Love Laid His Life Down
“I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father”
John 10:14-18 | ESV | Bold and Italics added by me
(“Sheep that are not of this fold” is a reference to the Gentiles, non-Jews. Jesus is unifying both Jew and Gentile in His body; one flock, by laying down His life for both Jew and Gentile. Likewise, He was crucified by both.)
I recently learned something that I wish had been explained to me a while ago because of the magnitude it holds. While we may know the scriptures with our head, to embrace it with our being is an entirely different form of understanding, devotion, and obedience.
It’s just another layer added to the comprehension of just how much our Savior loves us… while we will never be able to fully comprehend the height and depth and breadth of the love of God during our ordained time among humanity, the Holy Spirit certainly reveals more when “we ask, seek, knock” (Matthew 7:7 ESV, Luke
11:9 ESV).
One of my favorite Bible teachers, Dr. Baruch Korman (Senior Lecturer at Zera Avraham Institute in Israel and founder of the Bible teaching ministry, Love Israel), explained the significance of the physical aspect of crucifixion and how this particular vessel of death—the most gruesome, painful, and demeaning at this time in history—works. It’s important to understand, Jesus was not screaming or arguing when He was led to be crucified. He was not debating, He was not scared and sobbing, nor was He responding to the condemnation of the religious leaders or whoever else mocked Him. He was silent—in absolute willingness and complete
obedience to The Father’s will; in full submission to crucifixion upon the cross.
So that Francesca could be with Him for all of eternity.
So that Peter could be with Him for all of eternity.
So that Aria could be with Him for all of eternity.
So that ________ could be with Him for all of eternity.
We were worth it to Him.
Now, the tool that was used in His flogging was a whip made up of many different cords of leather composed of shards of bones, metal, and glass. So when they were used to beat one’s back, each cord tore into the flesh as they moved across it. After they flogged Jesus all night long, Jesus emerged unrecognizable. His face was different. He was covered in blood, undressed and then dressed in a scarlet robe, “And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him…” (Matthew 27:28 ESV), hence, the full representation of sin. The color scarlet typically represents sin since the Old Testament, beginning in Isaiah: “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isaiah 1:18 ESV). This is significant because Jesus Christ never sinned, but had to become sin for our redemption. ”For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV).
Bloodied and unrecognizable, He carried our cross of splintering wood—undoubtedly piercing fresh, open wounds in His tender hands and fingers. Being fully human while at the same time fully God, the beating He endured left Him so weak that a man named Simeon carried the cross the remainder of the way to Golgotha. When they arrived, presumably atop the skulls and bones of those who had died there previously (another way they attempted to bring shame to Jesus was in the location they chose), it came time to nail Him down. However, when the soldiers went to nail Him to the cross, He denied the wine/sedative that was offered Him (Matthew 27:34), in order that He would feel the fullness of His pain and our sin.
Typically in a crucifixion, the Roman soldiers would give wine mixed with gall to momentarily deaden the sense of pain by creating a moderately sedative state while the individual was being nailed down. This is not to be mistaken as an act of mercy from the Roman soldiers—this particular location to drive the nail through was so painful that they did not want to deal with a writhing individual, so they sedated them. The location through the ankles in which the large nail was purposed to go through was a very painful location due to many incredibly sensitive nerves. Why did they choose this particular location? Because in order to breathe, the individuals being crucified would have to push up on the nail driven through their feet…but because of the location, it was too painful; thus, crucifixion causes people to die due to asphyxiation. Lack of oxygen.
To that effect, Jesus was not “killed” in terms of His life being “taken away” from Him. The scriptures do say, “...for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise” (Mark 9:31 ESV). Jesus does acknowledge that He will be killed, and that same word is used in the original Greek text (ἀποκτείνω, apokteinō → ap-ok-ti'-no, Strong’s Lexicon #G615). He also says, “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do” (Luke 12:4 ESV). They killed His body; they did not take His life. He laid it down…
This is the power of our Savior. Only Jesus Christ has complete sovereignty over life and death. As mentioned in the beginning, “For this reason my Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father” (John 10:14-18 ESV | Bold and Italics added by me).
He laid His life down. In those final moments where Jesus “would have been” low in oxygen, or “dying due to asphyxiation”, He demonstrates otherwise. Scripture says, “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” (Luke 23:44-46 ESV).
Likewise, Mark documents, “And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last… And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!’” (Mark 15:37,39 ESV).
And Matthew documents, “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” … And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit” (Matthew 27:45-46, 50 ESV).
Again, here is the power of Jesus Christ. Unyielding to death—because if death overtook Him, He would not have been able to utter a word strictly because of the process of asphyxiation due to crucifixion. At this point in the crucifixion process, it would have been impossible for anybody to utter a word, let alone have the oxygen necessary to release a “loud cry” and declare a full sentence. He laid His life down. He defeated death completely. His body may have been killed, but His Spirit was not. And that same Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead lives in us, His body of believers.
He laid His life down for ALL—for Jew and Gentile. He felt the fullest extent of pain possible so we wouldn’t have to in God’s coming wrath (Isaiah, Revelation, Colossians, Romans, Hebrews, etc.). He was led to the slaughter in silence; in complete submission to the Father’s will that He be crucified in the most gruesome, shameful way a person could die. He laid His life down on His own accord, and by His own authority He raised it back up. All of this… so Francesca could be with Him for all of eternity.
So that ________ could be with Him for all of eternity.
Because He would rather give up His life than be without us forever. And because many things that we will not comprehend until we are IN the presence of the King of kings and Lord of lords himself.
It’s a love story that never ceases. A love story that never gets old. A love story I pray I, my husband, and my children never lose the wonder of. A love story vehemently rejected by and unknown to the world but, by God’s grace and gift of the Holy Spirit, has been made known to His children.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16 ESV). Grammatically speaking, aside from other duties like adding information or separating items in a series, commas often signal a pause in order to bring attention to something. As in this scripture. So I encourage you to reread this scripture slowly:
For God so loved the world [pause]
that He gave his only Son [pause]
that whoever believes in Him should not perish [pause]
but have eternal life.
I’ll close with this. One of the best teachings I’ve received on John 3:16 came recently from Dr. Charles Stanley. He said, when someone asks you to give them a reason for your faith, it’s much simpler than we think: “The Lord said, ‘For God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life’…and I believe Him.”
And I believe Him.
He loves you—He loves you so, so much. He has loved you since the very beginning; since before the beginning of time, He knew you and adored you, knowing the price He would pay to reconcile you back to Him. You were worth it to Him then, and you are worth it to Him now.
