The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ - Part 2

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Well, last week, we began to study the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and I want us to complete that study today. We will, of course, end with the resurrection, but I think it's important for us to reflect on the reality of His death.

Crucifixion was a torturous means of execution intended to place an indelible stigma on its victim. Every step of crucifixion was actually intentionally designed to produce greater humiliation. Martin Hengel, in his book, Crucifixion in the Ancient World, documents that process of designed humiliation for the one who was to be crucified.

It began with a public trial, public in order to degrade the person's status, label the person as shameful. The sentence, the conviction, was followed by flogging, by torture, and especially by the shedding of blood, which was in itself, in the ancient world, a humiliation. They were forced to carry their own crossbeam to the site of execution.

All of their personal property, including their clothing, was confiscated. The execution of the crucified served as a crude form of entertainment. Crowds gathered in order to ridicule and to mock the one who was dying.

They were sometimes fastened to the cross in a distorted, even a comical way, in order to make fun of them, to bring shame. They were completely naked, and in the lengthy course of dying, often fouled themselves with urine and excrement. In many cases, they were denied an honorable burial.

Their corpse is left on display to be devoured by carrion birds and wild animals. You see, what Hengel wants us to realize, and what we need to realize sitting here in the twenty-first century, is that everything about crucifixion was designed to bring public shame. In fact, the Romans often referred to the cross as the Tree of Shame.

Cicero, the Roman philosopher, said, “Even the mere word ‘cross’ must remain far, not only from the lips of the citizens of Rome, but also from their thoughts, their eyes, and their ears.” Most Romans followed his advice. Because of the hundreds of thousands of crucifixions that Rome committed, the fullest accounts we have of them are in the Gospels.

So, the gospel of Jesus Christ, then, don't miss this, is the message about a man who was publicly humiliated and shamed. And yet, it is through this despicable act of public shame that God accomplished human redemption. God planned to save, to rescue those who believe in His Son from their sins, and to do so through the most horrific form of capital punishment in human history, death by crucifixion.

We're studying Mark's account of our Lord's crucifixion. I invite you to turn there with me, Mark chapter 15, Mark chapter 15, and I'll read the paragraph that actually records His crucifixion. Let's begin reading in verse 20. You follow along as I read. Mark 15, verse 20. 

After the soldiers had mocked Him, they took the purple robe off Him and put His own garments on Him, and they led Him out to crucify Him.

They pressed into service a passer-by coming from the country, Simon of Cyrene, (the father of Alexander and Rufus), to bear His cross. 

Then they brought Him to the place Golgotha, which is translated, Place of a Skull. They tried to give Him wine mixed with myrrh; but He did not take it. And they crucified Him, and divided up His garments among themselves, casting lots for them to decide what each man should take. It was the third hour when they crucified Him. The inscription of the charge against Him read, “The King of the Jews.” 

In these short verses, Mark records for us the historical event that stands at the very center of the Christian faith: The Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, the Divine Messiah.

Mark's account unfolds in several scenes, and we began to look at them last week. Last week, we studied the first scene in verses 20 and 21, the road to the cross. The road to the cross mattered from Herod's Praetorium in the upper west side of the ancient city of Jerusalem, 350 yards out the gate of the city to the site that is now marked by the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. That was the road Jesus took. And that road pointed first of all to the cross’ saving purpose. He went outside the gate to die.

The writer of Hebrews reminds us that that was intentional. Jesus died outside the gate just as the sacrifices on the Old Testament Day of Atonement were burned outside the gate. Why? Because Jesus' death was the fulfillment of the Old Testament Day of Atonement. His death was the Day of Atonement, to which all the others merely pointed. 

The road to the cross also, in verse 21, pictured the cross’-saving power. You remember that Jesus wasn't able to carry the cross beam, the patibulum of the cross, all the way from the praetorium, the 350 yards to the site of crucifixion. He stumbled and collapsed under its weight, and the Roman soldiers conscripted a passerby, a man named Simon, who was from Cyrene, to carry it. We discovered last week that Simon, his wife, and his two sons, Rufus and Alexander, all came to faith in Christ because of what happened that day. 

The sons are mentioned, and Simon's wife, in the book of Romans. Their conversion is a powerful picture of the saving power of Jesus' death on the cross. Think about it. Simon carried the cross for Jesus as Jesus bore the cross for him. 

We also started to study the second scene in this account last week, verses 22 to 25, records the record of the cross, the record of the cross. Mark begins his record of what actually happened at the cross with its grisly setting, verse 22.

“Then they brought Him to the place Golgotha, which is translated, Place of a Skull.” As we discovered, likely it was named that because some portion of that rise, that hill that was left after stones around it were quarried, that it probably resembled in some way a skull. That was the site just outside the city wall of Jerusalem.

We also noted last week its resolute Savior, verse 23, “They tried to give Him wine mixed with myrrh; but He did not take it.” Jesus refused a narcotic to limit His pain because He wanted nothing to dull his senses as He bore the sins of His people. Driven by His obedience to the Father and by His love for His own people, He chose to drink the wrath of God in full, senses undimmed, so that He could redeem them to the uttermost.

That's where we left off last week. Today, Mark's record of the crucifixion points next to its brutal suffering. It's brutal suffering. Look at verse 24, “And they crucified Him.” That's the record. In just three Greek words, Mark records the brutal way that the Lord Jesus Christ was executed. Josephus, the Jewish historian who witnessed hundreds of crucifixions, called it, “the most wretched of deaths.”

The practice actually began originally by forcibly impaling the body of a criminal, whether living or dead, onto a pointed stake. But crucifixion, as we usually think of it, may have been practiced, historians tell us that a number of times in ancient civilizations and cultures, like even the Assyrians, may have practiced some form of crucifixion.

But most historians believe that it was the Persians who first became known for this deadly act of execution. Alexander the Great borrowed this practice from the Persians. In fact, after the siege of Tyre, he crucified 2,000 along its banks.

He also introduced crucifixion to Egypt and to Carthage. And it's likely that the Romans learned the practice of crucifixion from Carthage. Crucifixion continued in the Roman Empire until Constantine outlawed it as an insult to Christianity.

Though the Romans didn't invent it, they certainly perfected it. Crucifixion was a form of capital punishment designed to produce a slow death with a maximum of pain and suffering. It was usually reserved in Roman law for slaves, for foreigners, for revolutionaries, for violent criminals, and for prisoners of war. Roman law protected Roman citizens from crucifixion except in extreme cases like desertion or treason. 

The gospel writers don't describe the process of crucifixion in detail. In fact, as I said, Mark here only gives us three Greek words, “and they crucified Him.” And the reason that they don't describe and delineate the process in detail is because those to whom they wrote had all seen it. It was very common across the ancient world and the Roman Empire. And once you had seen it, you didn't need to have it described again.

But since none of us have witnessed this horrific form of execution, we need to at least understand and appreciate what was involved. So, let's take a look at it for a moment. There were three primary variations of the cross. Some crosses were in the shape of the letter X. Others were in the shape of a capital T. And still others, a lowercase T, which was called the Latin Cross.

We know that's the kind of cross Jesus died on because the charges against Him were nailed above His head. So, He was crucified then on a Latin Cross, a lower letter T. Typically, the vertical beam, the Romans referred to it as the Crux Simplex, that vertical beam was left standing in the ground at the site of execution.

So, Jesus and these other two men, these criminals that He was crucified with, would have only carried the cross bars, or the Patibulum as it's called in Latin, from the Praetorium out to the site of execution. Once they arrived at the site, the soldiers forced Jesus to the ground on His back, stretched one of His hands along the Patibulum, or the cross bar, and secured it, and then secured the other. Sometimes they only tied the hands of the prisoner to the cross bar, but the Romans preferred nails. In Jesus' case, we know they used nails, because after His resurrection, He mentions the scars that were left from them. 

In 1968, Israeli archaeologists found in Jerusalem the remains of a crucified body dating from the time of Jesus Christ. It was the first authenticated evidence of the crucifixion from antiquity.

Here's a drawing from the Journal of the American Medical Association on what that crucified body was like. The nails were tapered iron spikes, five to seven inches long, with a square shaft about three-eighths of an inch near the head. And the nails were not driven into the palms, which wouldn't support the body. They were driven instead into the wrists. After the soldiers nailed the wrists to the crossbar, then they would have lifted that crossbar with Jesus attached up to the vertical post and attached it there. The vertical and the horizontal pieces were probably notched in order to fit together and to be easily secured. Often when the Romans crucified, there was a peg sticking out from the vertical post or a block of wood about halfway up in order to support some, very slightly, the weight of the body. 

The last part of the ordeal was securing the feet. Again, archaeology confirms that the Romans preferred nails. Usually, they nail the feet directly to the front of the vertical beam with a single nail. Sometimes they flex the knees and drove the nail through the arches of both feet. Other times, and this is the one that was found in Israel in 1968, the knees and legs were rotated, and then a single nail was driven through the heels of the feet.

This was the Crucifixion. They crucified Jesus. And thus began the ordeal of death by crucifixion.

Death by crucifixion was, in the end, a slow death by suffocation. That's how the prisoner eventually died. With Jesus' weight hanging primarily on His arms, He could draw air into His lungs, but He wasn't able to fully exhale.

As carbon dioxide built up within His body, His body then demanded more oxygen. And so, Jesus would have been forced to pull Himself up against the nails in his wrist, to push up against those in His feet, each time sliding His torn back against the rough timber of the cross. After gasping a breath of oxygen, then His body would collapse again, down onto the weight of His arms and that peg in His feet.

This continued constantly, every minute, hour after hour, cycles of pulling and twisting His body to get increasingly small gulps of air, searing pain, waves of terrible muscle cramps, shooting pain from the wounds and from His shredded back. Partial asphyxiation as carbon dioxide built up within His system and even dehydration began its terrible work. The ordeal of crucifixion was so horrific that one of the most poignant English words for suffering, excruciating, literally means “out of the cross” or “out of crucifixion.” The four Roman soldiers crucified Jesus and He began His endurance of its brutal suffering. 

Mark's record of the cross reminds us next and fourthly of its public shame. Look at verse 24 again. “And they crucified Him, and divided up His garments among themselves, casting lots for them to decide what each man should take.” Once they arrived at Golgotha, the soldiers would have removed all of Jesus' clothes. It was Roman practice to crucify the victim entirely naked.

It's possible because of Jewish standards of modesty that Jesus was still clothed in some kind of a loincloth, but it is highly unlikely. Roman law then allowed the execution squad to have the remains, to divide the possessions that the victim still had on His person. In Jesus' case, that was only His clothing.

Jesus had five pieces of clothing, as would be typical for a Jewish male in the first century. He had an inner garment. Then He had an outer garment, a belt or a sash that tied it together, a headdress of some kind, and sandals.

That meant that each soldier could have one of the pieces and they cast lots for who got which one. They could have divided the fifth piece into four parts, and that would have been normal. But in this case, Jesus' inner garment, John tells us, was seamless. But in this case, Jesus’ inner garment, John tell us, was seamless. It was woven in one piece. That meant that His inner garment was finely crafted and very expensive. Undoubtedly, a gift from one of His devoted disciples. So, they decided instead of tearing it up to cast lots for it meaning that one soldier gets in the end, two pieces of Jesus’ clothing. They used the dice that they had brought as the Roman soldiers often did to pass the hours of waiting on the death of the criminal. 

John explicitly says that this happened. They divided His garments to fulfill Psalm 22:18, “They divide My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.” But I don't want you to miss the larger point in verse 24. As you read verse 24, look at it again. Don't miss the big point. The public shame that Jesus Christ, God's only Son, endured in His suffering and death. He hung on the cross naked in open public shame. 

There's really a profound spiritual picture in that. Jesus himself pointed it out in Revelation chapter 3. Jesus makes it clear that without Him, without Jesus Christ, all of us are spiritually naked before God. Nothing to cover our shame. Here's how He put it in Revelation 3:18. Jesus said this to the unbelievers in the church there. He says, “I advise you to buy from Me … white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed.”

Christ told the unbelievers there and He would say to you today, friend, if you don't know Jesus Christ, He would say you need to cover the shame of your spiritual nakedness before God by receiving the gift of My righteousness as your garment. You see, Christ bore our shame on the cross. We often sing about that. He bore our shame on the cross so that we can be unashamed and can be clothed in His righteousness.

Mark's record alludes to another detail about the cross in verse 25. It's divine schedule. It's divine schedule. Don't miss what's going on in the Passion Week. On Wednesday of that week, the Jewish Sanhedrin, the High Court of Israel, decided not to arrest Jesus the week of Passover. They made that decision because they feared that if they did, there were too many pilgrims in the city for Passover, there could be a riot that breaks out.

But at that very moment, that they make that decision on Wednesday, in God's providence, Judas arrived, offering to betray Jesus when He could be arrested quietly, because Judas knew all of the quiet places that Jesus and His disciples hung out. So, because of that, the Sanhedrin and the leaders of the people were able to arrest Jesus, as you know, about midnight, Thursday night in the Garden of Gethsemane, as He gathered there to pray with His disciples. At first light, Friday morning, they formally announced Him guilty and worthy of death, and then immediately took Him over to Pilate.

Shortly thereafter, look at verse 25, “It was the third hour,”—that's 9 a.m. by Jewish reckoning_— “when they crucified Him.” Verse 33, “When the sixth hour came,”—here's another mark in the divine schedule—"when the sixth hour came”—that's noon—"darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour.” Verse 34 gives us the final mark on the divine schedule: “At the ninth hour”—3 p.m.—"Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’”

And shortly after that, verse 37, “Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed His last.” Now why is that important? Do you understand what's happening here? Jesus had to die on Friday. Even though they decided on Wednesday, it couldn't happen during the Passover. He had to die on Friday.

And He had to die at 3 p.m., and He chose to die at 3 p.m. Remember what He said? He said, “No one takes My life from Me. I give My life. I lay it down.” He gave His Spirit to God and breathed His last on His own timetable. And it had to be 3. Why? Because that was the time of the afternoon sacrifice in the temple nearby. And that Friday was also Passover.

So, at 3 p.m., when Jesus died, intentionally the Passover lambs were being slain nearby at the temple. Three years before, three and a half years before, John the Baptist had seen Jesus walking by and pointed at Him and said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” He said, Jesus is the one who will fulfill the entire Old Testament sacrificial system.

He is the perfect sacrifice that will take away human sin forever. You see, Jesus had to die on Friday, Passover, and He had to die at 3 o'clock in the afternoon when the Passover lambs were being slain, because as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5:7, “Christ, our Passover lamb, is slain.” He's offered. He has been sacrificed. That's why Jesus' death had to happen on this divine schedule, had to be Friday, had to be 3 o'clock, because He was the Passover lamb. That's the record of the cross.

The third scene back in our text gives us the reasons for the cross. There were many reasons, of course, for the cross, but we learned the first reason here from Pilate's written explanation. It was written over Jesus' head. Look at verse 26, “The inscription of the charge against Him read, ‘The king of the Jews.’” Now, there's one other thing about crucifixion I haven't told you that you really need to know, and that is that crucifixion was intended in part to serve as a deterrent to further criminal actions. The Roman author Quintilian writes this, “Whenever we crucify the guilty, the most crowded roads are chosen where the most people can see and be moved by this fear.”

So, when the Romans crucified someone, they always made sure that everyone knew why. Because it was to deter others from taking that same action. Typically, Roman soldiers would whiten a board with chalk.

And then they would write either in black or red letters the crime. As they led the person to execution, that board was hung around his neck typically. And when they arrived at the site of execution, they either left it hanging around his neck, or they would nail it to the cross over His head.

With Jesus, we know that's what happened, because Matthew 27:37 says, “They put up above His head the charge against Him.” John tells us it was written in three languages. It was written in Latin, in Aramaic and in Greek. Why? So that everybody would know what this person was dying for. 

Put the four gospel accounts together, and the charge that was written and posted above Jesus' head read like this: “This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” John tells us the Jewish leaders hated that Pilate had that written. In fact, they said, “You need to change that.”

You need to say He claimed to be the King of the Jews, but Pilate refused. I'm sure there are several reasons, but undoubtedly one of them was it was a great way to get back at the Jews whom he knew had used him that morning. But there's another more important reason that Pilate didn't change the written charge above Jesus' head, and that's because God didn't want it changed. Because through this inscription, written in the three common languages of the first century, God Himself spoke. God was saying, “This is Jesus of Nazareth, and He truly is the rightful King of the Jews.” 

But understand that that saying above the cross was saying more than Jesus claimed to be a human king. It was saying more than that. When the High Court, the Jewish Sanhedrin, first brought Jesus to Pilate early that morning, Luke tells us what they said. Luke 23, verse 1, “The whole body of them got up and brought Him before Pilate, and they began to accuse Him.”—and here's what they accused Him of before Pilate: “We found this man misleading our nation.” Not true. “We found Him forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar.” Again, not true. But thirdly, this is what they said, “And He is saying that He Himself is the Christ, the Messiah, a king.”

This is why Pilate responds the way he does. Go back to chapter 15 verse 2, “Pilate questioned Him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ And He answered him, ‘It is as you say.’” Here verse 9, “Pilate answered them saying, ‘Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?’” Verse 12, “Answering again, Pilate said to them, ‘What shall I do with Him whom you call the King of the Jews?’”

The soldiers get in on it, verse 17, “They dressed Him up in purple, and after twisting a crown of thorns, they put it on Him; and they began to acclaim Him, ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’” And 

“They kept beating His head with a reed.” They had given Him a reed as a pretend scepter. And as they came up, supposedly to give Him homage, the soldier would grab that reed out of His hand as to say, here's how powerful you are. And then they'd beat Him about the head and shoulders with that pretend scepter. And it goes on to say, they were spitting on Him. That was their way to acknowledge His greatness, “and kneeling and bowing before Him.”

You see, when Pilate wrote the King of the Jews, He meant that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah. And that becomes clearer in the taunts at the cross. Look down at verse 32. These are Jesus' enemies. And what do they say? “Let this Messiah, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross so that we may see and believe in Him.”

So, you see that Pilate's written charge above Jesus' head, and the reason from Pilate's perspective for His death is that Jesus of Nazareth claimed to be the promised Messiah, the divine King of Israel.

Another reason from the cross, or for the cross rather, comes from God's written explanation. Jesus' crucifixion wasn't unique because of His physical suffering. Rome crucified hundreds of thousands over its history, and they all suffered like Jesus suffered. But because of the divine reason, a reason that had been recorded hundreds of years before, that's why Jesus' crucifixion was unique. Turn back with me to Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53, we read it Friday night at the Communion service, but I want you to look at how clearly Isaiah puts the cause for Jesus' death. As he talks about the Messiah's death, he says in verse—let's go back to verse 4. He says, “Surely our griefs He Himself bore.”

Now what's going on here is Isaiah's recording what the Jews who will be saved in the future at the second coming of Christ, when they will see the one whom they pierced and they will mourn for Him as an only son, they're looking back and saying, how did we treat Jesus when He was here? And then they will realize, “Surely our griefs He Himself bore and our sorrows He carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.”

When He died, we thought He deserved it. But it's not true. “He was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed.” That word in Hebrew is used in other places, the crushing of a moth. “He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening”—or the punishment, literally in Hebrew—“for our shalom, our peace with God—"fell upon Him, and by His scourging, we are [spiritually] healed.” 

Verse six says it so powerfully: “All of us”—without exception—"like sheep have gone astray.” And here's how it happened: “Each of us has turned to His own way.” In other words, we didn't wake up one morning and discover we were sinners by accident. We chose to rebel against God, our creator. 

But verse six, “Yahweh has caused the iniquity.” The word means “the legal guilt.” Yahweh has caused the legal guilt of all of us who have now come to believe in Him to fall on the Messiah, to strike Him, literally. This was the reason He had to die.

Look down in verse eight. I pointed this out Friday night, but the second half of verse eight, “He was cut off out of the land of the living.” He died “for the transgression of My people, to whom the stroke was due.”

In other words, the innocent one died in the place of the guilty. Verse ten makes it crystal clear, “But Yahweh was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief.” Why? What's the point? Verse 10, because He was rendering Himself as a guilt offering. There's the reason for His death.

In other words, He was the innocent substitute for us who were guilty. He died bearing the wrath of God our sins deserved. He suffered for every sin of every person who would ever believe in Jesus Christ.

Look at verse 11, second half of the verse: “My servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities.” And verse 12, the same thing at the end, “Yet He Himself bore the sin of many.”

That's the reason Jesus had to die. On the cross, God credited to Jesus' account every single sin of every person who would ever trust in Jesus. And during those six dark hours, God treated Jesus as if He had committed those sins, although He never had.

And He paid the debt in full, so that God could be just and forgive sinners. Jesus confirmed this was the reason for His death. In Mark chapter 10, verse 45, He says, “The Son of Man came to give His life as a ransom payment”—literally in Greek: “in the place of many,” “as the substitute for many.”

Jesus' suffering and death in the place of sinners proves two profound spiritual realities. First of all, it shows us what our sins deserve. If you want to know, you know, we tend to think pretty lightly about our own sins. You know, we look around and we look at child abusers and terrorists and rapists and murderers, and we think, well, those are really bad people. They deserve what they get. But we always tend to excuse our own sin and think lightly about our own sin.

If you want to know what your sins deserve before God, just look at how God was forced to treat his only Son when he bore the sins of his people. That's what they deserve. That's what mine deserve.

And let me say, friend, and I say this with a great deal of trembling, but it's the reality. Jesus said this. If you refuse to believe in God's Son, if you refuse to take the gift that's given to you in Jesus Christ, then what Jesus suffered on the cross is just a glimpse of the suffering that awaits you after death.

That's what Jesus said. His suffering and death in the place of sinners also shows us wonderfully how we can be right with God. This was the way God chose to reconcile sinners to himself.

In other words, this is the only way. If God decided this was the cost to make you, His child, then it means it's the only way it could happen. It's the only way He could forgive you.

Somebody had to die for your sins. They deserved God's justice and Jesus volunteered. And on the cross, He took the weight of sin for everyone who would ever believe in Him.

You see, you need to understand, if you're here this morning and you're not in Christ, Jesus' sinless life, His substitutionary death, and His supernatural resurrection, those are the only ways that you can be forgiven your sins. There is no other way. If God said, that's the payment, what makes you think that you can be good enough for God?

What makes you think that you're going to get to the judgment and your good is going to outweigh your bad? If God said, the only way it can happen is the death of my Son in this way, that's the only hope you and I have. So those are the reasons for the cross.

That brings us to a fourth and final scene. It's not here in our text, but it comes shortly, and that is God's response to the cross. How does God respond to Jesus' death and crucifixion?

Well, you know the big one. It's the one we're here to celebrate today. He raised Jesus from the dead. Go over to chapter 16, back in Mark, chapter 16, the first 6 verses record the resurrection, but go to verse 6 specifically. “The angel said to the women, ‘Do not be amazed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; He's not here; behold, here is the place where they laid Him.’” 

All three members of the Trinity were involved in the resurrection, according to the New Testament, but Paul puts it this way in Acts 13 verse 30, “God raised Him from the dead.” That's God's vote on what Jesus deserved and on what Jesus accomplished.

Number two, God's second response to the cross is, in the resurrection, He declared Jesus to be His Son. Romans chapter 1, verse 4, “Jesus was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” If you're here this morning and you've got some lingering doubts about who Jesus is, God says you have no right to have them because I've proven it to you. I've raised my Son from the dead and I've allowed witnesses, more than 500 at one time to see Him. You don't need any more proof. It's just unbelief at this point. 

Number three, in response to Jesus’ death, God has made Jesus the judge of the living and the dead. Acts 10 verse 42, Peter says to Cornelius, God “ordered us”—listen to this—"God ordered us to preach to the people, and solemnly to testify that [Jesus] is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead.” You know, because Jesus humbled Himself, Philippians 2, humbled Himself by taking on our humanity, because He humbled Himself even to the point of death, and not just any death, but the humiliating public shame of death on a cross for us.

Because of that, Paul says, God has highly exalted Him and given Him a name above every name, the name Lord. At His name, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. Listen friend, someday you will stand before Jesus Christ. And either you will stand before Him with joy and celebration because you have trusted in Him as your Savior and Lord, or you will stand before Him as your judge, but stand before Him, you will.

Every person in this room, every human who's ever lived or ever will live, will stand personally, individually before Jesus Christ. And God says, I want you to declare this to the people, He is the Judge of the living and the dead. 

Number four, He commands you to repent and believe in His Son. Paul couldn't have been any clearer about this. He was on Mars Hill in Athens, in front of the greatest philosophers of Greece. And what does He say to them? Acts 17:30, “God is now declaring to men,”—listen to this—“God is now declaring to men that all men everywhere should repent.” 

That's God's message to you. What we celebrate today is God's exclamation point to say, listen, this is my Son. Listen to Him. Believe in Him. He's declaring to men that all everywhere should repent “because He has fixed the day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men.” Here's your proof, “He raised Him from the dead.” God says, you must believe in My Son. That's what God would say to you today. He is saying that to you if you haven't already repented of your sins and believed in His Son. 

Number five, God demands that Jesus' true followers love and obey His Son. You remember what He said at the baptism of Jesus? He said, “This is My beloved Son.” Later He said, “This is My beloved Son. Listen to Him.” Listen to him. He demands that we love and obey His Son. I love the way it's put in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 24. Paul ends the letter to the church in Ephesus saying, “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ.” That's just another way of saying, “Grace be with all Christians because all Christians love the Lord Jesus Christ.” He puts it negatively in 1 Corinthians 16:22, “If anyone does not love the Lord, he is accursed, he is damned.”

That's a pretty strong statement. And that's very clear. You see, the truest test of whether you're a Christian is do you love Jesus Christ? I'm really asking you, in your own heart of hearts, do you love Jesus Christ? If you don't love Jesus Christ, then you're not His follower and you're under the curse of God. You say, well, wait a minute, of course I love Jesus. There are a whole lot of people who say they love Jesus. They're going to show up at the judgment and Jesus says, “I am going to say to them, I never knew you, depart from Me.” 

So, the big question is how can I know? What's the proof that I love Him? Let me say to you, it's not the fact that you've had some emotional experiences, some spiritual, emotional experiences in your life. That's not the proof that you love Him. It's not that you read your Bible. It's not that you listen to sermons. It's not that you attend church regularly.

It's not that you show up on Easter. The proof that you love Jesus, according to Jesus Himself, is that you consistently obey Him. Listen to what He said: John 14:15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” Few verses later, John 14:21, “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me.” A few verses later, John 14:23 and 24, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word.” And then He puts it this way, “He who does not love Me does not keep My words.” Couldn't be any clearer.

So, if you're here today and you claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ, but you don't love Jesus, meaning that you don't consistently obey His Word, then Jesus says at the judgment He's going to say to you, “I never knew you.” If as a pattern of your life you don't obey Jesus, then you don't love Him, you're not a true Christian, and you are accursed according to Paul. And my prayer is that today you will truly repent and come to believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But if you're here this morning and you say, Tom, you know, it's not perfect. I waver in my love for Jesus, but I really do love Him. And I consistently obey him as evidence of that love, then you really do love Him. And you have proof that you have received His grace. It’s proof that you have personally received the benefits of His suffering and death. You have received the forgiveness of your sins, the gift of the Holy Spirit and the gift of eternal life. “Grace be with all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ.” This friends is the message of the cross. In 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18, Paul says this, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. 

If you're sitting there this morning going, that's just ridiculous. It's because you're perishing. You're lost. You're on your way to eternal hell. And I plead with you to respond in repentance and faith to the only way you can be right with your Creator. But the verse goes on to say, “The message of the cross to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.” It’s the promise of heaven. It’s the promise of forgiveness. It’s the promise of everything we seek. It’s in Him. Let’s pray together. 

Father, thank You for our time together this morning. Thank You for the record of the cross and Lord, Your response to it. We thank you for the clarity of Your Word. I pray that You would use it in all our hearts.

Lord, I pray for those here this morning who truly do know and love Your Son and live consistent lives of obedience to Him seeking to do what honors Him. Lord, encourage their hearts, strengthen them, build them up in their faith, and only deepen their love for your Son. 

But Lord, I pray for those who are here this morning who are not in Christ. Perhaps they came in this morning painfully aware of that, or perhaps, Father, they came in self-deceived, clinging to some childhood profession when their lives show no evidence of love for and obedience to Jesus Christ. Lord, remove the blinders from their eyes, help them to see the truth, and may this be the day they genuinely repent and believe in your Son, in whom to believe is to have eternal life. Lord, that's my prayer. May You do that, not because any of us deserve it, but for the glory of Your Son who is worthy. And it's in His name we pray. Amen.