After the Lord Jesus had spoken these three sentences, there was darkness over all the land. God heard the prayer of the Lord, and He laid all the sins of the world upon the Lord Jesus. God made Him who knew no sin become sin on our behalf. God not only saves us according to His grace; He also saves us according to His righteousness. God not only has mercy on us; He also paid the price for us and repaid everything we ever owed.
At about three in the afternoon, the Lord spoke four more sentences. Fourth, He said, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46). Many martyrs, who experience man’s persecution and severe punishment, do not show any sign of sorrow or self-pity. Rather, they feel that God is very near to them. Our Lord was obedient to God all His life. Therefore, if He was only crucified on the cross through the persecution of man, God should have been much nearer to Him! How could God ever forsake Him when man forsook Him? Thank and praise God! On the cross our Lord did not die a martyr’s death; rather, He died bearing the sins of all mankind. God put our sins upon Him, and God crucified Him. After the Lord spoke the first three sentences, God heard the Lord Jesus’ prayer and put all the sins of mankind upon Him. Then the Lord knew that God had forsaken Him.
Fifth, He said, “I thirst” (John 19:28). Thirstiness is a condition of hell, a characteristic of the suffering of hell. The rich man in Luke 16 was in the fire of Hades without a drop of water. There is no other place that causes more thirst than hell. At that moment the Lord suffered the punishment of hell on man’s behalf and tasted death for every man because He bore our sins (Heb. 2:9).
Sixth, He said, “It is finished!” (John 19:30). This indicates that the work of redemption was finished. The Lord had borne the sins of man and received the penalty of sin for man.
Seventh, He said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit” (Luke 23:46). Earlier the Lord had said, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” He said this because He was standing on the ground of bearing man’s sins. But here He was able to say, “Father,” because after the redemptive work was accomplished, His fellowship with the Father was instantly restored. The Lord laid down His life voluntarily, and He committed His life to God. He said, “No one takes it away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it again” (John 10:18). If He had not done so, not even a hundred crosses could have taken the Lord’s life away.
Our sins have been taken away by the most righteous Lord. According to His righteousness, God can no longer choose to forgive or not forgive us; He must forgive us because Christ has already died and become the sin offering.
Since the Lord did not accomplish the work of redemption until His death on the cross, perhaps some will ask how He could have forgiven man’s sins before His death. This is possible because God reckoned the cross as an accomplished fact even before Christ’s death. John 3:15 says, “That every one who believes into Him may have eternal life.” John 6:54 says, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life.” These passages show us that even when the Lord was on the earth, everyone who believed in Him could have eternal life. Revelation 13:8 says, “The Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world.” The Lord is the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world. Therefore, the church is not limited by space (for the Body of Christ is one), while the cross is not limited by time (for even in the Old Testament, God could forgive people). In the Old Testament, anyone who killed another person accidentally could flee to a city of refuge where no one could seize his life, and he would be free when the high priest died (Num. 35:25-28). This signifies that even before Christ’s death, if anyone hid in Christ, he would be safe and free upon the death of Christ.
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