Posted on 03/31/2015 2:13:21 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
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from Joel Beeke Mar 30, 2015 Category: Articles
“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”(Matt. 27:46, KJV).
It is noon, and Jesus has been on the cross for three pain-filled hours. Suddenly, darkness falls on Calvary and “over all the land” (v. 45). By a miraculous act of Almighty God, midday becomes midnight.
This supernatural darkness is a symbol of God’s judgment on sin. The physical darkness signals a deeper and more fearsome darkness.
The great High Priest enters Golgotha’s Holy of Holies without friends or enemies. The Son of God is alone on the cross for three final hours, enduring what defies our imagination. Experiencing the full brunt of His Father’s wrath, Jesus cannot stay silent. He cries out: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
This phrase represents the nadir, the lowest point, of Jesus’ sufferings. Here Jesus descends into the essence of hell, the most extreme suffering ever experienced. It is a time so compacted, so infinite, so horrendous as to be incomprehensible and, seemingly, unsustainable.
Jesus’ cry does not in any way diminish His deity. Jesus does not cease being God before, during, or after this. Jesus’ cry does not divide His human nature from His divine person or destroy the Trinity. Nor does it detach Him from the Holy Spirit. The Son lacks the comforts of the Spirit, but He does not lose the holiness of the Spirit. And finally, it does not cause Him to disavow His mission. Both the Father and Son knew from all eternity that Jesus would become the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world (Acts 15:18). It is unthinkable that the Son of God might question what is happening or be perplexed when His Father’s loving presence departs.
Jesus is expressing the agony of unanswered supplication (Ps. 22:1–2). Unanswered, Jesus feels forgotten of God. He is also expressing the agony of unbearable stress. It is the kind of “roaring” mentioned in Psalm 22: the roar of desperate agony without rebellion. It is the hellish cry uttered when the undiluted wrath of God overwhelms the soul. It is heart-piercing, heaven-piercing, and hell-piercing. Further, Jesus is expressing the agony of unmitigated sin. All the sins of the elect, and the hell that they deserve for eternity, are laid upon Him. And Jesus is expressing the agony of unassisted solitariness. In His hour of greatest need comes a pain unlike anything the Son has ever experienced: His Father’s abandonment. When Jesus most needs encouragement, no voice cries from heaven, “This is my beloved Son.” No angel is sent to strengthen Him; no “well done, thou good and faithful servant” resounds in His ears. The women who supported Him are silent. The disciples, cowardly and terrified, have fled. Feeling disowned by all, Jesus endures the way of suffering alone, deserted, and forsaken in utter darkness. Every detail of this horrific abandonment declares the heinous character of our sins!
But why would God bruise His own Son (Isa. 53:10)? The Father is not capricious, malicious, or being merely didactic. The real purpose is penal; it is the just punishment for the sin of Christ’s people. “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21).
Christ was made sin for us, dear believers. Among all the mysteries of salvation, this little word “for” exceeds all. This small word illuminates our darkness and unites Jesus Christ with sinners. Christ was acting on behalf of His people as their representative and for their benefit.
With Jesus as our substitute, God’s wrath is satisfied and God can justify those who believe in Jesus (Rom. 3:26). Christ’s penal suffering, therefore, is vicarious — He suffered on our behalf. He did not simply share our forsakenness, but He saved us from it. He endured it for us, not with us. You are immune to condemnation (Rom. 8:1) and to God’s anathema (Gal. 3:13) because Christ bore it for you in that outer darkness. Golgotha secured our immunity, not mere sympathy.
This explains the hours of darkness and the roar of dereliction. God’s people experience just a taste of this when they are brought by the Holy Spirit before the Judge of heaven and earth, only to experience that they are not consumed for Christ’s sake. They come out of darkness, confessing, “Because Immanuel has descended into the lowest hell for us, God is with us in the darkness, under the darkness, through the darkness — and we are not consumed!”
How stupendous is the love of God! Indeed, our hearts so overflow with love that we respond, “We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.
You brighten my day, Brother!
I'm trying to imagine what a "face-off" singing contest between the splendid Jackie Evancho and, say, the merely gifted Beyoncé might look like....
Trial conclusion: There is no basis of comparison whatever. In the same way that there is zero correspondence between the sublime creations of, say, a Mozart and Rap music....
It seems to me the cultural divide which plagues us is signified by the total incomparability, the total lack of aesthetic correspondence, between the works of an artist like Jackie Evancho and an artist like Beyoncé....
Vive la différence.
Thank you so much, dearest 'pipe, for the link.
Interesting (current) move by Jackie
Jackie doing Pop.. as opposed to her regular Classical-Crossover and Classical Arias..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDQAYlHEA8s
That girl can sing anything.. even weak lyrics
by Taylor Swift.. brilliant cadence changes and rubato..
Interesting to me because she can change even weak lyrics
into an elegant gracious sonorous sound...
I follow her and have observed her doing “that” over
and over even while a little girl.. Changing a so so
song into something “special”.. I swear she could sing
Twinkle Twinkle and make it sound like a Handel Aria..
And the gnomes Anna Graceman and Emily Bear.. brings me
to passages in Joel... These three girls are wonderous..
not to forget Akiane Kramarik... (the artist)
WHAT a GOD.. that he makes such creatures..
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Jackie Evancho is truly blessed and a blessing.
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>> “Then I saw a great White Throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.” <<
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Think!!!!!
The elect had already been saved 1000 years before, and lived and reigned with the Lord for the 1000 years. That was the First resurrection, since it came first, and the second death has no effect on them.
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You stand by your opinion; I'll stand on what the text ACTUALLY says.
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What I posted is what the text actually says, to those that have reading comprehension.
How could the “First” resurrection come after the only resurrection unto life?
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1 And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand.
2 And he laid hold on the dragon the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.
3 And he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should no more seduce the nations, till the thousand years be finished. And after that, he must be loosed a little time.
4 And I saw seats; and they sat upon them; and judgment was given unto them; and the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and who had not adored the beast nor his image, nor received his character on their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
5 The rest of the dead lived not, till the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. In these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ; and shall reign with him a thousand years.
7 And when the thousand years shall be finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth, and seduce the nations, which are over the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, and shall gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
8 And they came upon the breadth of the earth, and encompassed the camp of the saints, and the beloved city.
9 And there came down fire from God out of heaven, and devoured them; and the devil, who seduced them, was cast into the pool of fire and brimstone, where both the beast
10 And the false prophet shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
11 And I saw a great white throne, and one sitting upon it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away, and there was no place found for them.
12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing in the presence of the throne, and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged by those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
13 And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and hell gave up their dead that were in them; and they were judged every one according to their works.
14 And hell and death were cast into the pool of fire. This is the second death.
15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the pool of fire.
You keep on proving my points admirably, but why?
You do understand that those that will be beheaded will mostly be during the trib? And the verse mentions many more than just those that are beheaded.
And you keep on ignoring that after the first resurrection “the rest of the dead lived not again for a thousand years.”
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Oh?
4 And I saw seats; and they sat upon them; and judgment was given unto them; and the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and who had not adored the beast nor his image, nor received his character on their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
There are at least four groups mentioned:
1. seats; and they sat upon them; and judgment was given unto them;
2. and the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus,
3. and for the word of God,
4. and who had not adored the beast nor his image, nor received his character on their foreheads, or in their hands;
These four sets may, of course intermingle, at various levels.
Sets 1,2,and 3 also span many centuries.
But for those that read selectively for an agenda, the word of God is of no value, but deception.
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It's just amazing how much info is kept from my eyes!
And this is just the FIRST resurrection!
It is the first, and only resurrection unto life.
The second one, the GWT is a resurrection unto judgement.
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So NO ONE will be saved during the thousand years reign?
Sounds like a waste of time to me.
Not a waste of time, but the proving of a point.
Satan cannot be blamed for man’s desire to follow his own ways rather than God’s. That is why Satan had to be put in lockup for the 1000 year proof, with Yeshua himself ruling on Earth from the throne of David.
Did you seriously believe that men would suddenly jump out of their sin nature for the 1000 year reign?
Nothing in the word of God makes that suggestion.
Did you seriously believe that NO men would ever get saved for the 1000 year reign?
Show me where any salvation occurs after the day of Trumpets.
Likewise...
Show me where any salvation does NOT occur after the day of Trumpets.
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