Salvation-Jesus Christ's Substitutionary Physical Death on the Cross
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Wednesday December 9, 2015
Salvation: Jesus Christ’s Substitutionary Physical Death on the Cross
Lesson # 9
The physical death of our Lord is recorded in the Gospels (Matthew 27:47-50; Mark 15:22-40; Luke 23:33-49; John 19:16-30).
The Lord Jesus Christ did “not” die from suffocation or exhaustion, nor did He bleed to death, or die of a broken heart but rather He died unlike any person in history, namely by His own volition.
Remember what our Lord said in John 10:18.
If He had bled to death, He would have fainted.
The Lord Jesus Christ was in total control of His faculties and was totally and completely alert throughout all His suffering on the cross.
Our Lord’s voluntary physical death was another indication to those observing Him at the Cross that He was indeed the Son of God.
He died like no other man in history, namely, of His own choosing.
This is why the centurion stated that our Lord was the Son of God.
Matthew 27:50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. (NASB95)
“Yielded up” is the aorist active indicative form of the verb aphiemi, “to dismiss, to release, to let go.”
The aorist tense of the verb is a culminative aorist, which emphasizes the cession of the act of Jesus Christ dying physically.
The Lord is the only human being in history to dismiss His own spirit from His body.
Every human being that dies physically as a result of a sovereign decision of God but here the Lord chooses to die physically.
Our Lord’s voluntary physical death was another indication to those observing Him at the Cross that He was indeed the Son of God.
He died like no other man in history, namely, of His own choosing.
Our Lord’s burial is recorded in John 19:38-42.
The perfect sinless humanity of Christ was born trichotomous: (1) Body (2) Soul (3) Spirit.
Therefore, our Lord’s physical death was unique because it was a trichotomous separation: (1) His physical body went to the grave (Luke 23:50-53). (2) His human spirit went to heaven (Luke 23:46; John 19:30). (3) His human soul went into Paradise a compartment of Hades (Luke 23:43; Acts 2:27; 2:31; Eph. 4:9).
The Lord was brought back from the dead by three categories of divine omnipotence: (1) Omnipotence of God the Father sent back our Lord’s human spirit to the body in the grave (Acts 2:24; Rom. 6:4; Eph. 1:20; Col. 2:12; 1 Thess. 1:10; 1 Pet. 1:21). (2) Omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit sent back our Lord’s human soul to the body in the grave (Rom. 1:4; 8:11; 1 Pet. 3:18). (3) Omnipotence of God the Son raised His physical body from the grave (John 2:20-23; 6:39-40, 54 10:17-18).
The Lord Jesus Christ died physically in order to deal with the problem of the sin nature in the human race, which is located in the physical body of a person as a result of God imputing Adam’s sin in the Garden of Eden to every person at the moment of physical birth.
Therefore, the Christian’s problem with his indwelling Adamic sin nature is resolved when he is identified with Christ in His physical death through the baptism of the Holy Spirit the moment they were declared justified through faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior (Romans 6:1-10).