"Death of the Messiah"
(Second part of Friday's message)
Roman soldiers divided His clothes among them and cast lots for His under garment. His clothes must have been very nice for the Roman soldiers to want them and argue about His gown that was woven from one thread, Mt. 27:35, Mk. 15:24, Lk. 23:34. My point is, Jesus did not go around in rags or sack cloth as He is often portrayed.
* The time frame is very revealing:
> His trial began early morning, He was nailed to the cross at 9:00 am and died at 3:00 pm. He hung for six hours; the seventh, He entered His rest - just like the seventh day of the week. Six hours of bleeding, sweating and joints being pulled apart.
> From noon to three, there was an eclipse, Mk. 15:25 & 34. Ancient Chinese history recorded this event; it happened just as written. When Jesus was born, the angels turned the night sky to day with their glowing light. When He died, day was turned to night by the hand of God.
> Just after He gave His spirit back to the Father, there came an earth quake, Mt. 27:51. God’s hand tore the temple curtain (a large, tall, heavy drape) from the top to the bottom to open up the one place He occupied once each year so that we might now have direct access to the Father at all times, Mk. 15:38. We no longer need a priest to speak to God for us. We can speak to God directly, anytime, anywhere. Only Jesus can now serve as high priest in the heavenly temple and plead our petitions to the Father; only He has experienced physical life.
> Jesus died at 3:00 pm; the same time that the last sacrifice of the day was made in the temple. It was finished in the temple the moment He said, “It is finished”. The pure human sacrifice had been made. (Blood is created by a fetus, in the womb, from it's bone marrow; it has nothing to do with the babe's mother. Jesus blood was pure - His own divine blood, capable to atone for us.)
> A converted centurion is mentioned, Mt. 27:54, Mk. 15:39. His name was Manlius (Lat: “Morning”; a new beginning.)
> There can be no dispute that Jesus was dead when taken from the cross. It is clear, by medical standards, that the sac of fluid around His heart ruptured, Jn. 19:34. Lambs were sacrificed; Jesus was young when He died so that we could live forever. His body was prepared and laid in the tomb before sunset. The next day was a Sabbath on which no work is done. Within 24 hours (from Last Supper to burial) God’s plan of salvation, devised before time began, was fulfilled and the enemy was thwarted - all according to His will. Every prophesied detail had been done. Magnificent!
> The sign on the cross was in three languages, Aramaic (a slang version of Hebrew), Greek and Latin. In the Aramaic, it read, “Jesus Nazareth King Jews” - four words. (The language had no vowels or used any articles.) If you take the first letter of each word, it would spell “YHWH”. **Reading Aramaic (the top line), right to left, compare to the Hebrew name, in the second image. Any Hebrew who could read, who saw this knew what it said. All the educated priests and Sanhedrin officials knew this name - the name of God in the burning bush, "I Am". They became livid. The sign on the cross, over Jesus read “Yahweh” (I Am, I Was, I Am Coming). This is why they demanded Pilot change the sign. He refused.
It is finished.
