From the Lord Jesus’ baptism and the beginning of His ministry to the Passover recorded in John 2:13 was about half a year. From that Passover to the feast of the Jews recorded in John 5:1 was one year. From that feast to the Passover recorded in John 6:4 was another year. From this Passover to the Passover mentioned in John 12:1 and 19:14 was again another year, which was the year of His death. Hence, the Lord Jesus ministered and worked for about three and a half years. From this last Passover, counting back to the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes when the decree went out for the rebuilding of Jerusalem (Neh. 2:1-8), there are 483 years. Thus, this was the year of the completion of the sixty-ninth week mentioned in Daniel 9:24-26. It was on the day of the Passover in this year (Matt. 26:2) that the anointed One, Christ, was cut off, that is, nailed on the cross, and died at Golgotha (meaning the Place of a Skull—John 19:17-18) outside Jerusalem, as our Passover Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7).
After the Lord Jesus ate His last Passover and instituted His supper (Matt. 26:20-30) on the night of His crucifixion, He was betrayed by Judas Iscariot, one of His twelve disciples, and was arrested by the Roman soldiers and Jewish deputies outside Jerusalem in the Garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives (Matt. 26:36; John 18:1-2). Then He was judged on three occasions by the high priest of the Jews and their Sanhedrin (John 18:13-14, 19-24; Matt. 26:57-66; 27:1; Luke 22:66-71), and then judged on another three occasions, twice by Pilate, who was the Roman governor, and by Herod, according to the Roman law (Matt. 27:2, 11-14; Luke 23:1-5; John 18:28-38; Luke 23:6-11, 13-25). Although they could not find any fault in Him, in order to satisfy the crying and the demand of the Jews, they sentenced Him to the death of the cross and crucified Him with two robbers (Matt. 27:38). The Lord Jesus was on the cross from nine o’clock in the morning (Mark 15:25) to three o’clock in the afternoon (Matt. 27:46) for a total of six hours. During the first three hours, from nine o’clock until noon, men did the killing work on Him, making Him a martyr; during the last three hours, from noon until three o’clock, God, counting Him as the Substitute for sinners, smote Him and bruised Him, judging the sinners and their sins in Him (Isa. 53:5-6, 10a; 2 Cor. 5:21).
The death of the Lord Jesus was not the death of an ordinary man. He died on the cross with a sevenfold status to accomplish an all-inclusive death for us and for everything that He redeemed.
First, He died as the Lamb of God to deal with the totality of sin, including our sinful nature and sinful deeds (John 1:29; 1 Pet. 2:24; Heb. 9:26, 28; 1 Cor. 15:3).
Second, He died as a man in the flesh (John 1:14), in the likeness of the flesh of sin, in the form of fallen man, to condemn sin and to deal with the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3).
Third, He died as the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45b), as a man in the old creation, for us who are in the old creation, crucifying our old man on the cross (Rom. 6:6).
Fourth, He died as the brass serpent, having the serpent’s form but not the serpent’s poison. He was lifted up on the cross, and through His death He bruised the head of the ancient serpent (Gen. 3:15; Rev. 12:9), destroying Satan (Heb. 2:14) and his world (John 12:31), thus causing all those who believe in Him to have eternal life (John 3:15-16).
Fifth, He died as the Firstborn of all creation (Col. 1:15), as the first item of the old creation, to terminate the entire old creation, thus reconciling all created things to God (Col. 1:20).
Sixth, He also died as the Peacemaker, as the One who makes peace. Through the cross He abolished all the regulating and separating ordinances of the law—such as those concerning circumcision, keeping the Sabbath, and eating certain foods, and including the different ways of living, the different customs and habits that cause separations in human society. Thus He created all His believers, both Jews and Gentiles, in Himself into one new man (Eph. 2:14-16).
The six items above are on the negative side, solving all problems for us, the sinners.
Seventh, on the positive side, He died as a grain of wheat, falling into the ground to release the divine life (John 12:24) to us that, like Him, we may become many grains of wheat to be formed into one loaf as His Body (1 Cor. 10:17a).
Thus He accomplished an all-inclusive death with a sevenfold status.
In the death of the Lord Jesus, the Triune God—the Son with the Father through the Spirit—died and shed His blood for sinners in the human flesh of Jesus, accomplishing an eternal redemption. This is not only the Lord Jesus dying for us; it is the entire Triune God in the flesh of Jesus dying for us. (See chapter one of Christ as Revealed in the New Testament, published by Taiwan Gospel Book Room, 1984.)
Hebrews 9:14 says, “Christ...through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God.” On the cross, Christ offered Himself in the body to God (Heb. 10:5, 10), yet He did it through the eternal Spirit. Hence His offering is eternal, without any limit of time. Therefore, in the eyes of God, Christ, the Lamb of God, was slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). His offering of Himself was once for all (Heb. 7:27), and the redemption accomplished through His death is eternal (Heb. 9:12), having an eternal efficacy.
The blood shed on the cross by the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, is the blood of Jesus the Son of God. First John 1:7 says that “the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” When man sins, only human blood can wash away the human sin. Jesus is a man, and the blood He shed is the genuine human blood, qualified to redeem man. Furthermore, John did not say “the blood of Jesus the Son of Man,” but “the blood of Jesus His [God’s] Son.” This indicates that the blood shed by Jesus on the cross is not only the human blood, but also God’s blood (as mentioned in Acts 20:28), which has the surety of the unlimited power of God’s divinity. His unlimited divinity makes the redeeming efficacy of His blood eternal and unlimited. Therefore, the redemption accomplished by Christ is an eternal redemption. By shedding His blood and dying once, He is able to redeem all those who believe in Him, in all times and in all places. The efficacy of the blood of Jesus the Son of God is universal and eternal, not bound by time and space. Therefore, by the blood of Jesus the Son of God and through the eternal Spirit of God, Christ accomplished an eternal, unlimited redemption.