The greatest injustice in the history of mankind occurred over 2000 years ago, in the capitol city of Israel, Jerusalem. There, a man, who had never once in his 33 years on earth committed an injustice against God or man, a man who went around only doing good to others, was betrayed to the corrupt Jewish authorities by a friend; a friend whom this man had never displayed anything but love, generosity and kindness toward. This man, who on the night of His betrayal had retreated to a garden sanctuary to peacefully pray with His friends, would be confronted in that garden by a great multitude, who in an overzealous show of force, came brandishing swords and clubs. They were likely officers from the Jewish Temple Guard who had been sent by the Jewish religious leaders to arrest the man. These officers had been sent previously to arrest Him, but were dissuaded from doing so upon observing the power and love expressed in what this man was teaching (John 7:45-46).
They had come this time in the cover of night, not able to recognize the one they were to arrest until He stepped forward to identify Himself. He offered no resistance, yet they all violently fell backward at His identifying Himself as “I AM”, the covenant name of God. When one of His friends blindly swung a sword to defend Him, cutting off the ear of one of the arresting officers, He instructed that friend to put it away and then proceeded to heal the wounded man, while commanding the members of the guard to let all His friends go, friends who then fled in fear. This one friend who had defended Him would later, on three occasions, deny he even knew Him and then retreat in tears of repentance for doing so. His betrayer, overwhelmed with guilt, would subsequently take his own life, having been unable to undo the grave injustice he had done.
The man would be arrested and taken to the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem for trial, a trial that failed to conform to their own codified protocols/requirements for a just and fair trial. This included the lack of corroborating testimony from two or more reliable witnesses, and his accusers physically assaulting Him before, in the midst of and at the conclusion of the trial. He is charged with blasphemy, which under the law of Moses was a capital crime worthy of death if convicted. The man offers little in the way of a defense other than putting forth His true identity (Matthew 26:62-64), which was corroborated by the extraordinary life He had lived in their presence (John 18:20-21). Despite this, they unjustly convict Him of the charges and sentence Him to death. Unfortunately for the Jewish authorities, they live under the rule of the Roman Empire, and only Rome had the right to execute the condemned.
They thus take the man before the Roman governor of the province of Judea, not with the false charges of blasphemy for which they had condemned Him, but false charges of treason and insurrection, stating that the man claimed to be a king, the King of the Jews, in opposition to Roman rule and to Caesar’s authority. The governor finds no basis for the charges and to rid himself of any responsibility for unjustly condemning an innocent man, shuffles the man off to the ruler of the province in which the man grew up for judgement. That ruler also finds the man innocent of any wrongdoing and sends Him back to the governor of Judea.
The Judean governor, under the threat of rioting by the Jews, cowardly complies with their call to release another man who was justly condemned for murder and insurrection, and to crucify the man whom the governor had consistently and even dramatically proclaimed to be innocent (Matthew 27:24). The man is then given over for execution. He is then beaten mercilessly by Roman soldiers, who mock and further abuse Him by driving a crown of thorns into His head.
Beaten and bloodied by Roman whips, the man is forced, in His weakened condition, to carry the instrument of His execution, a wooden cross, through the streets of Jerusalem, wherein those observing the event, mock and jeer and spit on Him, oblivious to the fact that He was going to take upon Himself the judgement for sin they deserved.
Upon observing His physical weakness from their beating, a Roman soldier forces a bystander to help the man carry the cross through the streets of Jerusalem and up a hill “affectionately” referred to as “the place of a skull”. Here the man’s hands and feet are nailed to the cross. The cross is then lifted up and dropped jarringly into its socket, sending excruciating pain throughout His body, pain that will only increase as He hangs there bloody and beaten, helpless and weak – put there ultimately not by the Romans, nor by the Jews, but by love – by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God who so loved the world that He gave his only begotten and precious Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer the full and exacting consequences of the heinousness and vileness of our sin (Romans 5:8), so that we could be justified, declared righteous in the eyes of a Holy and just God (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Thus, as a supernatural darkness envelops the midday sun and an earthquake shakes all of Jerusalem, we hear a loud cry from Jesus’ lips, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani” (My God My God why have you forsaken me). Those who heard this cry did not simply hear a cry of anguish and despair from the horrors of the cross, but a cry of anguish and despair from the horrors of Hell. This is Jesus’ moment in Hell, because Hell is exactly that, being forsaken by God the Father as the object of His infinite love, a love Jesus had known intimately throughout eternity, but who has now been made, (only for a moment in eternity), the object of His Father’s wrath – of his hatred of sin (1 John 4:10).
On the cross, all of the horror and terror, all of the unimaginable torment of God’s divine wrath necessary to satisfy His divine justice was poured out on His eternally Beloved Son, so that all of the riches of God’s mercy and grace could be poured out on us, guilty, vile and helpless sinners we be (2 Corinthians 8:9).
With His final breath, Jesus cries out in glorious proclamation of His victory over sin, death and Hell, “IT IS FINISHED”. But death cannot hold the innocent “Lamb of God”, who was condemned in our place. And thus, three days later, His innocence is vindicated as He is resurrected by the Spirt of God, the first of many men and women who will pass from death to eternal life; because Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man, took upon Himself the just penalty for sin we deserve (Romans 8:11) (John 5:24).
This is the Gospel – the good news of what God has done through the person and work of Jesus Christ to justly rescue from Hell and qualify for Heaven all who put their faith in Him.
And because of what Jesus has done, in willingly stepping down from His exalted position as the second person in the Divine Trinity to, at enormous hurt to Himself, accomplish redemption for mankind, we read in Philippians 2:9-11 that “God (the Father)also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”.
Thus, it would appear that we can either bow the knee to Jesus now, gladly submitting to His rule over our life as our Lord, while humbly trusting Him as our all-sufficient Savior from the just judgement of God for our sin, or, we will be forced to bow our knee to Him one day as our judge, and face His just sentence for our sin of death and eternal torment in what Revelation 20:12-15 refers to as the “lake of fire”. The choice is yours.
Grace and Peace ×
Amen Praise God