake.
We don't have time to get into that. But that's a very interesting concept. The Lord indeed humbled himself and became obedient. And part of that obedience meant he fell under the law and its responsibilities.
And the Lord allowed himself to be baptized. However, all of heaven decided by this statement to make it clear that this one who was being baptized was different. This one was not like all the others who'd come into the water and came up out of the water. This is my beloved son.
He was distinguished from the worst of men. But there was another time when it was proclaimed the same phrase. Put my hands in front. You see, heaven proclaimed the same phrase.
When did that take place? That was on the Mount of Transfiguration. And he stood between two of the greatest patriarchs of the faith, the Jewish faith. He stood between these two men, Moses and Elijah.
And heaven still made the same proclamation. You see, God distinguished him from the worst of men. And God distinguished him from the best of men. Because the best of men are still men at best.
And this was an absolutely unique individual. Unlike anyone else, God proclaimed his perfection. You see, only he could ascend to the heights of Calvary's cross with the requisite sinless perfection. It wasn't good enough to have a spotless lamb anymore.
Innocence. There needed to be perfection in this sacrifice. And there was only one who was found good enough to take the penalty of sin, and that is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He did so by the determinant counsel and foreknowledge of God to save all of mankind.
And this is where the height really meets its full meaning. You see, Christ was lifted up and distinguished from all men, yes, in sacrifice, yes, in crucifixion, but He was the only one who was worthy, if you could think of it that way, to be crucified for us. He was the only one who was perfect. You see, at the end of these things, at the end of these things, when He was lifted up for us, and He bore the sacrifice for us, God was satisfied.
Every single time there was a sacrifice in the Old Testament, there was a necessity to have another, and another, and another, and another. But the height was met when Christ was sacrificed on Calvary's cross. And so He refers to His cross as a height. Well, the second time, and we need to keep moving, the second time He refers to it, we find it in Luke chapter 12, He refers to it as a baptism.
He says to His disciples, I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished. Here the Lord refers to His cross as a baptism, something that submerged Him in suffering under divine wrath. Now, the physical sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ, we don't have the time to completely discuss these things, but we don't have an understanding. 21st century man has no understanding.
You know, in this day and age, many of us look back, and we think of people from that era as being simple, you know, not having the understanding that we do. Well, talk to the mathematicians. They still haven't quite figured out how the pyramids were built under the limitations physically that they had of the day. The math that they used then, they haven't quite figured it all out yet.
It's intriguing. We think of these people as being simple, but they really weren't. You see, the Romans were experts at crucifixion. They were experts at suffering and torture.
Let me give you a simple example. The Lord Jesus Christ had a crown of thorns placed upon His head. And yes, that was for mockery, and yes, that was for shame. But there was also a medical reason for that.
That suffering was immense. Those thorns, in my front yard, I have a little palm tree which came all the way from the Middle East. And I'm not saying that it is the exact type of tree that was taken, where the plat of thorns was crowned, but it very likely was very similar. They're about three and a half inch thorns, you see.
And if you look at them, they're green at the part where they leave the branch. But at the very end, they're brown and dry. And the purpose was to plat these thorns into a crown, place it upon the head, and then beat it into the head. You see, and it would go through the scalp, and I don't mean to be too gruesome or medical, but it would go through the scalp, and it would hit the skull, and the tip would break off.
So long after the crown had fallen off, these little dried pieces were underneath the scalp, and they would begin to abscess and postulate, and the pressure upon the head was a remarkable thing. They knew how to cause suffering, these Romans did. We could go on and on about the flagellum. The physical sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ are not something to be treated tritely.
They're awful. They're beyond our imagination in this century. Thank God they are. But He endured tremendous suffering on our behalf.
The Word of God says this. By His stripes we are healed. The sufferings that He went through were because of us. The psalmist in Psalm 42 describes it this way.
Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of the water spouts. Thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Deep calleth unto deep. This is where we get the concept of supersonic.
Something that literally sonic booms of sound. If you've ever lived near an airport, you understand what a sonic boom is. When a plane exceeds the speed of sound, it's a remarkable force which causes a tremendous shockwave. And it's deafening.
This is the concept here. Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water spouts and the waves and the billows. They've gone over me and they were severe and they were repetitive and they were overwhelming. God made the firmament, if we went back to Genesis chapter 1, and He separated waters from above from waters from below.
And the psalmist here is drawing upon that metaphorically to say that these two great waters, literally above and below, they collapsed upon the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The physical sufferings that He went through. You see, they offered Him up as a drink offering. But then there's the spiritual sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Did you know that no eye ever beheld the consequence and punishment for sin? Let me give you an example. You remember during the Exodus, back in Exodus chapter 12, where the Paschal Lamb was to be sacrificed. And the Paschal Lamb was to be taken out and He was to be examined for three days and to be found spotless.
And at the end of the three days, He was to be sacrificed. And then the night of the Passover, the blood was to be applied on the doorposts and the lintel. And what were the people supposed to do? They had to go inside the house.
If they were not inside the house, under the blood, there was no salvation for them. And then, when night time fell, that's when the angel of the Lord came. And no eye saw the saving power of the blood. Because they were inside the house.
No eye has seen the saving power, human eye, has seen the saving power of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because God closed the door. He shut the window. No eye saw because it was not something that we could take in.
We have some concept of the physical sufferings, although it's feeble at best. But they pale into insignificance when we consider the spiritual sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have some concept of this. Forgive me.
Time is running, so I don't want to spend too much time. We have some consequence of this. When the Lord speaks of it. And we're going to let that go for time because our time is running.
Forgive me. So the second was a baptism. The first was a height. The third is this concept of a cup.
John chapter 18, the Lord Jesus Christ says, So Jesus said to Peter, Put your sword in its sheath. Shall I not drink the cup that my Father has given to me? We know the story here, right? Peter didn't want to see the Lord arrested, so he pulled out a sword, right?
And he decided to go after the adversaries. And Malchus was standing there. Do you think Peter was aiming for his ear? I don't think so.
But there was poor Peter, heart beating, 200 beats a minute, anxious, swinging for all he was worth, and he just took off the ear. And this poor, poor man, Malchus, was there, and he'd lost his ear. It's a wonderful metaphor, by the way. If you want to propagate the Gospel by violence, what do you end up with?
Let me say that again. If you want to propagate the Gospel with violence, what do you end up with? A deaf audience. You see?
But the Lord healed him. And then after he healed him, he makes this statement. He says, The cup which my Father gives me, shall I not drink it? You see, a well-meaning Peter did what he did in the garden.
But Christ's cross was a divine appointment that he willingly took from the hand of his Father. We read about it prophetically in Psalm 75. For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine, well-mixed, and he pours from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it to its dregs. This judgment wine, instead of the wicked drinking it, was consumed by the Lord Jesus Christ for us.
It's described in three ways. It's described as being foaming. It was rapidly poured out. Rapidly poured out.
There was no period of grace or rest on Calvary's cross. There was just moment by moment of suffering. This was a foaming mixture. It was well-mixed.
The bitter sediment was in each sip. There was no respite for the Lord Jesus Christ. And he drank it down to the dregs. Now, I don't know if there's too many vintners here, but they tell me, I am no vintner, but they tell me that you have to be very careful to remove the dregs from the wine because if you don't, some of those dregs can be poisonous.
And yet the Lord Jesus Christ is described as having drunk it to the bitter dregs. Only Christ could consume the entire wrath of God against sin. Only He could do it. Only He could consume that cup.
The cup, for those of us who are here at the first meeting, it wasn't the cup of wicked curse. It was the cup of blessing that we consume because the Lord Jesus Christ consumed it. You see, in every other sacrifice, the fire consumed the sacrifice. But at Calvary's cross, the sacrifice consumed the fire.
You recall Elijah on Mount Carmel? You know the story. There he was, and there was no rain. There was a drought, and there was a competition between the servants of Baal and the servant of the true and living God.
And when they had done all that they could do, and there was not anything from heaven, not a peep from heaven, what does Elijah do? Well, he fashions an altar. Out of stone. And he puts wood on the altar.
And on the altar he puts a sacrifice. But he doesn't stop there. He says, I want 12 barrels of water. Now wait a second.
Hold on. It hadn't rained. Where did they get the water? Well, that's simple.
It was seawater. Because Mount Carmel is right by the sea. So they went down and they got 12 barrels. And they said, well, we want to make sure that the water doesn't drain away.
We want to make sure that the water stays. So we're going to dig a ditch. And the water that is on top of this soaked sacrifice, wet wood, wet stone, will be caught. And it will still be there, part of the sacrifice.
And then the Lord showed his power. And the fire came down from heaven. And that sacrifice? Ash.
And the wood? Gone. The stone licked up as well. Do you know what fire needs to be applied to consume stone?
Oh, the wrath of God is great against sin. And every single drop of water was gone too. What a sacrifice that was. But did that end sacrifice?
No, it didn't. There was sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice after that. But that same wrath fell upon the person of the Lord Jesus Christ in the form of the cup which he drank to the bitter dregs. And there is therefore now no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus.
You see, the fire consumed the sacrifice in the Old Testament. But the sacrifice consumed the fire at Calvary's cross. Fourthly, we read of the cross as a duration. The Lord Jesus Christ answered them and said, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
The hour. Though he spoke of it as an hour, just a drop of time drawn from eternity's endless well, how horribly long it must be. I don't know if you've ever been in pain. But the first thing that flashes through your mind is how long.
How much longer? If you don't understand what I'm talking about, ask any woman who's gone through childbirth. Ladies? Okay, I got the heads going now.
How much longer is this pain going to go on? How much longer is this pain going on? In my previous profession, I've stood by bedsides, and I've been asked that question. How much longer before it goes away?
I just need this to go away. The Lord spoke of it as just an hour, but oh, what an hour. From the beginning to the end of this hour, He cried, Father. At the beginning, it was, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
At the end, it was, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. But in the middle of the darkness, it was no longer Father. It was, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Jeremiah gives us a wonderful picture, prophetically speaking, of this.
In the book of the Lamentations, he says, Look, look, and see if there be any sorrow, like unto my sorrow, with which the Lord has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger. It was a remarkable thing that the Lord Jesus Christ endured that time. And here's the thing. Men on the cross would often spit back vile at those who had put them on the cross.
But what does Peter say? He says, when he was reviled, he reviled not again. And when he suffered, he threatened not, but commended himself to him that judges righteously. All these men could do on the cross was speak ill of those who had put him there.
But the Lord did no such thing. But there was one other great difference. He could have extricated himself from that place at any moment. Do you not think that I could not call twelve legions of angels from my father's house and deliver me from this place?
Do you think that's not a possibility? Oh, but thankfully we read in the book of Isaiah this. That as a lamb is brought to the slaughter, and as a sheep before shears is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. Why do you think that's important?
He didn't open his mouth manward, but he didn't open his mouth Godward either. He didn't call down that which was his right or ability to call. You see, justice demanded that man suffer throughout eternity for his sin, and thus equity demanded that Christ suffer through the infinite depths of agony. If your sin requires that you suffer the countless ages of eternity as a penalty for that sin, then the Lord had by equity to suffer all of that.
Not just for your sins or my sins, but for the sins of the whole world. Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. John makes it even clearer. He says, little children, these things have I written unto you that you sin not.
But if you sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the propitiation for our sin. And not our sin only, but for the sin of the whole world. How many sins were committed in Maitland last night? Saturday night.
Yeah. How many? How about Orlando? How about Florida?
The United States, North America, the entire world one night. God hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. What a cup. What a cup.
And he drained it to the bitter, bitter end. Our time is running, so I want to spend just a moment on this last one. The Lord lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy Son, that the Son may glorify you.
It's fitting, you know, that the first reference is a height and the last reference is glory. The last reference is glory. Just as we may not initially see the cross as being a height, we may also miss its glory. But was it indeed glorification for the Son of God to suffer, bleed, and die on the cross?
Praise God it was. Praise God it was. The great paradox of suffering and glory put together is seen when one understands that the cross accomplished reconciliation. Then I restored that which I took not away.
It was glory for him because he saw the end result of what would happen via that suffering. His cross work was the culmination of his obedience to the Father. He said to Pilate, for this purpose was I born, and for this purpose I have come into a world to bear witness of the truth. I wish we had some time on this.
Calvary was not about power. Power was solved eons before. When the devil was cast out of heaven, when the man and the woman were cast out of the Garden of Eden, that was power. Calvary was not about power.
Calvary was about truth. Who was telling the truth? Was it the serpent? You shall be as gods if you eat the fruit.
If you disobey God, you will be as God. Was that true? Or was what God said true? There will be the seed of the woman, and he will crush the serpent's head, and he will bruise his heel.
Which was going to be true? Calvary was all about truth. Of course, the truth lay with God. And Calvary was proof that God's Word is and was true.
Via the truth of the cross, he would reconcile all things unto himself. I love this hymn. I don't know if you sing it. I thought maybe we could sing it on the way out, but our time is long spent.
But here we are. John Nelson Darby, And is it so? I shall be like thy son. That's the reconciliation we're talking about.
Oh, it's not a matter of reconciling us back to the garden. It's not a matter of reconciling us back to a state of innocence. It's a matter of reconciling us back to sons of the living God. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called sons of God.
The sons of God. We are the firstborn of God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, of course. Because, indeed, we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. We enjoy the privileges of the firstborn, not just sinless perfection in the garden with Adam.
We have more in Christ than Adam could have ever hoped for. And is it so I shall be like thy son? Is this the grace which he for me is one, Father of glory, thought beyond all thought and glory, to his own blessed likeness brought. So, just to summarize, the cross is unlike any other.
Because its height, only Christ had the prerequisite sinless state. Because of its depth, he could be vicariously submerged into suffering and he could come out the other side. Its bitterness, only he was able to drink to the bitter dregs all the judgment of God. The duration, no one else.
Think about it this way. If you enter eternity in your sin and you are condemned to hell for all of eternity, forgive me, all of eternity, will you have then paid for your sins? No. There's no end.
Only Christ could endure the duration of agony on our behalf. And then finally, the glory. Only He could glorify the Father's will in bringing many sons to glory. Small wonder that from henceforth all true believers join Paul in saying, but God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world.
Rightly viewed, Christ's cross is the eternal demonstration of God's incomparable character and His love for mankind. So I hope in these few simple moments we have a greater appreciation of the uniqueness of Calvary's cross. That's why I'd like to suggest to you He does not refer to it just as a cross. It's far more than just a cross.
It was all these things that satisfied the heart of God and has benefited His people. Father, we thank Thee again for this time together. We pray Thy blessing upon these simple thoughts. We ask Thee to use them so that we would love our Savior more and serve Him better.
We ask these things in His name.
