"THE TRUTH IS..."
Revelation Of The Crucifixion It didn't just happen at Passover in 30 A.D. It didn't just happen at all. It had been discussed long before Adam was created, thus when God handed down the curses in the Garden of Eden, the decision had already been made. If Plan A failed and man fell in disobedience, Plan B would go into effect and, complex and time- consuming as it would be, it would be perfect in it's design.
After four thousand years of generational and international growth, the plan would reach maturity during Israel's final captivity as a thriving nation. The iron-fisted legions of the Great Roman Empire occupied the tiny nation that was crying out to God to send the Messiah to deliver them.
Every generation through four thousand years of waiting had received prophetic confirmation of the promise. Even Noah had prophesied that the sons of Japheth would inhabit the houses of Shem. This came to pass 2,500 years later when the Japheth Romans invaded and occupied the tiny nation of Shem's descendants just a few years prior to the birth of Jesus Christ. It was during this hour of oppression that the throne of Heaven announced to the Prince of Heaven, "It is time."
The Archangel Gabriel was dispatched to tell Mary that she was the chosen vessel through whom the Messiah would be born. The Holy Spirit of God moved upon her, resurrecting the Seed of the woman that would bring forth conception without the aid of any man. This in itself is a miracle for women do not carry seed. Only men carry seed.
In the years that followed, men and women have tried to reason the miraculous conception of Jesus and many have rejected the Biblical account because they could not separate logic from faith. They could not accept the idea that a virgin could conceive without sperm. Of course, two thousand years of reasoning has utterly failed to alter or negate the miracle. In spite of this fact, there are many today who continue to deny it could ever have happened as it is recorded. But we of faith know it did!
Things that are divine are holy mysteries hidden in God and no mortal has yet achieved the depth of the spiritual understanding that is required to explain it. If it is to be accepted, it must be accepted by faith and faith alone, for words and reason cannot explain the conception itself. But I do offer the following to explain the immeasurable love of Christ and the infinite wisdom of God who planned and fashioned the Seed of woman that was quickened to life through the resurrection power of the Holy Ghost.
Jesus was the Seed, the divine creator who became one with the created inside of a mortal womb. Conception carries the bloodline of the father so Jesus would be conceived with the purity, holiness and spirit of His Father, and would receive clean blood for his new mortal body. He would be God the Son, second person of the Holy Trinity, growing flesh and bone. He was conceived in the young Mary who would give Him His human qualities and this would credential Him for his role as Son of Man (humanity). He was the merging of the mortal and the immortal into one perfect, holy and acceptable Son who was God's greatest love gift to mankind. He was God, and He was man.
Son of Man was the title Our Lord used for Himself over and over again as if to remind us repeatedly that He was one with us as well as one with God. It was necessary that He be a man for only a man who was acceptable unto God as sinless and without blemish could legally redeem all that Adam had lost.
He was breast fed, cuddled, diapered and burped. Later he would crawl, toddle and learn to play and entertain himself at his mother's feet. When he was older he would sit at Joseph's feet and be educated in the scriptures, Jewish history and the Jewish way of life. He would play with friends, and ask a multitude of questions of anyone who would hear him. Remember that Son of Man needed all of this training.
He would grow in wisdom, knowledge and understanding for Joseph understood and had accepted his responsibility as foster father of the young Messiah. With Joseph's help and encouragement, the Holy Spirit would be able to enlighten the young lad and fill him with spiritual understanding beyond his years so that by the time he was twelve years of age He would be able to hold His own with the doctors and scribes in the Temple.
I do believe that the Son of God that He was delighted in that debate though Son of Man may have engaged it. I have reason to believe this: when Mary and Joseph finally found their missing son and admonished him for worrying them so, he replied, "Why were you looking for me, don't you know I must be about my Father's business?" Most definitely, Jesus was not referring to Joseph. This proved to me that Jesus knew who He was when He was twelve years old. How long He knew prior to that is anyone's guess.
And here for the first time we see the humanity struggling with the divinity. Whom should He honor - parents or God? Well, God had laid down the commandment, "Honor your father and your mother..." and Jesus was only 12 years old. The word tells us that he went back with his parents and was subject to them until He was thirty years old and ready to begin His ministry. Jesus would again know the struggle between flesh and the spirit during his temptation in the wilderness and in the Garden of Gethsemane just prior to his arrest.
Joseph would not fail the charge he had been given. He would be father, guardian, and provider to God the Son in a diaper and as a toddler. He would be teacher and spiritual counselor to the young lad growing up in Nazareth and as a student in the Synagogue. Joseph would even teach Jesus a trade in carpentry so he could learn to do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. Imagine the created teaching the Creator how to make a table or a chair. But, Joseph would die before Jesus would begin his ministry, his mission accomplished and completed.
It was the Son of Man that was baptized in the River Jordan, for His humanity required it. He had known no sin but the Son of Man must submit to the Son of God and the Son of God must submit to the Father. It would also serve as an example for others to come...
In the Levitical priesthood the candidate was first washed, then anointed for office. Jesus was not a Levite, he was of the tribe of Judah, but he would receive his anointing for all three offices on this day, as Prophet (while on earth), as Priest (our great High Priest in Heaven), and as King (when He returns to set up his earthly kingdom).
These anointings were administered as the Holy Spirit lighted upon Him as a Dove, just as Jesus rose from the water. It was a visible Holy Pentecost for the beloved Son in whom God was well pleased, and who would soon begin the work that He had come here to do. Though He had been filled with the Spirit all along, now the Holy Spirit was "upon" Him as well and without measure. He had become the second Adam but without the visible Shekinah Glory that could betray his identity as the long-awaited Messiah.
There were only two priesthoods established by God that were not Levitical. These were the priesthood of Melchizedek and the priesthood of Jesus Christ. They were not the same priesthood as some have questioned, and you can read all about it in my commentary, The Way They Were.
The crucifixion of Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of the covenant God had made with Adam in the Garden of Eden. He had already fulfilled his blood covenant with Abraham. This beloved patriarch had been willing to obey God who had directed the sacrifice of Isaac. Abraham knew the promise of his descendants would come through Isaac and if God demanded his death, He would also raise him up again to fulfill the promise. God had stayed Abraham's knife just in time. All God had really wanted was a confirmation of Abraham's obedience, a covenant partner He could trust.
Because Abraham had been willing, God now had the legal go-ahead to sacrifice His only begotten son and this time the knife would not be stayed. God always had a plan and God would always have a man to partner with Him. Theirs was a blood covenant for Abraham's descendants and the nation of Israel, and in a blood covenant both parties had to shed blood. If one forfeited on his promise he had to die. Abraham shed his blood through the circumcision, followed by the circumcision of every male Israelite that would be born thereafter.
God is not dead so when did He shed His blood?
When Jesus was circumcised as an 8-day-old infant...
And of course, on the cross...
God the Son had been circumcised as an 8-day-old infant and that alone fulfilled the covenant with Abraham. But God had gone a step further. Not only would He fulfill the covenant with faithful Abraham through the giving of His Son, the promise in the Garden of Eden would be fulfilled also. Satan's head would be crushed and the men of earth and earth itself would be redeemed, taken back from the usurper who had deceived Adam and Eve into capitulating their authority, their innocence and their open door fellowship with God.
Adam had been a son of God also, created from the dust of the ground by God's own hands. He was loved as a son, considered a son and treated as a son. Like all of God's created beings, Adam was created holy, he was innocent, knowing only good. He was so perfect he was clothed in the Shekinah Glory of God. Like Jesus, he was mortal, yet righteous in all his ways. Like Jesus, Adam belonged to both worlds for earth was his mother and God was his Father. And, of course, both Adam and Jesus had the indwelling Holy Spirit from their beginnings - Jesus at conception and Adam when he drew his first mortal breath.
God had given Adam authority over all the earth and over all of creation and he was told to maintain it and to be fruitful and multiply, filling the earth with Godly descendants. Adam had been given the deed to earth and he would be responsible for it's care. When Adam and Eve willfully disobeyed God, they lost their Glory covering in the instant that they received the sin nature of the rebellious Satan.
When sin came in, the Holy Spirit departed and they discovered their nakedness. If the Shekinah Glory, which was their covering, had simply been a spiritual fallout from being in the presence of God, the disappearance would not have been so dramatic. God has gone to great lengths to emphasize that "their eyes were opened" (to evil) and they "saw" their nakedness, something they had not known or seen previously. This was a sudden and very dramatic occurrence that serves to warn that the Holy Spirit cannot and will not co-exist with open rebellion and rejection of God's authority.
You see, in those days, Adam and Eve had open communication with the animals so it was not unusual to hear the serpent speak. And the serpent did not have the authority to rebuke Satan. This was Adam's responsibility. Adam had the power and the authority to cast Satan and the serpent out of the Garden and he did not do it.
He failed his wife, he failed the animal kingdom, he failed the earth and he failed to obey his Father. In one foolish moment, everything was lost. The animals would not speak again, the earth would not yield without toil and sweat, and the pure blood that had flowed through Adam's veins would forever be tainted in all his posterity. He had lost the deed to earth and his authority over it and worst of all, he had lost his intimate fellowship and trusting relationship with Almighty God.
Satan had grabbed the deed and the reins and claimed his victory over man, beast and earth. By one man, Adam, all was lost. A pure blood sacrifice would now be required to redeem earth and to cleanse Adam. It couldn't be just any sacrifice, it had to be voluntary, it had to be pure and it had to be through a son of Adam.
Unfortunately there would never again be a righteous man born into the earth for all men thereafter would inherit Adam's blood line and therefore the stain of Adam's sin. And without the shedding of sinless blood there could be no remission of sin and no redemption for man and earth. Nevertheless, God spoke the promise in the Garden of Eden that the Seed of woman would crush Satan's head.
In Mary, the stain of this inherited blood was vanquished with the immortal words of her voluntary submission, "Be it unto me according to thy word," and her blood was instantly cleansed in preparation for the Holy Conception. This in itself was a spiritual slap to Satan's face for he had lied to and used a woman in his scheme to destroy all men. By contrast, God had now favored and highly exalted a woman in His plan for saving all men.
We should never cease to be amazed at the way God works... ***************************** The day had finally come. The fulfillment of the Promise was at hand. Satan did not understand what was really going on, he just wanted Jesus destroyed and out of his way to protect his own head. All the while Jesus was on the Cross, Satan and his demons mocked, laughed, jeered and whooped it up, believing he had trumped the Son of God again. Ten thousand legions of angel warriors also stood by with swords drawn...
God would shed His blood a second time, this time to fulfill the promise to Adam. It would be shed through Son of God and Son of Man and seven times it would flow...
1. When He sweat drops of blood during prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane just before his arrest.
2. When beaten by the Roman soldiers who even pulled out His hair and His beard with their hands.
3. When they set the crown of thorns upon His head.
4. When he suffered the thirty-nine lashes upon his back with the cat of nine tails.
5. When they pierced His hands with the crucifixion nails.
6. When they pierced His feet with the crucifixion nails.
7. When they pierced His side from which flowed blood and water.
Seven is God's number of completion. It was finished indeed!
It was more than a cruel crucifixion. Christ was more than a substitute for you and me. He was more than the Son of God we have always known Him to be. Indeed, it was not the Son of God who had cried out and sweat drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. This was the Son of Man who dreaded the cup that was before him. This was the human Son of Man that cried unto God. Then, as in the wilderness of His temptation, the Son of Man submitted to the Son of God that He was, and the Son of God submitted to the Father and said, "Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done."
It was the Son of God who refused to testify for himself, who kept silent when questioned by Pilate. It was the Son of Man who fell under the weight of the cross following a vicious lashing and scourging by Roman soldiers so that Simon the Cyrenian was ordered to carry his cross for him.
It was the Son of Man who was laid on the cross with the while nails pierced his hands and feet. It was the moment of truth, the mystery unveiled that had been hidden in the depths of God's holy Word and in His plan for millenniums past. It was revealed to me in the quietness of a midnight fellowship and I rose from my bed and wrote it down, so powerful was the revelation to me. It shook me to consider such love and it hit me with the force of a thousand atom bombs...
Are you ready?
It was God and man on the cross together! God so loved His creation that, as God incarnate, He was willing to endure the cross with the Son of Man. The sacrificial lamb of God would be sacrificed as the man who would redeem all men who had fallen by the first man, Adam, but the Son of God that He was would not leave him there to endure it alone.
Ten thousand legions of angels had stood by since his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, their swords drawn, just in case Jesus changed His mind and gave the order. They had waited through the trial, the beatings and the nailing to the Cross. Finally an order came. Those standing at the foot of the Cross could not hear it. Those gambling for his robes could not hear it. Those watching from the sidelines could not hear it. Only the angels heard it and they swiftly broke ranks to obey. Those orders, given through the Spirit, came from the Son of God that was hanging on a Roman Cross with the Son of Man:
"Go back into the Garden of Eden and bring the sins of Adam and Eve and lay them upon my shoulders. Go back into all the past generations to every man, woman and child that has ever lived and bring their transgressions to me and lay them upon my breast. Go forth into this present time and collect every sin from every living soul and bring them here and press those sins into my bloody hands and feet. Then go into the future to every one that shall draw breath there and bring their sins, their iniquities and their trespasses to me and lay them upon my head."
Not one sin, past, present or future, could be omitted. If one sin fell into the cracks and was overlooked, the entire redemptive plan would fail. It had to be complete, it had to be all-inclusive and it had to be finished for all time and for all eternity.
He suffered more than the Cross: God the Father could not look upon the filthy blackened sins that covered His Son's body and he turned his face from Him in the most crucial hours of His torment. This was the final blow, the ultimate rejection and the final shame. Never, in eternity past or present, had God the Son ever been separated from the Father and His anguished cry is still heard today.
Just before the end, the Son of God cried out as witness, "It is finished." God and man had suffered together, God and man as one had outsmarted Satan, and staked their claim of the redemption of men and earth with a wooden cross they had endured together.
Just as He had stood with the Hebrew children in the fiery furnace of Babylon, the Son of God would hang on the cross with Son of Man and the Son of Man would find strength through the Son of God who reminded him, "You will suffer the just deserves of all men but you will have the victory and in three days you will rise again and be glorified." Together, Son of God and Son of Man faced the pit and the awful hopelessness of the damned until finally - God the Father said, "Enough. The debt is paid in full."
The Holy Spirit charged into hell and revived the Son. Rising from His hellish prison cell with fierce strength and renewed anointing, he tore down the prison doors and grabbed the keys of hell and death from Satan, making a show of him before all his cohorts. Then, in a flash, with heavenly shouts of victory coursing through every fiber of his being, this mighty Son returned to the tomb for the resurrection that men still celebrate today.
Why was it necessary for the Son of God to be resurrected? He was immortal, all -powerful, indestructible and incorruptible! How does one resurrect the Creator who is spirit? Well, Son of God was spirit, but Son of Man was flesh. King David, speaking by the Holy Spirit, had prayed that God would not let the Holy One's body be corrupted by the grave but that it would be raised. Jesus Christ was God incarnate, He was the eternal spirit Son of God Almighty that took upon himself the flesh and blood of the created so He could be that man, that Seed that would crush Satan's head.
God the Son needed no resurrection but Son of Man did. God the Son was the life and soul of Son of Man. They had been joined together in the womb and would forever be inseparable. They had endured and labored together. There could be no honor for Son of Man except in the Son of God and no validity for redemption except in the Son of Man.
Together they had become Savior. The creator and the created reconciled forever as Redeemer. The King Son of God and the Son of King David had become King Jesus...King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
He had told His disciples that God the Father had given him power to lay down His life and power to take it up again and that is exactly what He did. He laid it down willingly, and then He took it up again. In Heaven, the Son presented the recaptured deed of earth to the grateful Father and sprinkled his own blood on the mercy seat. That deed has seven seals, one for every bloody affliction that was put on the Son of God.
Then the Son was stripped of his filthy robes and new robes were put upon him and a fine kingly mitre (a jeweled turban or crown) was placed upon his head. He was given the throne of a Great High Priest, a throne that had been placed at the right hand of the Father. He would return to earth for forty more days, then He would return to his throne and sit down. All that the Father had He gave to Jesus and Jesus has given it all to us.
The Son that is God and man has become our Great High Priest and our intercessor with God the Father. He has betrothed Himself to an earthly bride. He had learned about the world of His bride while teaching her about His world. One day they will be joined forever in a wedding performed in Heaven but they will honeymoon for a thousand years on the earth. They will make their eternal home here, for it will become the new heaven for all eternity. And they will live happily ever after...
God and man on the cross together is the greatest mystery of God's most wondrous miracle. The creator had stepped down from his glorious ivory palaces for a season and had identified Himself with the created by becoming one of us. How can we ever ignore so great a love as this? How can we ever deny so great a miracle as this? How can we ever deny what He became for us, what He did for us, who He has become for us and what He will always and forever be to us...?
WE CANNOT! Today we will purpose to know him in a new and more glorious way, loving Him all the more if such a thing is possible for we see now that we are fulfilled in Him because He has fulfilled Himself in us.
When the Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost, the Divine came once again to dwell within the mortal. He had dwelled within the Old Testament prophets but now He would dwell within all believers for, like Mary, when we said, "Yes" to God, we received the miracle.
There is no turning back, for the mystery of the cross is revealed in God's Word, "Christ in you, the hope of Glory." God and man, reconciled in heaven and on earth at last, through the cross, death and resurrection they endured together. Jesus lives. He is the Christ of ages past, of ages present, and of all the ages to come. And because He lives, we shall live also...
Joan Krempel
August 5, 2001
joan@joankrempelministries.com Back Previous Next |