Christ Crucified

Christ Crucified (Jn 19)
Intro: Christ crucified? Boasting in a cross? What can this mean?
Celsus: "Would not an old woman who sings a story to lull a little child to sleep have been ashamed to whisper such tales as these?" (Origen, Contra Celsum, 6:34).

Paul: "God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Gal 6:14).

Exposition

1. Pilate fulfills God's will for the salvation of the world: "Behold the Man" (v5)
   "That the Scripture might be fulfilled"-see v24,28,36-37 for four examples.

Though Pilate delivered him to be crucified, Paul, can say, "He who spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things" (Rom 8:32).

What "God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, he has thus fulfilled" (Acts 3:18).

Pilate says, "Behold the man." But God says, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (Jn 1:29).

2. Jesus fulfills God's will for His Christ to suffer: "Behold your King!" (v14)
   "Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mt 20:25-28).

Kingdoms are usually founded in blood, and many lives are lost in securing them. Christ's kingdom also was founded in blood. But it was the blood of his own heart (v34), which spilled from his side at the thrust of a Roman spear.

Life was lost in the conflict for His kingdom. But it was his own life. "No one takes it from Me," Jesus said, "but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again" (Jn 10:18).