The Love of Christ

I just came back from the Grace Conference hosted by Grace Church of Sacramento.  Vincent Bradshaw the church pastor and event moderator welcomed all the pastors and guests to their beautiful church.  They are a primarily Slavic church and are renting a Seventh Day Adventist building for their Sunday Services.  Atleast there won’t be any conflicts for Sunday worship

The conference featured speakers from The Cornerstone Seminary of Vallejo, CA.  The speakers were Steve Fernandez, Brian Shealy, and Mike Canham.

Here’s my first attempt at live-blogging from the three speakers (I unfortunately wasn’t able to make it for Friday evening’s session due to a hospital emergency).  Today I heard from Dr. Mike Canham (he wishes everyone to just call him Mike).  Mike was one of the clearest speakers today talking about the subject of the Love of Christ and I was greatly encouraged by his message on the depth of Christ’s love.

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Text: Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34)

If we were to examine the last 7 sentences uttered by Christ prior to this death they would be:

Seven last words of Christ on the cross all focus for his concern for other people.

“Father forgive them for they not what they do”
“Amen I say to you, today you’ll be in paradise”
“Woman, behold your son.  Son behold your mother”
“My god, my God why have you forsaken me?”
“Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve ..”
“Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost”
“Father into your hands I commit my spirit”

Today we will look at the fourth phrase and at which time the scene had changed dramatically.  Some three hours earlier, a miraculous darkness had descended over the land, hiding Jesus from the view — a darkness that signaled God’s judgment on Israle for her rejection of the Messiah (Amos 8:9-10).  This could not have been an ordinary eclipse, since it was the time of the full moon (when Passover was always observed) and it lasted 12x longer (~ 3 hours) than any normal eclipse.  Undoubtedly, with such a miraculous darkness, the mocker had died down from the crowd, and a strange fear had been birthed in their hearts.  Jesus Himself was silent during this time, and at the end of those hours the true Passover Lam (c/f 1Cor 5:7) cired out with a loud voice: “Eloi, Eloi, Lama sabachthani” which is Aramaic for “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?”

What this phrase cannot mean
Of the seven words of Christ this is the most difficult to interpret.  In order to understand it may be helpful to see what it cannot possibly mean:

- Christ was delirious when he uttered those words
- He was angry at His Father
- Christ merely felt abandoned
- There was a division in the Trinity
- A division of the two natures of Christ
- Jesus died spiritually

No this was a cry of real dereliction.  Where there is much mystery in these words which make it impossible for us to fully understand them, this saying gives the best insight we have in the nature of Christ’s death and the distance He traveled to save man.  It has been said that for three days Martin Luther locked himself up in his room to study this very passage in order to understand what it could have meant and his conclusion was:  “God forsakes God – who can understand that?”  This cry could only be understood from the perspective of one who has gone down into hell.   

This phrase gives us three insights regarding the agony of hell itself. 

1) In Hell there is the silence of God.

Throughout the entire ministry of Jesus, he often employed questions to challenge and teach his disciples.  One mark of Jesus’ life was that he was in constant communion with His Father.  He always prayed with the Father in his joys and in his trials.  This time it is the only recorded question in which He asks and the Father does not give an answer!

2) In Hell there is the abandonment of God

Jesus  always had uninterrupted fellowship with God.  In other words He had perfect fellowship with His Father.  At the moment of this phrase, God abandoned him and He felt the absent presence of God.  This is the very definition of what hell is.

3) In Hell there is the wrath of God.

The cross it the revelation of the wrath of God (Deut 9:19; Judges 2:14).  Romans 1:18  Paul mentions that the wrath of the God is presently being unveiled to sinners.  The holiness and justice of God requires that God must deal with sin.  He cannot grade us on a curve (Hebrews 10: fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God).

[a quote from an author] – The precision of Christ fulfilling every jot and tittle of His word is to the same degree that God’s wrath will be precisely executed in His justice of unbelieving people in Hell.

This phrase describes the distance God traveled to save man.
Only when one see the distance God traveled to save man (Phil 2:5-8; Luke 19:10) will one appreciate the meaning of Christ’s cry.

Christ’s death meant three things in relationship to our sin:

1) Christ was separated from the Father because of our sin.  All throughout His life and ministry, Jesus knew what it was like to be abandoned and rejected by men, but He had always enjoyed the fellowship of His Father (Matt 11:25; John 16:32).  At this moment not only was he abandoned by men, but also abandoned by His Father!  Remember when Christ died on the cross, He died alone, alone from people and most of all alone and abandoned by God!

In the NT Christ often spoke of God as His Father (170x in the Gospels, 21x in His prayers).  In this instance this is the only time he doesn’t refer to God as His father but as “my God, my God”  This does not mean that He ceased to be God or that He lost His faith.  What it means is that at this point His relationship with His Father changed drastically in that it was now judicial instead of paternal. 

But why was there separation between Jesus and His Father when it had existed forever?  Why did the fellowship with His Father cease when Christ Himself was utterly sinless?

2) Christ substituted Himself for our sin.   (Deut 212:23, Gal 3:13, Isa 53:4-6; John 1:29; Heb 9:27-28; 1John 3:5; 4:10; 1Pet 3:18)  Over and over again, He took our place. 

He took our place and endured the penalty that we would have endured.  Christ experienced this separation from the Father so that we don’t have to!

3) Christ provided victory over our sin.  Go back to Psalm 22:1.  It sounds bad!  But in the NT col 3, makes it sound victorious?  How? There are 4 qualities that jesus is speaking from the vantage point of victory.

a) Psalm 22:1 as Scripture.  When Christ was facing the most utter despair, where did he go?  The word of God!  He quoted the word of God.

b) Psalm 22:1 as Messianic Prophecy. 

c) Psalm 22:1 as Triumph.  He quoted this not as an isolated proof-text.

Notice the tone change in 22:22.  This is the triumphant change from psalm 22.  Hebrews 2:9-14.  The writer of Hebews quotes psalm 22 as a victory verse for the death of Christ!

d) Psalm 22:1 as Trilogy.  Psalm 23 speaks of his present ministry.  Psalm 24 speaks of his second coming.  All of these psalms are messianic:

Psalm 22: The Savior’s Cross
Psalm 23: The Shepherd’s Crook
Psalm 24: The Sovereign’s Crown

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After Mike spoke we broke for Q&A which I will post shortly.