The Lord Jesus is recorded in
the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as having said seven
different things on the cross, and that's very interesting to
me. We've looked a lot at what the
people said. We saw what Judas did. We saw what Peter and the
disciples did. Caiaphas and Annas, the high
priests. We saw what the Roman governors
did, Pilate and Herod. We heard something about what
the soldiers have said. We aren't done with them. We
could really spend a long time in this section of Scripture,
but I want to focus now on what the Lord Jesus Himself said,
so let's pray. Our Lord and our Father, and
our Savior, we thank you for this, your Word. Thank you for
the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. Thank you for His love and for
His grace. Thank you for His Word. Thank
you for His faithfulness and His mercy to sinners. Thank you
for His righteousness and His holiness and His wisdom. Thank
you for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Lord, we long to
be with Him We long for that day when we will be with Him,
but even now we ask that You would be with us in our heart
by Your Spirit, that You would speak to us from Your Word, and
that You would move us, dear Lord, with Your own Spirit to
believe You, to love You, to know You, and to really admire
You and worship You. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
So turn with me, if you would, in your Bible to Luke chapter
23. It's difficult for me to know
the exact order of when Jesus spoke these, so we probably won't
cover them necessarily in the order that the Lord spoke them,
but I've done my best to do that. Luke chapter 23 is the very first
one. It says, if you pick it up, in
verse 32 of Luke 23. And there were also
two other malefactors, the evildoers, led with Him to be put to death. Those two men were led with Christ
to be put to death. Verse 33. And when they were
come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified
Him. and the malefactors, one on the
right hand and the other on the left." And now, in verse 34,
it says, "...then said Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do. And they parted his raiment."
That's the first thing that I see that Jesus said on the cross.
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Now, this
This place in Scripture is amazing if you think about what's happened
here. As I mentioned, Judas betrayed the Lord, the disciples all forsook
him, Peter denied him, Caiaphas and Annas the high priest condemned
him without any evidence. They laid to His charge, the
accusation they laid to Him, the Pilate put it on the cross.
This is Jesus, King of the Jews. That was the reason they crucified
Him, because He said He was the Christ, the Son of God, the Son
of David. It was the truth, but they crucified
Him for that. And they treated Him in the most
shameful possible ways. They spit in His face. They covered
his head, blindfolded him, and hit him with their fists, and
they slapped him with the palms of their hands, and they stripped
him of his clothes. They put him to shame publicly.
They put a reed in his hand and a crown of thorns on his head.
A reed for a scepter. A mock scepter. They pretended
that he was a king and mocked him. He claimed to be the king
so they pretended. In a pretended way they mocked
him and then they stripped him of... They first coronated him
and then they unkinged him. If those are even words. And
then they took him to crucify him the same day. They did all
these things to him. And so he walked with the cross. He carried it part of the way.
Simon the Cyrenian had to carry it the rest of the way. They
compelled Simon to carry the cross after him. He walked in
front, Simon behind, following Jesus, bearing Jesus' cross. And then they come to Calvary.
And there, between two thieves, these evil doers worthy of death,
they crucified the Lord Jesus, who had done nothing wrong. He
was without sin. He never thought sin. He never
did anything wrong to the people. He only did good to them. He
healed their sick. He cast devils out of them. I
remember so many occasions, if you just think about the miracles
that He did. He touched lepers. that were
unclean. A woman bowed together for eighteen
years. He straightened her out, just
touched her back and straightened her out. He raised a widow, a
woman's only son, who was a widow, carrying the dead son through
the street. He stopped the coffin, the carriers
of the coffin, and he raised that son back to life again.
So many things. He healed Peter's feverish mother. He raised Lazarus from the dead.
What did he ever do that wasn't but good? He only spoke the truth. Even though the truth exposed
men's hypocrisy, it was still the truth and had to be said.
How else are men going to know they need to turn to God? for
forgiveness and for cleansing from sin if they don't know themselves
to be sinners. So that's all grace, isn't it?
It's all good of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything He said was
spoken by Him because it was the words of His Father. He only
did the will of God. The one thing that drove Him,
that moved Him to do everything, was His Father's will. He bore
the cost of doing that at personal expense throughout the whole
thing. And when they spoke against Him,
when they spit upon Him, when they hit Him in the face, and
beat Him on the head, and put the thorns on His head, and robed
Him in scarlet, and then stripped Him again, and then nailed Him
to the cross, He never spoke against them. He never came back
against them in self-defense. They were guilty. He never pointed
that out. He only took it, he submitted
to the will of God as a man. He was both God and man. But
as a man, he relied upon his father in all of this as a man.
He got no strength from his deity. He depended on God as a man in
everything. He prayed, he wept, he sorrowed. His soul was sorrowful unto death.
He sweat drops of blood in the garden. He bore the sins of his
people. He did all this. And he never
complained. In fact, he did it with joy because
of the hope set before him to have his people. And so, we come
to this point. He stretches out his hands and
they nail those nails through his hands and through his feet.
pinning Him to the cross. They didn't have to hold Him
there with nails, but it was necessary because it was God's
will. Everything He did, He did to fulfill Scripture. Every word
He spoke, everything that they did to Him, and everything He
submitted to was according to what God had spoken in the Old
Testament. You see, such a revelation of God the Holy Spirit in these
things, that this is the Son of God, this is the Christ of
God, because He fulfilled all of Scripture. to save His people
from their sins. If you think back about the whole
Bible, starting from Genesis where the Lord spoke light out
of darkness and then gave the promise to Adam and Eve after
they had sinned, that the seed of the woman would one day bruise
the head of the serpent. And you take that as the starting
point, as the anchor point. You realize that all of history,
all of history is one story. It's the triumph of Christ doing
the will of God to save His people from their sins. In victory over
Satan and his kingdom. All history is that. The triumph
of Christ. And if you follow through all
the history, you see the devil trying to snuff out the life. of those who were in the line
of the seed of Christ. The Lord Jesus was going to come
for them, through them, and the devil throughout that time. First
Cain. I mean, first Cain kills Abel.
Then Seth's children intermingle with Cain's children. And then
it seems as if the whole world is going to be destroyed. And
God finds, the Lord shows grace to Noah and saves him. And then
throughout, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, they're all preserved
through all the Canaanites in the land of Canaan. God brings
Israel out of Egypt and preserves David and his family and finally
brings Christ into the world through the son of David, just
as he promised. All those things show the battle that was going
on. And here it reaches a fever pitch. The Lord Jesus Christ, in triumphant
victory, submits to the will of God to do that will. And yet
men are guilty. All you see in the account of
the cross is the wickedness, the perversity of men. Their
hearts oozing out and bubbling out their envy and hatred for
Christ. And the utter spiritual impotence
of His people. So that He alone does the will
of God. Everyone else is left in the
ashes of their sin. And then they nail Him to the
cross. He had every reason to complain,
every reason to point out their wickedness. But this is what
the Lord says here in verse 34 of Luke 23. Then said Jesus,
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. I don't know about you, but I
can get tweaked so quickly and go from calm to self-righteous
anger in a moment when someone does me wrong and I think they've
done me wrong. I'm so impatient. As I read this account of Christ's
crucifixion, I'm angry at these men. I think, man, these guys
were the worst of the worst, weren't they? They were. Just
like me. Everything they did, everything
they thought, all of their hearts' sin, which they worked out with
their hands and carried out, is exactly what's in my heart.
And the Lord Jesus hanging there on the cross after they nailed
Him to the cross and put that cross in the ground. I don't
know what that experience was like. You know it was painful.
And shameful because they stripped Him of His clothes. They parted
His garments among them. As He's hanging there exposed
before man and God with our sins on the cross, that cursed tree,
they're parting His garments and gambling over them. And here
he says, he doesn't speak a word of condemnation. He doesn't speak
a word of complaint. He lifts up his heart as a man
to God in prayer for his enemies. And he says, Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do. The Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, The Lord of Glory, the Just One, the Prince of Life,
the King of All. And they nailed Him to the cross.
They did not know what they were doing. That's what the Lord says.
He is the Righteous One. He couldn't lie. He didn't stretch
the truth. So I want to consider this with you. First of all,
this is the fulfillment of Scripture. Isaiah 53.12 says, He made intercession
for the transgressors. Look at this verse with me. It's
important. It's very important. Extremely
important. That in all that Jesus did, He
fulfilled Scripture. This was so important because
it teaches us that He is the One of whom God spoke. And it
also teaches us this was the purpose of God. God did this. God said this. And God carried
it out. And Christ accomplished what
God had given Him to do. But in Isaiah 53, verse 12, He
says this. Therefore, I will divide, in fact, let's pick it
up in verse 10. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He hath put him to grief, when
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. He, the Lord Jesus,
shall see his seed. Like a woman giving birth in
birth pangs, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. I'm
sorry, this is where the Lord Jesus sees His seed. God saw
His seed, and then it says, He shall see of the travail of His
soul, and He shall be satisfied. That's where the analogy is between
a woman who gives birth and the Lord Jesus, who's giving birth
to all of His children. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall
divide the spoiled with the strong, because he hath poured out his
soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors." He was
accounted among the transgressors by God and men. And he bear the sin of many.
and made intercession for the transgressors. That is what Jesus
fulfilled by His prayer here. Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do." He was interceding, putting himself
between the justice, the outrage of God's justice against men
for murdering his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise for these
men, these very people who had made themselves his enemy, spit
in his face, beat him on the back and the head, until his
bones stuck out. And so he made intercession for
them. I don't know of any other greater sign of the grace of
the Lord Jesus Christ than this. That he would pray for these
people who put him to death. And the way he prayed, too. It
says in 1 John 2, 1 John chapter 2, verse 1, that the Lord Jesus
Christ is our advocate. We have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He advocates for His people as
the righteous advocate. He doesn't try to cover things. He deals with things according
to God's Word before God for His people. But He does advocate
for them. And here He is advocating for
His people. He's interceding for them. I
know of no other grace than this." I notice that he says here, they
know not what they do. Now these men seem to know what
they did. I would have said, you guys know what you're doing,
and I would have pushed them off the cliff. But not the Lord. He says, they know not what they
do. In Acts chapter 3, you want to turn there? Acts chapter 3,
Peter preached a sermon And in His sermon, He made this observation
of these people. Because the Lord said this from
the cross, I'm sure He learned it from Him. He says in Acts
chapter 3, Peter is preaching this sermon in verse 12 and says, The people of Israel were amazed
at this man that Peter had spoken to and raised up. He had been
lame and he comes into the temple leaping and praising God. It
says in verse 12, when Peter saw it, he answered the people,
he said, You men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? Or why look
ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness
we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, and the Isaac,
and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his son
Jesus, whom you delivered up, and denied him in the presence
of Pilate, when he determined to let him go. But you denied
the Holy One, and the just, and desired a murderer to be granted
unto you. And you killed the Prince of
Life, whom God raised from the dead, whereof we are witnesses."
Can you imagine what these people felt like then? Jesus has been
risen from the dead, now one of his disciples, Peter, is preaching
with the power of the Spirit of God, and they are convicted.
And verse 16, and Peter goes on, "...and His name, through
faith in His name, hath made this man strong, whom you see
and know. Yea, the faith which is by Him,
He gives it, hath given this man this perfect soundness in
the presence of you all. And now, brethren, I want not,
I want that through ignorance you did it, as did your rulers."
Here Peter With the most gracious judgment upon them possible,
He says, you did it through ignorance. You did it through ignorance.
That's what Jesus prayed. He says, they know not what they
do. They knew they were killing him.
They knew it was premeditated. They paid Judas the price of
his head. It was treacherous. They lied.
They sought false witnesses. They persuaded Pilate first to
crucify him. And then after he was crucified,
because they hypocritically wanted to keep the Passover. They said,
go break their legs so that they die and we can get them off the
cross. And yet the Lord Jesus says, they know not what they
do. What does he mean? They did not know the magnitude
of their sin. They didn't know against whom
they were doing this. And so Peter says, I know that
through ignorance you did it. And your rulers, you would think
that he would have left them out. They did it knowingly. No,
but he includes them. But he says in verse 18 of Acts
3, "...but those things which God before had showed by the
mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer..." So now
he's speaking to the scripture. "...he hath so fulfilled. Repent ye therefore, and be converted,
that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing
shall come from the presence of the Lord." So here he's speaking
about this. Look down at verse 26. Here is
grace, listen to this in verse 26. Unto you first God, having
raised up his son Jesus, sent him to bless you in turning away
every one of you from his iniquities. What grace is this? The very
ones who murdered Christ were the ones God sent Christ to bless
through his apostles, to preach to them. The Lord Jesus prays
for them. God sent Him to bless you, to
turn you from your iniquities. This is amazing grace, isn't
it? Grace is always amazing. When grace comes to us as sinners,
we realize that it's greater than we ever imagined it could
be. The Lord Jesus not only prayed
here for those who were crucified, but He prayed for all of His
people. Look at John chapter 17. When He said in Isaiah 53,
12, He made intercession for the transgressors, that was fulfilled
at the cross. But He prayed before He went
to the cross also. He made intercession then for
the transgressors. In John 17, He says in verse
9, I pray for them, for His apostles. I pray not. for the world, but
for them which Thou hast given Me, for they are Thine." Here
the Lord says who He prays for. He prays for His own. He does
not pray for the world. Look at verse 20. "...neither
pray I for these alone," not just for the twelve or the eleven
now, "...but for them also which shall believe on Me through their
word." The Lord has to pray for us, or we will be lost. Here,
Jesus prays to his Father as a man that God would give forgiveness
to his people. He had power to forgive sins
by the authority of God, and as the Son of God, he can forgive
sins. But as a man, he intercedes for
his people that God himself, against whom they had sinned,
would forgive them. What grace is that? What submission
to the will of God? What humility? What love for
His people? I don't understand how this could
be, but I can admire it, can't you? Can you appreciate the Lord
Jesus? Can you just sit back and see?
It's like looking at the ruins of the fires, where everything
is ruined, except right in the middle, the Lord Jesus stands.
obeying His Father, saving His people, conquering Satan, magnifying
His Father's perfections. And all that He did, that's the
glory of our Savior. And when you see Him, it just
thrills your heart, doesn't it? To know that He did this knowingly,
knowing that all were going to fail and everyone was going to
put Him to death, and He did it anyway in order to save His
people. And Peter says to these men in
Acts 3, he says, repent. Change your mind about the Lord
Jesus Christ. You put Him to death. Change
your mind. Now I'm giving you. You were
ignorant before, blind in your unbelief, willfully blind in
your unbelief, and yet the Lord In mercy, considers that an ignorance,
though you're guilty of that ignorance, though the Lord considers
it an ignorance, and therefore He looks upon it to forgive you.
In the book of Leviticus and Numbers, God made provision for
sacrifices for the ignorant sins of the people. In Leviticus 5
and Numbers, Both of those places, He says if someone has sinned
in ignorance, then they're to take a sacrifice and make atonement
for their sins. Here Christ is praying because
of the ignorance of the people. He sees it and knows their heart.
He could have charged them with it, but He knows their heart
and He says they were ignorant, Father. forgive them. And He Himself, hanging there
on the cross, God can't forgive sins just like we forgive sins.
When we forgive sins, we just say, that's okay, I'll just let
it go. I'm just going to let it go. I'm not, I'm going to
just put it away. I'm not going to let it come
between us. That's the way we forgive sins. We try to forget. But when the Lord forgives sins,
He cannot forgive sins without a payment for those sins. In
Hebrews 9.22 it says, "...without the shedding of blood there is
no remission." There's no remission without the shedding of blood.
There was no atonement. There had to be an atonement
made. Unless there was an atonement made, there was no forgiveness.
And so the Lord says this over and over in Scripture. It was
by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So while he's hanging
there, praying to his Father, he realizes that their guilt
for their sins, those for whom he prayed, his people, his elect,
those God gave to him, he realizes that he himself must bear their
sins against him in putting him to death. And on the basis, the
ground of what he did, asking his Father, Father, take me instead
of them, take the offering of myself, receive it from my hand
for them." And I point this out to you all the time, and I hope
you don't get tired of it. I love to think about this. God
has given this picture in the book of Philemon. I'm just going
to read this to you, what Paul said to Philemon about that slave
Onesimus. Remember that? It's that little
book just before the book of Hebrews. Paul says to Philemon,
regarding Onesimus. And he learned this from his
Savior, and it's recorded here to teach us what Christ did for
us. In verse 12 of Philemon, he says, Paul says about Onesimus,
"...whom I have sent again. Thou therefore receive him, that
is, mine own bowels." Receive him! My very insides are tied
up to this slave that departed from you. And then in verse 17
Paul says this. If you count me a partner, Philemon,
receive him, the guilty slave, as myself. If he has wronged
thee, or oweth thee aught, put that on my account. I will repay
it. That's what the Lord is saying.
If they've wronged you, Father, because sin is against God only.
If they have wronged you, then put that on my account. I will
repay it." That's the prayer of our intercessor, the Lord
Jesus Christ. He owned our sins and took them.
And these were the worst of the worst, weren't they? These were
the people instigated by the devil himself to do all that
was in their heart. And God took His hand of restraint
off and let them do it. Because He must bring upon His
Son the consequences of the sins of all of His people. What a
mercy! What grace! This is the Lord
praying here as a man. And the one thing I see in this
is that it's never too late. It's never too late for us to
serve God in prayer, is it? When you feel weak and entirely
helpless to do anything for the good of men's souls. Maybe you
just don't, you feel ignorant, you feel incapable, you feel
weak. All these things. You can pray,
can't you? Can't you take God's Word in
your heart that He's taught you and say, Lord, do for them according
to your Word. Look upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
Receive them according to your Word and your will to your glory
for Christ's sake. Isn't that what we pray? Lord,
do for them. Have mercy upon them. It's never
too late. And our Loved ones and friends are never
too far gone to pray for them, are they? Hear these men, you
would think these guys were as far gone as could possibly have
been. And the Lord says, then, at that
time, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. Paul,
in 1 Timothy 1, He said God put him into the ministry. Look at
1 Timothy chapter 1. The same thing is mentioned there.
The ignorance here of these men. It's willful ignorance. They
were culpable, they were guilty for it. But he says in verse
13 of 1 Timothy 1, speaking of himself, he says, who was before,
a blasphemer. I spoke against God and against
His Son. And a persecutor. I persecuted
the Lord's people. Those people that the Lord says,
if you've done it to me, if you've done it to the least of my brethren,
you've done it to me. I was a persecutor of Christ's
church, his own bride that he bought with his blood and injurious. But I obtained mercy because
I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was
exceeding abundant with faith and love, which is in Christ
Jesus. He gave me faith in Christ and
love for Him and for His people. That's when he says in verse
15, this is a faithful saying, reflecting on all this, for himself
and for all those to whom Paul ministers, he said, and this
is worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." That's what Paul
saw in this, and he saw it in his own experience. It's never
too late. Go to God in prayer. He went
to Him as a man, the Lord Jesus Himself. Against whom the wrong
was done, He goes to His Father and says, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're
doing. What a mercy. Isn't that great? Isn't that
a great mercy that Christ would pray for His murderers? And the
other thing I see here is that if you and I are ever saved,
if we're ever saved, if the Lord ever forgives us, you know why?
It's because the Lord Jesus Christ Himself prayed to His Father,
Father, forgive them. That I know. We need a mediator,
don't we? He prayed according to the law.
He prayed as our advocate. He was a righteous advocate. And he prayed in that way. God
only forgives on the basis of his righteousness. Remember what
it says in Romans chapter 5 verse 21. Look at that with me. Romans
5 verse 21. He says this. This is one of those verses that
just stands out like a beacon that guides us in so many ways.
Romans 5.21, "...as sin hath reigned unto death..." Even so, might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. The
wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life,
and yet that eternal life is given on the basis and the ground
of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is why
it's grace. because God gave His Son and
Christ gave Himself in order to save us on the basis of justice
satisfied, the fulfillment of God's law. What a mercy. Look
at one more verse. Look at Colossians chapter 2
on this subject. Colossians chapter 2. I love
this. Father, forgive them for they
know not what they do. Colossians chapter 2. He says,
and you, verse 13, and you, Being dead in your sins and the
uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with
him. Quickened means to be made alive.
He has quickened you. He has given you life by the
Spirit of God. Not only in your soul, but judicially
with Christ. He raised you when Christ was
raised from the dead. Having justified you. Look what
he says. Having forgiven you. How many? All trespasses. All trespasses. The ones I commit
right now, the ones I committed yesterday, all those that I look
back with such shame, and those that I have yet to commit, all
trespasses. He's forgiven you trespasses
of thought, of motive, and word, and deed, The ones you did willfully,
the ones you did in ignorance, all trespasses. He quickened
you because He already had forgiven you. Look at this. Having forgiven
you, all trespasses. He made you alive because of
the cross. He paid for your sins and prayed,
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And then
He made you alive and gave you faith and love, as Paul said
in 1 Timothy 1. What a grace. Now I want to look
at the next words that the Lord Jesus spoke on the cross. Look
at John chapter 19. John 19. I don't know if this
was the second thing he said or not, but this is amazing as
well. Here the Lord Jesus prays. He
doesn't pray, but he's hanging on the cross. And as he's hanging
there, you know what had happened. His disciples had all forsook
him and fled. They feared for their lives.
They ran out, fearing for their lives, and they left him. But
here, in verse 25 of John chapter 19, it says, Now there stood
by the cross of Jesus his mother, his mother Mary, and his mother's
sister, Mary, the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. So these
three Marys were there. Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary,
the wife of Cleophas, which was also the sister of Mary. It's
interesting that in the same family they would have two girls
named Mary. I don't know how to figure that
all out, but it doesn't really matter. And then it says, while
they stood there at the cross, think about it. The disciples
have fled, and yet here's Mary, Mary, and Mary standing to the
cross. Standing there by the cross. Jesus hanging there in
all of his shame. Can you imagine it here? How
old do you think Mary was? Well, Jesus was 30-something,
and she couldn't have been any younger than maybe 16 or so when
she gave birth to Jesus. I don't know how old she was.
So she had to be nearly 50 or maybe older. So she was an elderly
woman at this point, at that time. And she stands there by
the cross looking upon who? Her son. The one she had given
birth to. And you know what that's like
for a mother. And she knew him, didn't she? She knew he was a
holy son. She knew that he was good. and
that he had the favor of God. And she probably wondered why
he was hanging on the cross. Remember what that prophet Simeon
said to Mary when she came into the temple to do for Jesus as
according to the law? And Simeon took the Lord Jesus
as a baby in his arms and he says, Now let my soul depart,
mine eyes have seen thy salvation. And then Simeon turns to Mary
and he says, And a sword shall pierce your own soul also because
of him. When Mary stood by the cross,
no doubt sorrow filled her heart, as a mother for her son, and
as a disciple, because she loved the Lord Jesus as A sinner loves
her Savior. Remember what she prayed in Luke
chapter 1 when the angel announced to her that she was going to
give birth? She said, My soul hath rejoiced in God, my Savior. She wasn't a Savior. She was
a woman in need. A woman who was a sinner who
needed a Savior. That's why she rejoiced in the
Lord Jesus. That's why she loved Him. We
love Him because He first loved us. And so she says here, she
stood there by the cross. And then it says in verse 26,
when Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple standing
by, whom Jesus loved, that would have been the Apostle John. John
must have been the first one to return to Jesus. Now he stands
at the cross. Jesus is hanging there, crucified. The nails are through his hands
and feet. And the blood is streaming down his head from the crown,
and from the blood from the garden, and stripped naked, and in shame,
and they're standing there with him. And Jesus looks at his mother,
and he looks at the disciple whom Jesus loved. John understood
something about the Lord, didn't he? Something so important. He
loved me. He loves me. He wasn't the only
disciple whom Jesus loved. Did Jesus only love John? No. Paul said, the Son of God who
loved me and gave himself for me. So he also knew that. And Jesus said in John 13, 1,
having loved his own, which were in the world, he loved them to
the end. So he loved all of his disciples. In Revelation 1, 5
he says, the saints are gathered around the throne and they said,
unto him who loved us. and washed us from our sins in
His own blood." That's the knowledge. That's the gift. That's what
faith causes us to know. That the Lord Jesus Christ gave
Himself for us in love. In love. 1 John 4, 16. We have
known and believed the love that God has for us. We've known it
and believed it. How do we know? Because Christ
gave Himself for our sins. And here, the disciple whom Jesus
loved, he knew it. He therefore loved the Lord Jesus,
didn't he? Those the Lord loves, love him.
And so the Lord says here, when he saw his mother, and he saw
John, that beloved disciple, standing near the cross, he said
to his mother, woman, behold thy son. And to John he said,
behold thy mother. What is happening here? What
just happened? The God of glory, hanging on
the cross, in our nature, as a man, depending upon His God,
trusting His God, though all came upon Him and said, Your
God will not save you. You trusted him in vain. You
claimed to be his son and yet he's not delivering you. All
these things came upon him by accusation. And he's carrying
the weight of the sins of his people. And he's fighting with
the devil to overthrow the kingdom of Satan. He's doing all this
and fulfilling the eternal will of God. And he looks down and
he sees his mother and he says, Woman, behold your son. And he says to John, behold your
mother. Here, he's taking care for the
very smallest of details, even though he's doing all of this.
How can he do that? How can he be so attentive to
such small details? Casting all your cares upon him,
Peter said, 1 Peter 5, 7, for he careth for you. in every small
detail of life. He cares for us. We should always
have our eyes fixed upon the Lord Jesus, the Lord of Glory.
He cares for us. He cared for this woman. He says
to her, woman. I think it's interesting in the
New Testament, Jesus never called Mary mother. He never said mother. this or that. He said, woman,
woman. It occurs in the book of John.
Woman, he says to her. She came to him at the marriage
of Canaan and said, they don't have any wine. He says, woman, what
do I have to do with you? My hour hasn't come yet to shed
my blood. But then he does the miracle.
Here he says to her, woman, in order to take away the idolatry
that the Catholic Church has put upon Mary, woman. And what
does he do? He says to her, woman behold
your son. She was a widow at this point.
Joseph, her husband, had long since dead. He's never mentioned
past the time when Jesus was 12 years old in the temple. And
he's talking to those men and he says to his mother and Joseph,
he says, didn't you know I must be about my father's business?
Joseph is never mentioned after that point by name. They refer
to him in Matthew 13 as the carpenter's son, but Joseph wasn't around.
She was a widow. She needed care. This was Mary,
the one people now idolize. She was a woman in need of care,
a believer. And so he says to her, Woman,
behold thy son. You go to his house. And we know
this is what happened because it says at that point John took
her into his own home. John treated her, a widow, a
believer, as a mother. And isn't it interesting that
of all of the family that Jesus had, and we don't know how many
brothers, sisters, or cousins he had, but they were all close.
Mary, the wife of Cleophas, was obviously her sister. And she
had children. It says in Matthew 13. So we
know that there was family there, but his brethren did not believe
in him. John chapter 7. His brethren
didn't believe in him. So Jesus didn't commit Mary to
her family. He committed her to someone who
wasn't in her physical family. to this beloved disciple. Why?
Because Jesus knew that both Mary and John loved Him. And there's no closer bond than
the love between believers. It surpasses the love between
family members. This is what the scripture teaches.
Look at Colossians chapter 2. Love is the bond between us in
the church and between God and our souls. Love is that bond. When you put the ring on your
spouse's finger, that's the bond. It's the symbol of the bond,
which is your love for that person. This is going to knit us together.
Colossians 2, it says, In verse 1, Paul says to the Colossians,
"...I would that you knew what great conflict I have for you,
and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen
my face in the flesh. Not only those that I've seen
and met, but those I haven't seen, for whom I labor in the
gospel." Verse 2, "...that their hearts might be comforted, being
knit together in love like a stitch." Denise took her blanket down
to Barbie's house and had it stitched up. Knitting it together
like a bond. We're knit together in love.
And verse 19 of the same chapter. These men who are vainly puffed
up, it says in verse 19, "...not holding the head, which is Christ,
from which all the body, by joints and bands, having nourishment,
ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase
of God." It is knit together. And then in Colossians... Oh shoot. I lost the verse here. Let me see if I can find it real
quick. Colossians chapter, I thought it was three or four. All right. That's too bad. Let me see if I can find it real
quick here. It's Colossians 3, verse 14. Look at this. He says, And above
all these things put on charity, which is love, which is the bond
of perfectness. What is the bond? It's love.
You see, in Scripture, God teaches us that there's a bond, an inseparable
bond, between Christ and His people. And that bond is formed
by the love of Christ for them. Remember what it says in Romans
8? Who shall separate us from what? The love of Christ. Romans 8.35 Who shall separate
us from the love of Christ? And then in verse 39, Who shall
separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord? The love of God for His people
is that bond that holds them in union to Christ. Like the
bond between a man and a woman who are married. It's intended
to be understood by us as that marriage is a reflection of that
bond. And so we see that here. This love that John had for Christ
and that Mary had for the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the Lord
Jesus in comfort and care for Mary commits her keeping into
the hand of this disciple who loved him because he knew Christ's
love for him. And they had this strong fellowship
because of that. Remember in chapter 20, look
at John chapter 20. It says in John 20 verse 4, Peter
and John ran both together, and the other disciple, which was
John, did outrun Peter and came first to the sepulcher. Probably
because he was younger. Well, he lived longer. I don't
know. Peter was crucified. I think they say upside down.
I don't know. But anyway, that's unimportant.
And he, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying.
Yet he went not in. So John is standing outside.
He looks in the sepulcher. He sees the linen clothes folded
and lying. Then cometh Simon Peter following
him, and he burst through, and went into the sepulchre, and
seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin that was about
his head, not lined with the linen clothes, but wrapped together
in a place by itself. Then went in also that other
disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw and
believed." John saw and he believed. Peter hadn't yet understood it
yet. For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise
again from the dead." Then look at verse 10. Then the disciples
went away again unto their own home. So John goes to his home,
Peter goes to his home. When John gets home, who's there?
Mary. What does John tell her? The
Lord is risen. The one that you were standing
by the cross just... Just a day or so before, three
days by the Jewish counting, but it's probably less than 36
hours, He's risen again. He's risen. Do you realize the
comfort and the joy they had together at that moment? This
is the Lord Jesus thinking about His own. Everything He did, He
did out of thoughtfulness for His people. Everything in our
lives the Lord does for His people. He does it for us. All things
work together for good to them that love God, to them who are
the called according to His purpose. The ones the Lord calls. Everything
in history is ordered for their good and salvation to the glory
of Christ our Savior. This is the Lord Jesus. First
He prays, Father, in a prayer of forgiveness, and now a prayer
of deep abiding affection and love for these two, His disciples. They're just representative of
all the Lord's people. The Lord Jesus. What a word,
isn't this? The words of our Lord from the
cross. It's amazing. Now there's one other thing I
should point out, just in passing here, and you can look at this
in your own time, but if you read the book of Revelation in
chapter 12, you'll see there that there's a symbol given of
a woman who's about to give birth, and it says, She's clothed with
the sun, the moon is under her feet, and she's crowned with
these stars. That picture represents, in the
book of Revelation chapter 12, the church of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Because the woman, it says, the
seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent. And
in Revelation chapter 12, She's clothed with the Son. Who's the
Son of Righteousness? The Lord Jesus. Why is she crowned? Because of the victory of Christ.
Why is the moon under her feet? Because she has dominion. Because
Christ has given her dominion over sin and Satan and death
and everything by His victory on the cross. And yet she's about
to give birth in Revelation 12. And she gives birth and then
it says that her child is caught up to heaven. This is the death
and the resurrection and the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In triumph over Satan. And when he arrives in heaven
in Revelation 12, the devil, the dragon, is cast out, the
accuser of the brethren. And here when the Lord Jesus
speaks to Mary and He says, Woman, behold thy son. Think about the
fact that in history, the woman represents the church of God.
And the son to whom that church gave birth is the Lord Jesus
Christ. Remember Galatians 4? It says,
Jerusalem which is above is the mother of us all. Now, those
things are meant to say something about this account here in John
19, when Jesus says, Woman, behold thy son. Because to the church
of God, the Lord Jesus says, Woman, Behold thy Son, and who
is the Son we're to behold? Is it not the Son of God, the
Lord of glory, who hung on the cross, bearing our sins, in all
the shame we deserved, and the pain, and the suffering, and
the abandonment, in triumphant victory over the devil and all
of his kingdom, to save us from our sins, to bring us to himself,
that we might have this fellowship of communion with him in his
triumph over sin and everything? This is our Lord. He spoke these
things from the cross with full control. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your goodness,
for your wisdom, for your power, for your grace, for your love,
for doing all things according to the justice and righteousness
of God. We thank you that you've saved
us by yourself. We didn't help you at all. There
was no one there. Not even your own family and
disciples were there to comfort you, but you did it by yourself.
What a Savior you are to us. An intercessor, an advocate,
a comforter, a provider, one who knows us as we truly are
and saves us and meets our needs where we really are. Lord, we
thank you for your goodness. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.