This Is The WAY

THIS IS THE WAY

Week Four – The Cross - Spiritual

 

Last Sunday was Easter and we spoke in detail about the crucifixion. I want to continue this series “THIS THE WAY” for a few more weeks. I believe that it will be eye-opening for us all…both in knowledge and in understanding. We know that the FALL of Adam and Eve caused mankind to disconnected to God and it ultimately leads to death.  

There are three points that I want to draw out in the coming Sundays about how Jesus’ experience on the cross reversed the three aspects of exile caused by the Fall. 

1. Jesus reversed the SPIRITUALaspect of exile by allowing Himself to be nailed to a tree, the means of our spiritual exile.
2. Jesus reversed theEMOTIONAL aspect of exile by allowing Himself to experience the psychological and emotional pain of the cross. (Mark 15:33–34).
3. Jesus reversed the PHYSICAL aspect of exile by physically suffering on the cross. The crown of thorns, the physical sign of the curse of creation, conveyed that the second Adam, the new representative head of creation, was reversing the exile and restoring the blessing by allowing the cursing of creation to fall on his head.

So let’s begin as we turn in your Bibles to:

 

1 Peter 2:21-25 Christian Standard Bible

²¹ For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. ²² He did not commit sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth; ²³ when he was insulted, he did not insult in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten but entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. ²⁴ He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. ²⁵ For you were like sheep going astray, but you have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

 

1. Jesus reversed the spiritualaspect of exile by allowing Himself to be nailed to a tree, the means of our spiritual exile.

 

Jesus’ death on the cross is central to the faith of all believers. But did you ever wonder WHY JESUS HAD TO DIE ON A CROSS?

The cross is the universal symbol of Christianity. The customary answer given to explain why Jesus had to die on a cross is that crucifixion was a common means of Roman execution. But something as important as the death of God’s Son would not be based solely on Rome’s proclivity for a brutal means of execution. There is more to his death on the cross when viewed from an Old Testament and Jewish perspective.

On the Road to Emmaus, Jesus connected the dots between the Old and the New, which opened his disciples’ eyes and their hearts to burn within them.

Let’s explore some to these connections and see how it deepens our insight.

FULFILLMENT OF PROPHECY

The very first reason for Jesus dying on a cross was that it was fulfilling prophecies. We actually learned about this earlier in this series. If you want to go back and study the notes you can find them online…

 

FULFILL SYMBOLISM OF PROPHET MOSES

 

John 3: 1- 6, 9 - 15 CSB

There was a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus,a ruler of the Jews. ² This man came to him at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform these signs you do unless God were with him.”

³ Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

⁴ “How can anyone be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked him. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?”

⁵ Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶ Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. 

 

⁹ “How can these things be?” asked Nicodemus.

¹⁰ “Are you a teacher of Israel and don’t know these things?” Jesus replied. ¹¹ “Truly I tell you, we speak what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you do not accept our testimony. ¹² If I have told you about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven —the Son of Man.

¹⁴ “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, ¹⁵ so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 

 

So here we see Nicodemus receiving a remedy for his troubled soul from the Master Physician. Jesus brings in vital imagery of the bronze serpent from Numbers to reframe Nicodemus’s knowledge of the Torah. In doing so, he makes us lift up our heads as well.

Jesus presents himself as the true Bronze Serpent who must be lifted up and looked on for us to truly live.

Why did Christ mention Moses? For Nicodemus and for us, the law is given to convict and drive us to the Gospel. Here for the first time in his life, the law of Moses is being fulfilled by Jesus being the way of Salvation. He discovers that he must receive grace.

The wording “who believes” means “to look, to trust, lean on, and surrender.

Here Jesus equates believing and beholding.

 

 

          Beholding The Cross

First, all children of God see the same Christ by faith. The object of faith is never different. It’s always JESUS on the Cross.

Secondly, there is always life in a sight of Christ, just as those who look to the bronze serpent were saved from death. By nature we are subject to perishing, and yet if we truly see Christ on the cross we will have eternal life.

And finally, “faith as looking” highlights the fact that it’s Jesus who saves us through faith.

Ephesians 2:8 Christian Standard Bible

⁸ For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—

We are called to look, to lean, to trust, to surrender to Christ on the Cross and we will be made whole.

What about you? Have you ever looked to Jesus?

Maybe the bitterness of sin isn’t yet real to you. You deny being bitten. And if there is no feeling or sense of sin, what is there for Christ to do?

Just a warning, if you continue to live in sin, you will become dull in it and the conviction of sin will no longer be there. That’s a dangerous place to live.

Second, we look for other ways to merit salvation. We look to religion or to the world to try and suffice the burning of the bite.

And then there is another group, you tend to look more at the sores of the snake bite than to Christ’s righteousness.

So, Jesus fulfilled the symbolism of the brass snake hanging on the pole.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CRUSHING THE CURSE

Why did Jesus have to go to a cross?

In Deuteronomy 21:22-23, it says that cursed is the man that hangs on the tree.

Now, why would it be important to understand that cursed is the man that hangs on the tree?

The Pharisees and the religious council accused Jesus of blasphemy, meaning that he would be cursed by hanging on a tree. So to them, they were mocking him and cursing him by crucifying him. But here's the great part that I want to tell you. The Bible said that Jesus Christ took the curse for us.

Galatians 3:10-13 Christian Standard Bible

¹⁰ For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, because it is written, Everyone who does not do everything written in the book of the law is cursed. ¹¹ Now it is clear that no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live by faith. ¹² But the law is not based on faith; instead, the one who does these things will live by them. ¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. 

 

Paul quotes that scripture. In other words, it took Jesus hanging upon a tree to be crucified in order to fulfill what the law said of Him being cursed, and him being cursed simply meant he took our sins, he took our curses upon himself. So, it required the tree.

 

THE FALL OF MANKIND

 

Adam, the first man in the Garden of Eden, he lost everything at a tree. The tree was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It required the second Adam, who is Jesus.

It required him to come to the planet and to hang on a tree, because

 

Romans 5:12-15 Christian Standard Bible

¹² Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned. ¹³ In fact, sin was in the world before the law, but sin is not charged to a person’s account when there is no law. ¹⁴ Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam’s transgression. He is a type of the Coming One.

¹⁵ But the gift is not like the trespass. For if by the one man’s trespass the many died, how much more have the grace of God and the gift which comes through the grace of the one man Jesus Christ overflowed to the many.

 

At a tree, the first man Adam lost it all, but on a tree, the second man Adam got it all back.

Paradise restored, heaven restored, the blessing of God restored. Praise God!!!!

 

LOOK AT THE CROSS

 

What image comes to your mind when you think of the cross? Last week I described some imagery of the cross. I want to go even deeper and probably blow some misconceptions and myths surrounding the cross.

This is the imagery that we usually see when we think of the cross:

A white, blue-eyed Jesus with a “woe is me” expression.

 

Did you know that in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem is this?

 

This the remains of a crucified victim…did you know about this artifact?

This is a real game changer.

It is the crucifixion bone of Givat Hamivtar. Let’s see what we can learn from it.

In 1968 researchers were working in these newly discovered tombs in Givat Hamivtar. They found these bones in an ossuary, which is a box or chest that is used in storing bones.

 

This was a Jewish custom that began around 37 BC and ended around 135 AD.

They were a key component for ancient Jewish burials. A person would die, be put in a tomb or grave and then after a year or so, they would take the bones and put them in an ossuary so that the next family member that died could use that tomb. This was their way of maintaining the Old Testament tradition of being “gathered to their fathers”.

 

This is the first time that we have ever found the bones of an actual crucifixion victim with a nail still attached to the bones.

 

So we see the nail is pierced through the right calcaneus bone….aka the “heel bone”, which by the way is the largest bone of the foot bones.

The iron nail was around 4-5 inches….now the only reason we have this because when the nail was being driven into the bone, the tip of the nail hit a knot in the olive wood beam of the cross.

So they couldn’t remove the nail so they buried it with the nail.

Did you notice I said Olive Tree?

What they discovered was that where it was bent, there were fragments of an Olive Tree…

So this proves that crucifixions were done on Olive trees.

There's one tree, one main tree in the Bible that symbolizes Israel, the olive tree. Jesus is the Messiah for the entire nation of Israel.

He must be crucified on the tree that represents Israel. The olive tree is also the tree where the anointing of the Holy Spirit that he will send to the earth after he is presented as the High Priest of Heaven which he did on the day of Pentecost.

 

And then on the other side…Acacia wood…which would be what the crown of thorns was made of.

 

This acacia wood is known in your Bible as the Shitham tree, which by the way is the tree that all the furniture of the Tabernacle was made from.

 

Another interesting thing you may not know:

They would put a seat a seat to for the person to sit on.

I always thought he hung and he would hang forward You know and they tied his arms and feet up, that he just hung. But there was a seat.

Now, y'all ready for this?

At the Nazareth Village which is an open-air museum in Israel that reconstructs and reenacts village life in the Galilee in the time of Jesus…They say that the seat was called the “mercy seat”. Because even though they were a criminal dying, they gave them just enough mercy to where they could relieve themselves by sitting and rise to catch their breath and just go back down on the seat.

But back to the image of the Crucifixion Bone of Givat Hamivtar.

 

Why is it important to understand that Jesus had wounds in his heel?

 

Genesis 3:15 Christian Standard Bible

¹⁵ I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring.
He will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.

 

Wow The oldest prophecy the oldest prophecy of the Bible is given by God himself Who predicts the defeat of Satan? but says now he's going to take that heel that you bruised and stomp you all over the place with it when it's all said and done.

 

Now I want to give you verse that will give you something even more to get excited about….

 

And when you talk about your heel, you know, one of the verses that's coming to my mind is over there in the book of

Romans 16:20 Christian Standard Bible

²⁰ The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

 

You want to know how to crush the enemy under your feet?

 

Romans 10:14-15 Christian Standard Bible

¹⁴ How, then, can they call on him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher? ¹⁵ And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.