Why did Jesus die? Who killed him? What was his death really about? What did Jesus say about it?
Jesus knew he was going to the cross, so what was he expecting? Did he say he was going to suffer the just punishment for our sins from his father?
Was Jesus expecting abandonment and rejection from his father? Or was he expecting rejection from the religious and political world system.
Luke 9: 44Let these sayings sink down (set,” “put,” “place)
into your ears: for the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men. 45But they understood not this saying, and it was hid from them, that they perceived it not: and they feared to ask him of that saying.
Let these words sink into your ears, this is a strong statement. Really, really listen to this. For the son of man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. Not into the hands of God.
Matthew 16:21 from that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and raised up on the third day.
Mark 9:31 for he was teaching his disciples and telling them the son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him.
So did God kill Jesus? No, mankind killed him.
Matthew 20:18-19 behold we are going up to Jerusalem: and the son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes and they will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify him, and on the third he will be raised up.
So we have here both the Jews and the gentiles. So Jesus made it really clear where and who was going to punish him.
acts 2: 22Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: 23Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:
God sent Jesus and Jesus came knowing what was going to happen to him.
God did not nail him to a cross; it says you nailed him to the cross and put him to death.
Jesus died at the hands of ruthless men, Jews and Gentiles who represented the religious and political systems of the world, they agreed together to condemn Jesus to keep their system of control going.
They were ruling, they were in control of the political and religious systems. And they wanted to keep control and did not want to give it up. So God did not condemn Jesus to death on a cross, but he did use the situation to engage with us. To deal with the issues inside of us that were stopping us being in relationship with him.
Isa 53:3 He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Nothing to do with God hiding from him
Isa 53:4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But He was pierced through by our transgressions, He was crushed by our iniquities; the chastening for our wellbeing fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.
We are the ones who esteemed him stricken, smitten of God. We are the ones who said that God did that to him.
The cross wasn’t a demonstration of God’s wrath towards humanity but a demonstration of God’s love towards humanity.
Psalm 221My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
Did the father forsake Jesus on the cross?
Psalm 22: 24For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.
When Jesus cried out, my God, my God why have your forsaken me, he was identifying with us on the cross in our brokenness and deepest darkness.
He cried out because he came to die as us. He took our separation and cried out because it was real, what he was going through on the cross.
John 16:32 Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.
Jesus knew He would not be abandoned by His Father. So what was his death all about?
Jesus was the last Adam; he was not the second Adam. There were only two Adams.
The first Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is what is called a trading floor. He traded what God had given him for a knowledge that Satan offered him.
An exchange took place between Adam and Satan; Adams D.N.A was no longer pure. He partook of spiritual death, his soul became self-conscious apart from God, and his body became subject to death.
In our D.N.A we have a record that goes all the way back to the first Adam.
Through the virgin birth the last Adam’s D.N.A was pure. When Jesus died on the cross the whole human race died with him.
When Jesus was raised from the dead he became the second man. This is an entirely different creation than the first Adam.
Jesus as the last Adam was the exact representation of the father because his D.N.A was not mixed but pure. He demonstrated the divine nature of the Father. He was willing to lay down his life, because he never did anything separate from the Father, no matter how hard it would be.
The angels came to strengthen him in the garden of Gethsemane as the Father revealed what he was going to go through. He will filled with the power of God, so that when they came to arrest him, they all fell over because of the power of God released in his words.
All the disciples took off and fled. The whole human race rejected him, and no one stood with him.
God is omnipresent, that means that he is inside ever person. But not every person is going to experience him unless they learn how to open their spirit to him. When we open our Spirit to God, the D.N.A of the living word of God impregnates it.
The cross of Jesus Christ is a trading floor, where we exchange our D.N.A for God’s. Jesus said unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you.
It is our D.N.A that keeps us tied to the earth. The cross is the provision of God for us to be transformed, a whole different kind of life form. The Holy Spirit is going to teach us how to partake of it.
Matthew 27:45 Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. 46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
47 And some of those who were standing there, when they heard it, began saying, “This man is calling for Elijah.” 48 Immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink. 49 But the rest of them said, “Let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him.” 50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. 51 And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split. 52 The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53 and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many. 54 Now the centurion, and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said, “Truly this was dthe Son of God!”
Exodus 14: 19 Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, 20 coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long.
Psalm 105: 38Egypt was glad when they departed; For the fear of them had fallen upon them. 39He spread a cloud for a covering, And fire to give light in the night.
God hides himself in a dark cloud, because the fullness of His glory would kill our mortal body.
When Jesus was on the cross, for three hours the Father in the dark cloud covered Him, and everyone experienced darkness over the land. The Father was right there when Jesus was on the cross. When Jesus yielded up His spirit to the Father the cloud lifted.
When Jesus cried out on the Cross, My God, my God why have you forsaken me, He was identifying with the fallen race of the First Adam, he was experiencing what the fallen race of Adam and Eve experience when they die without knowing the Lord.