
A person facing certain death
has no doubt about the reality of judgment.
At that instant he knows where his life is taking him;
he is no longer able to ignore the voice of his conscience.
He faced certain death. He not only sensed judgment
he stood before the judge and was condemned. The dreadful
sentence of death had been rendered. He bore the heavy weight
of our guilt as he left the court.
His was not a private execution before the eyes of a few
required witnesses. He walked before his countrymen, disfigured
by the brutal treatment of His guards. Strong men paled
at the sight of him and women wept. Step by awful step he
walked to where his life would finally be wrenched from
his battered body.
Many men had walked that grim path before. The guilt they
bore sealed their eternal destiny. Stumbling and collapsing
from exhaustion, He finally reached the place of execution.
In a few agonizing hours the public spectacle came to an
end. Those who were there heard him cry out about being
forsaken by God. He surely was.
There before the eyes of heaven and earth his life ended.
The weight of guilt thrust his righteous soul down into
the pit of death. Yet he didnt bear his own guilt
he bore ours. He willingly took upon himself the
anguish that our sins deserved. In all his suffering he
uttered no complaint and felt no bitterness.
His death was the greatest act of love ever demonstrated.
His innocent blood covered every unjust and filthy act that
we have ever done all the things we continued to
do against our conscience.
He spent three days and three nights in death, and that
was enough to pay for the sin of us all. The pain he went
through was enough. Even in death there was not one bit
of distrust or resistance to his Fathers will for
him. Thats why the full anguish of death was able
to reach the very core of his being in such a short time.
It more than equaled the suffering which the hard-hearted
will resist eternally as they continue to reason away their
guilty consciences.
When he had done all he was sent to do, his Father raised
him from the dead. Because of his innocence it was impossible
for death to hold him. In his death he purchased the earth
and all its inhabitants. In his resurrection he became King
to all who would follow him. His name Yahshua
means I am mighty and powerful to save. That same
power that raised him from the dead enables his disciples
to love one another the same way he loved us. It actually
breaks down the barriers that alienate human beings from
one another. It produces a life of love and unity
the evidence that God loves mankind and sacrificed His Son
to set us free.
He is our Liberator. Anyone who is willing to do his will
can come to him and be set free from death. God, in His
great mercy and loving kindness towards man, provided a
way that even the unjust and filthy could find forgiveness
and change their eternal destiny.