Text: “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, la`-ma sa-bach`-than-ni? That is to say, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
Matthew 27:46.
“He
is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:
and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him
not. Surely He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem
Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for OUR transgressions He was bruised for OUR
iniquities: the chastisement of OUR peace was upon Him (for our sins); and with
His stripes we are healed (from sin).”
Isaiah 53:3-5.
Good morning, Christ-focused
Christian! When you and I study God’s
Word as written in our KJV Bibles, God the Spirit, Who has quickened us and
granted us Spiritual life in Christ, always prompts us to try to see Jesus in
every page of our Bibles, Old Testament and New.
“And ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when
ye shall search for Me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith
the Lord: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all
the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the Lord;
and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried
away captive.” (Jeremiah 29:13-14)
Typology: “A Type is a
shadow cast on the pages of Old Testament history by a truth whose full
embodiment or antitype is found in the New Testament revelation” (Baker’s
Dictionary of Theology.) “The legitimacy of recognizing typology in Biblical
exegesis is established by the New Testament itself.” (Dictionary of
Theological Terms, by the late Alan Cairns)
For example: Jonah was three
days in the belly of the great fish this is a TYPE of the Lord Jesus Christ
lying for three days in the tomb. Jonah was brought up onto dry land by the
great fish; Christ Jesus was brought up in resurrection power from death and
the burial tomb on the third day following His Crucifixion. “Up from the grave, He arose!” Hallelujah!
Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s advice to his
Bible students: “I
counsel you to employ spiritualizing within certain limits and boundaries…An
allowable thing carried to excess is a vice, even as fire is a good servant in
the grate, but a bad minister when raging in a burning house” (Lectures to My
Students, ‘On Spiritualizing’)
When we regenerate, Bible-believing
Christians, focus on ‘seeing Christ Jesus’ in Old Testament Scriptures, we look
to see Him in the various legitimate Types we can validate by the authority of
clear New Testament Scriptures. Scripture is our only real authority for teaching Christ, and Him
Crucified for the sins of His elect people, the ‘many’ mentioned.
“He, Christ Jesus, shall see of the
travail of His soul (the Cross), and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall
My (God the Father) righteous servant (God the Son) justify MANY (not all!);
for He shall bear their iniquities…He was numbered with the transgressors (on
the Cross); and He bare the sin of MANY, and made intercession for the
transgressors (the elect of the Father, you and, praise God, me!).” (Isaiah
53:11-12) (John 6:37)
Had Christ Jesus bore the sins of ALL, as
some Arminian believers teach, then ALL would be gloriously saved, none would
be lost for whom Christ Jesus suffered and died. Christ made a full Atonement
for the sins and souls of ‘His people’ alone. All others must suffer for their own sins in a place called Hell. Fact. The doctrine of ‘Universalism’: which teaches that no soul shall be lost
for Eternity in Hell/Lake of Fire, is open heresy! Avoid it!
“I have made a Covenant with My chosen, I
have sworn unto David My servant…Once I have sworn by My Holiness that I will
not lie unto David (‘David is here seen by us as a Type of the Lord Jesus
Christ Who would come in the incarnation, hundreds of years later.) His seed
(you and I, Christian!) shall endure for ever, and His throne as the sun before
Me. It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in
Heaven.” (Psalm 89:1;35-37)
Verse 36. “His seed shall endure
forever. David’s
line in the Person of Jesus is an endless one, and the race of Jesus, as
represented in successive generations of believers, shows no sign of
failure. No power, human or Satanic, can
break the Christian succession; as saints die, others shall rise up to fill
their places, so that till the last day, the day of doom, Jesus shall have a
seed to serve Him.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 374)
Verse 40; 41 & 42. “…Broken
down all His hedges…all that pass by THE WAY spoil Him…He is a reproach to his
neighbours…Thou hast made all His enemies to rejoice. Can you and I
Bible-believing Christians not clearly ‘see in type’, the altogether lovely,
pure, Holy, and undefiled Jesus Christ, hung here on a Cross covered in OUR
vile catalogue of sins, bearing our Father’s Holy and just punishment for us;
and crying out in agony: “Eli, Eli, la`-ma sa-bach`-than-ni? That is to say, My
God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
A Rhetorical Question: This question
from the Lord Jesus as He hung covered in our vile sins, and dying for our sins
on that cruel Cross, is of course, a Divinely uttered rhetorical question, a
question posed not because the One asking did not know the answer, for He is,
was, and always shall be God of very God. No.
It was posed in order to make ALL mankind aware of WHY our absolutely
Holy Lord God Almighty was turning His Holy face away from His only begotten
Eternal Son, Jesus Christ. It was to
reveal to ALL mankind the fact that Christ was suffering and dying on that
Cross to bear away the deepest and dirtiest of the sins of His elect people.
Praise His Holy Name! Hallelujah! What a Saviour!
Verse 44. “Thou (God the Father) hast made
His (God the Son) glory to cease.” The Lord Jesus could have called down
legions of mighty angels to maintain His glory, but He had come to do His
Father’s will, and it was His Father’s will that He present Himself as a living
Sacrifice for the sins of ‘His people’ - Divinely chosen people, who would be
granted God’s gift of faith to believe (trust) in this Sacrifice for our sins;
repent of our sins, and follow Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus had no sin of His own, He came to suffer and pay the full
penalty for our sins. God’s Holy justice
was satisfied by Christ’s Sacrifice, and we are saved.
Verse 45. “The days of His youth
hast Thou shortened: Thou has covered Him with shame.” At the age of
approximately 33 and 6 months, the Lord Jesus went to the Cross to suffer and
die, ‘covered in our shame’. What a
clear TYPE, what an open illustration of what Christ has done for sinners such
as we! God’s Covenant with us was
Eternally secured by Christ's Holy Sacrifice on the Cross. Now, this is good news for the saved.
Thought: Christ-focused Christians will
find our Lord on every Bible page.
Glory!
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