Come Down from the Cross!

Last Sunday we discussed the two thieves on the cross, and how one refused to repent, while the other repented and trusted in the Savior as He hung dying beside him.

Three different groups or individuals demanded that Jesus save Himself and come down from the cross, and it is instructive to discover their different motives.

The soldiers made the demand to Jesus as a mockery of the poor, helpless victim of their own cruelty. They reveled in their power to destroy the helpless, and to rub their noses in their helplessness. Nobody comes down from the cross once these cruel men nail them up there, until they are dead. They had no desire for Christ to come down, because they knew, falsely, that He could not, as they shamed Him by their mockery.

The rulers and priests of Israel demanded that Jesus come down from the cross, and then they would believe in Him. They had no desire that He actually come down, and it would have been their destruction had He done so.

They knew He once had the power to save Himself, but, as Isaiah had warned, they believed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted for His crime of claiming to be Messiah. They thought they were safe to taunt Him so, because God was judging Him there.

The fact Jesus did not come down from the cross proved to them that they were right about Him being a liar and impostor all along. They made the mistake of believing that His misery and trouble proved God's rejection of Him. They did not know that God was well pleased in His Son as He hung upon the cross, saving His people.

The impenitent thief really wanted Christ to come down, and that for a selfish reason, for he had no faith in Christ's promises.