EASTER GLORY

The next few days of this week will be very rich spiritually. They will bring us the great central truths of the faith – Jesus’ death on the cross and Jesus’ resurrection. We can never meditate on them enough. Take time for that this week!



Last week’s column highlighted Jesus’ proclamation of judgement on Jerusalem. This week’s column highlights Jesus taking judgement on himself. Not because he in any way deserved it. Quite the contrary! It fell on him because he voluntarily offered himself as a "guilt offering" for all humanity (Isaiah 53). But, as Isaiah reminds us, the reality underlying such a sacrifice is that whoever becomes such a guilt offering has to bear the guilt and punishment of humanity upon himself. This is what the cross of Jesus was all about.He came under judgement, judgement for sin.


There is, therefore, no more stark a place to see the meaning, reality and horror of judgement than the in the death of Jesus. Indeed, if we do not see judgement clearly in that death, we can never see clearly how much we owe to him and how deeply he loves us. Salvation is meaningful only when we understand what we have been saved from. Many have tried to soften the blow of Calvary, because talk of judgement is offensive to modern ears. But to refuse to acknowledge that "he became sin for us – he who knew no sin" is to rob both the Father and Jesus of their glory.
Every judgement that God sends on a wayward humanity, be it plague, famine war or earthquake, is devastating and horrific. But those expressions of judgement in this world are but warnings of a greater and final judgement - the judgement of being cut off from the very source of life, peace and joy and well being, and entering an eternal desolation, cut off from the presence of God. There may be a way back from famine, plague and war; there is no way back from the ultimate judgement.



It is precisely this cup of judgement that Jesus drank as he died on the cross. This is revealed in one great cry, shouted out at the end of the three hours of physical darkness that gripped the world and the three hours of spiritual desolation that tormented Jesus. The cry was, "My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?" Jesus knew he was forsaken; God’s presence was gone. He could not reach it and the sense of loss and desolation was total. Neither could he understand why it had gone; he was blinded during that time to the fact that he was dying for sin, blinded to what he had previously known that "he would see of the travail of his would and be satisfied" (Isaiah 53:). In other words he was blinded to the truth that the dereliction would end simply because there was no revelation from God during those awful three hours. In a sense the three hours were an eternity of indescribable suffering of utter abandonment. It had been the contemplation at Gethsemane of this absolute forsakenness that made him sweat drops of blood and feel deep agony, but at Gethsemane he had at least known it would have an end. There on the cross for him there seemed no end, and no explanation. But we know now that He bore our judgement.



It is for this that that the praises of heaven will rings out eternally for Jesus. It is on account of this that we shall be involved in those praises in resurrection bodies. Doubtless coming to terms with the deeply challenging truth of the judgement of God will stretch many a person’s innermost thinking. But it is a vital truth to face up to and to accept.



Bob



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