"Seven Words from the Cross"

I think it is fascinating for us to study this topic. We are going to seek to gain an insider’s view of what was happening through the eyes of Jesus himself during the Passion. He spoke seven short but significant sentences from the cross, which together throw light on the cross. No one evangelist records them all. Matthew and Mark preserve only one (the cry of neglect), while of the remaining six, Luke records three and John three. The church has cherished these so-called seven words from the cross as disclosing the otherwise unknown thoughts of Jesus. None of them were uttered in bitterness or complaint. As we will see, each is an expression either of his great love for us, or of his dreadful work of sin bearing, or of his final triumph and victory. Get ready to be changed forever!

1. His Prayer for His Executioners

“Jesus said, ‘Father , forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’” – Luke 23:34

The first three words from the cross portray Jesus the example. They express the love he showed to others. “Do not weep for me,” he had said earlier (v.28). Nor did he weep for himself. He did not dwell in self-pity on his pain or loneliness nor on the gross injustice that was being done to him. Indeed, he had no thought for himself, only for others. Unbelievable! He had nothing left now to give away; even his clothes had been taken from him. But he was still able to give people his love. The cross is the epitome of his self-giving – as he showed his concern for the men who crucified him, the mother who bore him, and the sorrowful thief who was dying at his side.

His first word was his prayer for the forgiveness of his executioners. Think how remarkable this was. His physical and emotional sufferings had already been almost intolerable. But now he had been stripped and laid on his back, and the rough hands of the soldiers had wielded their hammers clumsily. Surely now he will think of himself? Surely now he will complain against God like Job, or plead with God to avenge him, or exhibit a little self-pity? But no, he thinks only of others. He may well have cried out in pain, but his first word is a prayer for his enemies. The two criminals beside him curse and swear. But not Jesus. He practices what he has preached in the Sermon on the Mount: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:27-28).

For whom,then, was he praying? No doubt especially for the Jewish leaders who had rejected their Messiah. In answer to Jesus’ prayer, they were granted a forty-year reprieve, during which many thousands repented and believed in Jesus. Only in AD 70 did the judgment of God fall on the nation, when Jerusalem was taken and its temple destroyed.

2. His Salvation of a Criminal

“Jesus answered him, ‘I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.’” – Luke 23:43

All four evangelists tell us that three crosses were erected at Golgotha (“the place called the Skull” [v.33]) that fateful morning. They make it plain that Jesus was on the middle cross, while two robbers were crucified on either side of him. At first both thieves joined in the chorus of hate to which Jesus was now subjected (Matthew 27:44). Only one continued, however, hurling insults at Jesus and challenging him to save himself and them. But the second thief rebuked him saying, “Don’t you fear God…since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly,..But this man has done nothing wrong” (Luke 23:40-41). Then, turning to Jesus, the repentant robber said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (v.42).

This ascription of kingship to Jesus is remarkable. No doubt the broken thief had heard the priests mocking Jesus’ claim to be the king of Israel, and he had probably read the inscription over his head, “This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” He had also seen Jesus’ quiet, kingly dignity. At all events, he had come to believe that Jesus was a king. He had also heard Jesus’ prayer for the forgiveness of his executioners, and forgiveness is what he knew he needed, since he confessed that he was being punished justly.

To his cry to be remembered by Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise” (v.43). There were no counter-charges brought against the criminal. He was not reproached because he waited to repent at the eleventh hour. No doubt was cast on the genuineness of his repentance. Jesus simply gave this sorrowful believer the assurance he longed for. He promised him not only entry into paradise, involving the joy of Christ’s presence, but an immediate entry that very day. And he assured him of these things with his, “I tell you the truth,” the last time he used this familiar formula. I imagine that, during the long hours of pain that followed, the forgiven thief kept his heart and mind on the sure and saving promise of Jesus.

3. His Acclamation of His Mother

Perhaps Jesus closed his eyes as he bore the brunt of the first onslaught of pain. Perhaps as it subsided a bit he opened them again. At all events, as he looked down from the cross, he saw a little group of faithful women and the apostle John (“the disciple whom he loved” [v.26]). And then he saw his mother. She was, of course, very precious to him from a human point of view. True, she had not always understood him, and once or twice he had had to speak to her firmly when she stood in the way of his doing his Father’s will. Nevertheless, she was his mother. He had been conceived in her womb by the supernatural operation of the Holy Spirit. She had given birth to him, laid him in a manger, and cared for him during his childhood. It would have been she who taught him the biblical stories of the patriarchs, kings, and prophets, and the plan and purpose of God. She had also set him a radiant example of godliness.

Now we read that “near the cross of Jesus stood his mother” (v.25). It is hard to imagine the depth of her grief as she watched him suffer. Simeon’s prohecy was being fulfilled that a sword would pierce her own soul (Luke 2:35). Jesus thinks not of his pain but of hers. He is determined to spare her the anguish of seeing him die. So he avails himself of a right that scholars tell us a crucified man had, even from the cross, namely to make a testamentary disposition. Using the terminology of family law, he put her under John’s protection and care and put John under hers. Immediately John took her away to his Jerusalem home.

Looking back over the first three words from the cross, we are amazed at the unselfishness of Jesus. He had no thought for himself. In spite of the pain and shame he was experiencing, he prayed for the forgiveness of his enemies, he promised paradise to a repentant thief, and he provided for his bereaved mother. This is love, and Scripture says to us, “Live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Eph. 5:2)

4. His Cry of Neglect

“From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice,…”My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – Matthew 27:45-46

If the first three words from the cross portray Jesus as our example, the fourth (and later the fifth) portray him as our sin bearer. The crucifixion took place at about 9 a.m. (“the third hour”), when the sun was at the meridian, an inexplicable darkness moved over the countryside. It cannot have been a natural eclipse of the sun, because the Feast of the Passover took place at full moon. No, it was a supernatural phenomenon, perhaps intended by God to symbolize the horror of great darkness into which the soul of Jesus now plunged. It lasted three hours, during which no word escaped the lips of the suffering Savior. He bore our sins in silence.

Then suddenly, at about 3 p.m. (“the ninth hour”), Jesus broke the silence and spoke the remaining four words from the cross in rapid succession, beginning with “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This terrible cry is recorded by Matthew and Mark alone, and in the original Aramaic – “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachtani?” The onlookers who said, “He’s calling Elijah” (v.47) were almost certainly joking; no Jews could have been so ignorant of Aramaic as to make that foolish blunder.

Everybody agrees that Jesus was quoting from Psalm 22:1. But why did he quote it and declare himself forsaken? Logically there can only be two explanations. Either Jesus was mistaken and not forsaken or he was telling the truth and was forsaken. For myself I reject the first explanation. To me it is inconceivable that Jesus, in the moment of his greatest surrender, could have been mistaken and that his sense of godforsakenness was imaginary. The alternative explanation is simple and straightforward. Jesus was not mistaken. The stiuation on the cross was of God forsaken by God – and the estrangement was due to our sins and their just reward. And Jesus expressed this terrible experience of godforsakenness by quoting the only Scripture that foretold it and that he had perfectly fulfilled. (adapted from John Stott)

The last three words from the Cross will come later this week!

-pcraig