SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/11/2017
8:45 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 “The Specific Fulfillments”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John
19:17-18, 23-25a
Message of the
verses: “17 They took Jesus,
therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called the
Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha. 18 There they crucified
Him, and with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between…
23 Then the soldiers, when they had
crucified Jesus, took His outer garments and made four parts, a part to every
soldier and also the tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece. 24
So they said to one another, "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to
decide whose it shall be"; this was to fulfill the Scripture: "THEY
DIVIDED MY OUTER GARMENTS AMONG THEM, AND FOR MY CLOTHING THEY CAST LOTS."
25 Therefore the soldiers did these things.”
You may have noticed that I had to edit the verses from
our last SD that we are looking at in this section as I had the wrong verses in
that SD, but corrected it.
Now as we begin this SD we want to look at “the place
called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha.” The word in Latin is “Calvary.” There is speculation as to why the place was
named the “Skull” but no one knows for sure, however once such theory is that
the place its self looked like a skull.
When I was living on the Hawaiian island of Kauai for eight months we
used to drive by a place that was called “King Kong Mountain,” as there was a
mountain top that looked like King Kong, and so perhaps this place really
looked like a skull and thus got its name.
John MacArthur writes on the subject of crucifixion: “Crucifixion originated in Persia, and had
come down to the Romans through the Phoenicians and Carthaginians. The Romans had perfected the art of prolonging
the victim’s agony as he was slowly tortured to death. Most hung on their crosses for days, before
succumbing to exhaustion, dehydration, shock, or suffocation, when the victim
could no longer raise himself into a position where he could breathe.” None of the gospel writers spoke of the
horrible things that went on when Jesus was crucified. I suppose that what David wrote in Psalm 22
speaks more of the horrible things that went on during crucifixion, and he
wrote it many, many years before anyone was crucified. John simply states “There they crucified Him.” Our Lord suffered much more than the physical
torment of crucifixion as He was separated from His Father for the very first
time, and also He became sin for us that we might receive His righteousness. Jesus quotes the very first verse of the 22nd
Psalm in Matthew 27:46 “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? (Psalm
22:1a). We believe that as God was
pouring out His wrath on His Son for three hours, in order for Him to pay for
our sins, that this is why the earth turned dark at this time.
John MacArthur, in his commentary speaks of some different
OT prophecies that were fulfilled during Christ’s crucifixion and one of those
is found in the book of numbers where we find Israel once again disobeying God
and so God brings into the camp poisonous snakes to bite and kill some of the
children of Israel. They cry out to
Moses and he cries out to the Lord as Israel repents of her wrongdoing and God
tells Moses to make a bronze snake and place it on a poll and anyone who looked
at that snake when bitten would be healed.
Bronze represents judgment in the Word of God and Jesus took our
judgment while on the cross. Jesus
refers to this incident as a typological prediction on how He would die in John
3:14 as He was speaking to Nicodemus: "As
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up.’” Later on in John’s gospel
Jesus says more about this “So Jesus said, "When you lift up the Son of
Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative,
but I speak these things as the Father taught Me (John 8:28).” “32 “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth,
will draw all men to Myself." 33 But He was saying this to indicate the
kind of death by which He was to die (John 12:32-33).”
In our next SD I want to go over more in detail what
Psalm 22 has to say and then compare it with what happened at the crucifixion
of our Lord.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Cornelius” (Acts 10:1).
Today’s Bible
question: “What two books in the New
Testament each have 28 chapters?”
Answer in our next SD.
5/11/2017 9:27 AM
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