Brooklands Gospel Centre

Dundonald, Northern Ireland

 

Worthy is the LAMB that was slain

Revelation 5:12

The Place of the Skull

 

“When they were come to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, the place of a skull….There they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, They parted my garments among them, and for my vesture did they cast lots.” - Matthew 27:36.

 

GOLGOTHA: the place of the skull. A skull has no brains. There seemed no rhyme or reason for the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was a mindless act and would have remained so had it not been revealed to us that “he was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” - Acts 2:23.

 

Golgotha, for everyone except the Saviour, was a place of confusion and mystery. Pilate; the centurion; the soldiers; the woman; the disciples and those ordinary citizens of Jerusalem that ‘wagged their heads’ as they went on their way. All of them, in their own way, wondered.

WONDERED about the cries from the cross, beginning and ending with ‘FATHER’!

 

That speaks of relationship!. The Father was with Him through it all. He never forsook His Son. Hence, the mystery surrounding the central cry. “My GOD, My GOD why hast THOU forsaken ME?” It was God, the Holy and the Just who turned His face from the sin of the world, of all ages, now laid upon the Sin Offering.

 

WONDERED at the cry of strength and triumph. After a night and part of a day of horrendous torture, to cry with a LOUD voice ‘FINISHED’! - ACCOMPLISHED - was mystery beyond words. It signalled the COMPLETION of the greatest act of all time “When he put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” - Hebrews 9:26. If confusion reigned in the hearts and minds of all around Him, there was nothing but majestic control in this great act. In the prime of manhood, He hands over His spirit, He sends it away to His Father. He bows His head and is actively involved in the giving up of His life. We must ever remember that it did not take six hours for Jesus to die! His death was not a process, it was an ACT. He gave His life! “no man”, He said - not even Caesar’s soldiers - “taketh my life from me, I have power (authority) to lay it down and I have authority to take it again, this commandment have I received of my Father” - John 10:18.

 

This is precisely what he did. His death was VICARIOUS, SUBSTITUTIONARY, SACRIFICIAL and VOLUNTARY and for ALL who believe.

 

DREW CRAIG

 

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