The Conqueror of Sin and Death
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Good morning! Welcome to CHCC. I hope you all had a wonderful week. As we continue our study through Luke’s gospel, we inch closer to the end of chapter 23. When we last left off, Jesus was hanging from the cross.
And while He hung, He received the taunts of several people. First, from the religious leaders. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” (Lk. 23:35)
Likewise, the Roman soldiers made a similar jeer. “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” (Lk. 23:36). This was because of the inscription that Pontius Pilate had written up above the head of Jesus that simply read, “This is the King of the Jews.”
But Jesus did not hang alone, for two others were being crucified that day as well; two convicted thieves. And one of them joined in on the mockery. He said to Jesus, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” (Lk. 23:39).
But one amongst the crowd of revilers stood up for Jesus—the other thief on the cross.
But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
The beautiful promise from Jesus to the thief was that by his faith He would be in eternity with Jesus. The promise gives evidence that salvation is not an act of works, but simply a gift of grace received by faith.
And it is with that promise of Jesus to the thief that we pick up our study. Jesus, moments away from death now, hanging from the cross. Let us take a look at what happens. If you have your Bibles with you, please turn with me to Luke’s gospel, chapter 23 as we begin in verse 44.
PRAY
The Death of Jesus
The Death of Jesus
It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.
Prior to this, as we read last week, we are told that Jesus is offered sour wine by the soldiers. This could have been done as a mocking gesture to His Kingship because bitter wine was known as a drink of royalty. It could also have been given in an effort to quench Jesus’ thirst and thus allow Him to live and therefore suffer longer.
Other’s contend that this was a concoction given by the women of Jerusalem to the soldiers to give to Jesus in an effort to ease His pain. If so, we may question why would Jesus deny the drink? And I think the answer is as simple as it is heavy. Jesus was determined to drink this cup to its fullest—the very cup He prayed would be passed from Him if God was willing. Jesus didn’t come to suffer as little as possible. He came to become sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God.
And now as we just read, Luke reveals what the other Synoptic gospels reveal as well—that Jesus’ death is covered in darkness.
It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour,
The sixth hour would have been 12 o’clock noon. The time of day where the sun was at it’s highest point. The language here suggests that this was more than just a cloudy day. It was likely localized over Jerusalem. Some suggest that perhaps it was a heavy fog that covered the land or a desert sirocco—a hot, rainy, dusty rain storm that was known to hit the region from time to time.
Whatever it was, I believe we can be confident in presuming that God’s hand was responsible for it. I want us to note the very interesting visual here as well. Luke’s account of Jesus’ life begins with a bright, distinguishable light in the night sky at His birth. A light in the darkness, so to speak. And at His death, a darkness covers the land–a darkness covering the light, so to speak.
Furthermore, the Old Testament considered darkness as a cosmic sign of mourning. No doubt the death of Jesus is seen in the prophetic words of Amos.
“And on that day,” declares the Lord God,
“I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
I will turn your feasts into mourning
and all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth on every waist
and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only son
and the end of it like a bitter day.
We see similar language in Zephaniah.
A day of wrath is that day,
a day of distress and anguish,
a day of ruin and devastation,
a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness,
Jesus’ prophetic words the night before also hint to this temporary reign of evil, as He referred to it as the hour and power of darkness.
When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.”
But what was happening during these three hours of covered darkness? The reality is that at the cross, the sin of mankind was poured out over Jesus which is also according to prophecy.
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
A few decades later, Peter would also describe this moment with pristine clarity.
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
And Paul put it into words that I used earlier in his letter to the church in Corinth.
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
R. Kent Hughes through analogy explains what happened to Christ on the cross. He writes:
Think of Christ’s heart as a sea hemmed in by the mountains of our sin. Then imagine our sins coursing down from the mountains into his heart until all the mountains of evil slide into the sea. Or think back to the magnifying glass you played with as a child. If held under the sun’s rays, it could start a fire. Remember how if you focused the white spot of its concentrated light on a leaf or a bug it would begin to burn. Our sins were focused on Christ on the cross, and he suffered the fiery wrath of God. On the cross Christ was robed in all that is heinous and hateful as the mass of our corruption poured over him. With horror Christ found his entire being to be sin in the Father’s sight.
Jesus bore the entirety of our sins upon that cross and therefore the wrath of the Father was upon Him. Jesus was cursed upon the cross for you and for me.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—
Jesus took on my sins and yours and bore them with an understanding and a unity that none can fathom. And the incredibly beautiful reality is that He did so willingly! Why? Because His love for you knows no bounds. His love for you is that deep and that wide and long. The final verse in the hymn The Love of God sums this up beautifully.
Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were ev’ry stalk on earth a quill
And ev’ry man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Tho' stretched from sky to sky.
There in the darkness our sins were imputed to Christ, and his righteousness has now been imputed to us who believe.
Here in Luke’s gospel, the author mentions the tearing of the temple curtain. In Matthew’s parallel account, it reveals to us that the tearing of this curtain was coincident with Jesus’ death.
And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.
The curtain mentioned here in the gospels was known as the Great Curtain of the Holy of Holies. There were in fact thirteen curtains in total in the temple but this was the largest and grandest of them all. It was woven from the most expensive yarn from Babylon. It was blue, white, red, and purple and had embroidered cherubim throughout. The curtain itself was a thing to behold. It stood roughly 60 feet high and early extra-biblical accounts claim it was four inches thick.
It’s function was to block all eyes from gazing upon the Holy of Holies and forbid access to everyone except for the high priest who would enter once a year with a blood offering for himself and the people of Israel for the sins of the nation.
but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people.
And now at the moment of Christ’s death the curtain is torn from top to bottom. The significance of this is twofold. I.H. Marshall states that this a “portentous omen of the coming destruction of the temple.”
But even more significantly, this was a marvelous sign of spiritual access. That very moment, the way into God’s presence was opened for all mankind. The writer of Hebrews clarifies this for us.
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
In a sense, the veil was a symbolic imagery of Christ Himself since He is the only way to the Father.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
The veil tearing at the moment of Christ’s death serves as a symbol of His sacrifice as sufficient atonement for our sins. And because of that, the way has been opened to enter into the presence of God!
The author of Hebrews found the tearing of the curtain remarkably significant as they wrote about it in several places.
We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
And because of this, no longer is there a need for the priesthood, as Peter explains we all (as believers) are “a royal priesthood.”
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
We must never take for granted the unlimited access we have to God through Jesus Christ!
The collective recording of the Gospels reveal to us three phrases that Jesus cried out before He breathed His last.
What is known as the cry of dereliction in Mark’s account where Jesus quotes from Psalm 22.
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
The utterance in John’s account where Jesus announces, “It is finished.”
When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
3. And the sentence we read here in Luke’s gospel.
Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.
The significance of Jesus’ words here in Luke are often lost in cultural translation. This was actually a very traditional prayer that faithful Jews would offer up before going to sleep for the evening.
At the very end, Jesus chose prayer and this very one at the moment of His death which was often signified as sleep in the Old Testament.
This too, as is the quote recorded in Mark, was a prayer from the Psalms. This one coming from Psalm 31. In this particular Psalm, David describes was has become of him from his enemies.
For my life is spent with sorrow,
and my years with sighing;
my strength fails because of my iniquity,
and my bones waste away.
Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach,
especially to my neighbors,
and an object of dread to my acquaintances;
those who see me in the street flee from me.
I have been forgotten like one who is dead;
I have become like a broken vessel.
For I hear the whispering of many—
terror on every side!—
as they scheme together against me,
as they plot to take my life.
And while the Psalm sounds like the cries of one defeated, it concludes with a great trust in God amid the trial.
I had said in my alarm,
“I am cut off from your sight.”
But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy
when I cried to you for help.
Love the Lord, all you his saints!
The Lord preserves the faithful
but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.
Be strong, and let your heart take courage,
all you who wait for the Lord!
Thus, the prayer of David earlier in the Psalm that Jesus quotes…
Into your hand I commit my spirit;
you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.
When David prayed, “Into your hand I commit my spirit,” he was asking to be preserved from death. But when Jesus, the ultimate son of David, prayed it, it was a prayer of trust in the Father at the moment of death.
This was Jesus’ “good night” prayer. But what is also significant is that Jesus added the intimate word “Abba” before it. Father…
“Father” provided the framework—the beginning and end of Jesus’ public ministry. It was the mark of his soul from first to last. It is the one recorded word of his youth: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (2:49).
It was implicit in the title of the One who called down from heaven at His baptism, “You are my beloved Son.” (3:22)
“Father” was the opening word when Jesus taught His disciples how to pray (11:2).
It was the word He used when He accepted the cross…
“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”
It was the first word spoken from the cross as He requested forgiveness of the Roman soldiers.
And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
And as we see here, it was the first word of the last sentence He proclaimed before death.
As one pastor mentioned: “Father” was the sustaining lyric of Jesus’ life, and here at death it expressed his ineffable trust and peace at death.
But what is more, let us not miss the language here by Luke. This wasn’t a defeated exasperation, this was a shout of victory!
Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.
Just as Jesus’ words in John—”It is finished”—the perfect tense describing total and final fulfillment. It is finished now, and forever.
While the moment is dark, and the scene is heavy. The reality is that it is victorious and Jesus knew it!
This is why we proclaim, “Jesus saves!” This is why we confidently approach the throne of grace! This is why Paul so boldly proclaimed that we—the epitome of sin—have become the righteousness of God!
And how is it that we receive what has been coined as the great exchange? Our sin for His righteousness? Thankfully, Paul gives us clarity to that question.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Simple. BY FAITH.
the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:
So then, the question becomes personal for every one of us. Does my faith—does your faith—rest in Christ alone? For one centurion it would seem in that moment, it did!
THE FAITH OF THE CENTURION
Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent!”
While this does not explicitly state this Roman soldier was saved, it does—at the very least—reveal that His heart had become convinced of spiritual truth. Thus, in the centurion’s declaration at the foot of the cross we see that Jesus’ death was not only for Jews but also for Gentiles, lest we forget that proclamation early on in Luke’s gospel while baby Jesus was presented at the temple.
for my eyes have seen your salvation
that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and for glory to your people Israel.”
Isn’t it interesting? The first person to speak over Him after birth is proclaiming His salvation for Gentiles and the first to speak after His death is a Gentile proclaiming faith.
But Jesus’ own people saw the hope in the cross that evening.
And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts.
Their visual outward sign of distress and mourning was evidence of hearts that saw the righteousness of Jesus. No doubt some of them here would find conversion at Pentecost just 50 days later.
And lastly, Luke also mentions Jesus’ followers.
And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.
While they stood in sorrow and confusion now, they would soon be the feet that would take the message of Jesus across the world with news of His resurrection (spoiler alert).
As we close this morning, I think it best to let the words of Scripture rest upon your hearts. After all, Paul speaks more profoundly and eloquently than I ever could and his words have been charged with the Holy Spirit and been read through the centuries. We’ve already read verse 21 a couple times this morning, but I want to read a greater portion of it and let the words penetrate your hearts this morning.
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
And Paul’s exhortation is now my exhortation for all of you: “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
PRAY
