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About Jesus Steve Sweetman What
Happened To Jesus On The Cross? Before we talk about the
death of Jesus and what really took place on the cross, I should mention
one thing about His life. While
on earth Jesus lived a perfect life, without any hint of sin.
He was tempted as we are, but did not give into the temptation.
(Hebrews 4:15) We
must realize that God’s justice demands that we live the sinless life.
Our humanity does not allow that to happen.
God therefore, is in somewhat of a dilemma, if you can really say
that God is ever in a dilemma. The
answer to this problem is that Jesus lived the perfect and sinless life
for us. God now looks on the
perfect life of Jesus and that satisfies His sense of justice.
That is to say, someone actually did it.
Someone was actually perfect in every way possible.
So part of the reason why God can view us as sinless, or
righteous, is because Jesus lived that perfect life for us.
By righteous I mean, perfectly right in every way, as God Himself
is perfectly right in every way. This
is the way in which we can be viewed by God, if we trust in His
provision. The other reason why God
can view us as totally righteous and perfect is because of the sacrifice
Jesus made on the cross. So
what really happened to Jesus on the cross? A good place to start
this discussion is to read Isaiah 52 and 53.
This passage paints a clear picture of what took place with Jesus
while He was on the cross. Look first at Isaiah.
52:14. It says, “…His
appearance was so disfigured, beyond that of any man and His form marred
beyond human likeness”. There
has been no disputing concerning this verse.
The “He” that is referred to here is Jesus Himself.
It is commonly interpreted that this verse is a picture of Jesus
while on the cross. You see,
according to this verse, when Jesus was on the cross, He could not even
be distinguished as a man. He
was so marred and disfigured that you couldn’t tell who He was, or
even what He was. Why was Jesus so
disfigured? If you or I had
been nailed to a cross, you could have seen who we were and recognized
us while on the cross. So
why was this not the case with Jesus?
The next chapter of Isaiah tells us the answer.
Isaiah 53:4 says, “…He took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows.” Literally,
Jesus became sick with all of the diseases that were common to man.
He became sick on the cross, so that we might be healed from
various illnesses. This
alone would be sufficient to disfigure Jesus beyond recognition.
Verse 5 tells us more.
“He was pierced for
our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment
that brought us peace was upon Him”.
Jesus was being punished for our sins.
For every individual sin that has ever been sinned, both past,
present and future was laid to the account of Jesus.
For every one of those sins Jesus was punished and killed by God
in wrath and anger. Jesus
took the punishment for our sins in order that we would not have to be
punished by God for the sins that we commit daily.
Verse 9 and 10 of Isaiah
53 says that “He had done no violence, nor was deceit found in His
mouth. Yet it was the
Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer.”
You see the suffering of Jesus that ended in His death was
God’s will. This may be
hard to take, but God Himself needed to see Jesus suffer and die.
Not that He gloried in such a dreadful thing, but He knew this
was the only way to bring you and I back to Himself.
This was the only way to restore that which was lost in the
Garden of Eden. The life of Jesus did not
end at His death. Verse 11
of Isaiah 53 says that “He will see the light of life and will be
satisfied”. Jesus rose
from the dead and did see
the Light of Life. In so
doing Jesus “will justify many, (verse 11) and will be great, and
divide the spoils”. (verse 12) All
of this would come about because “He poured out His life unto
death”. (verse 12) God may
have needed to see Jesus die, but Jesus Himself willingly went to the
cross and died. If He had
not been so willing, we would be lost in our sins forever and receive
eternal punishment. God was
willing to see His Son die, yet on the other hand Jesus was willing to
die for us as well. There
was a willingness on the part of both Father and Son. Isaiah 52 and 53 paints
us a clear and vivid picture of what took place on the cross.
Jesus bore our sickness, and was punished for our sins. He became
disfigured beyond recognition. He
died in order that we could be healed from our sicknesses and forgiven
of our sins. Once our sins
are forgiven, we can be viewed by God as totally righteous because of
the righteous life that Jesus lived and because of His sacrifice of
love. In short, Jesus died for
our forgiveness, and lived for our righteousness.
Let me quote what Paul says in Romans 3:25 and 26.
“God presented Him (Jesus) as a sacrifice of atonement
… He did this to demonstrate His justice…”
Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was a demonstration of God’s
justice. We have touched on
this earlier, but let me repeat myself.
All along, in Old Testament days, God demanded us to give a
sacrifice for our sins. Yet
all along these sacrifices did not really satisfy God.
So God Himself decided to make a sacrifice for us that would
satisfy Him. He decided to
sacrifice His only Son (God in human flesh).
He needed to do this to fulfill His perfect sense of justice.
Sin had to be accounted for, and someone had to die for this sin.
God’s perfect justice could never let sin go unpunished for
ever. You and I might be
able to say, “well, that’s okay, don’t worry about the little
sin”, but God can never consider such a thing.
You must realize that God’s sense of justice is perfect and
does not waver. Yet at the
same time His perfect love is also at work.
How could God demonstrate His perfect love towards us while at
the same time be perfectly just and exhibit His all encompassing wrath
against us as sinners. You
see the dilemma? You have
two opposing things at work here. One
is God’s strong love towards us, and the other is His tremendous anger
against us due to our sin and His justice.
Well, as I said before, His love and His anger met together on
the cross. His anger was
poured out on Jesus, and in so doing, He spared us from a terrible
punishment, demonstrating His love and justice towards us, all in
one event. What a miracle.
Only God could do such a thing.
So on the cross, Jesus
bore all of our sickness, was punished for our sin, and received the
wrath of God in our place. One
more thing happened as well. Jesus
“disarmed the powers and authorities, making a public spectacle of
them”. (Colossians 2:15 ) The
Greek word “epakduo” is the word translated as “disarmed” in
this passage. “Epakduo”
means “to put off from one’s self”, or “to push away”.
Do you remember the words of Jesus when the soldiers came to
arrest Him in the garden? He
said in Luke 22:53, concerning the devil, “this is your hour, when
darkness reigns” You can
put these two verses together and it gives you another vantage point in
viewing the cross. Jesus
clearly said that “this was the hour of power for darkness”, meaning
that the devil and his host of helpers appeared to be in charge.
On the surface they were. Paul
says that Jesus disarmed, or pushed back the powers and authorities
while on the cross. Jesus
was actually being attacked by the devil and all of his hosts.
He could have called thousands of angels but He didn’t.
He fought the powers of darkness off and made a “public
spectacle of them.
Now not every person in the world saw what happened on the cross.
Only a few people stood at the foot of the cross.
Yet all of the spiritual powers and
authorities in the universe, whether good or evil saw this event.
Jesus won the war against the devil in front of
all the angelic world to see.
Can you imagine how the
devil must have felt when the soldiers arrested Jesus.
How elated he must have been.
Then can you imagine how he must have felt when Jesus was
executed. He must have felt so proud of himself, yet all along, He was a
tool of God Himself. God was
using the devil to work out His plan of salvation.
How irritated and embarrassed the devil must have felt when he
realized that he not only lost the battle, but was used as a tool of God
in the process. How ironic.
To conclude, the cross is
a multi-facetted event. Many
things took place while Jesus was on the cross.
A major book could be wrote to explain it all.
I have just skimmed the surface of
the subject. Jesus
became sick with all human diseases.
He experienced God’s wrath and anger, and was punished for our
sin. He was attacked by the
devil. Most important of
all, He rose from the dead in complete victory.
The
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