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<p>14:62- see on <em><a href='B:470 24:28'>Mat 24:28</a></em>.</p><p><em>And Jesus said: I am, and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven</em>-</p><p>The allusion is clearly to Daniel's vision of the Son of Man coming in glory to judge the Gentile world. And the Lord is saying that those hyper religious Jews were effectively condemned Gentiles before God. But those men to whom He spoke died in their beds. Lifespans were short in first century Palestine, most males were dead by 40. Most of them wouldn't even have lived to experience the calamity of AD67-70. They will only therefore "see the Son of Man sitting..." at His return, when they are resurrected and see Him in His glory. And this will be of itself their condemnation- to see Him there enthroned in glory, and themselves not in His Kingdom. This was exactly His teaching to them in <em><a href='B:470 23:39'>Mat 23:39</a></em>: "You shall not see Me from this time forward, until you shall say: Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord". They will then bless Him- but all too tragically late.</p><p>At His trial, the Lord warned them that He would come again as judge (<em><a href='B:470 26:64-65'>Mat 26:64-65</a></em>), as if He realized that they were living out a foretaste of the final judgment. The thief likewise understood the Lord's presence as being the presence of the judge who would finally judge him (<em><a href='B:490 23:44'>Luk 23:44</a></em>). Harry Whittaker points out that the cross divided men: there were women who followed and mourned insincerely, and the women who really followed. There were soldiers who gambled over the Lord's clothes, and one who really repented. There was a thief who repented and one who wouldn't. There were those who mocked and others who watched and believed.</p>


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<p>14:63&nbsp;<em>And the high priest tore his clothes and said-&nbsp;</em>Declaring the end of his priesthood, to be replaced by the Lord Jesus. The Lord was crucified for blasphemy; this was the charge on which He was found guilty at His trial by the Jews, and the basis upon which they demanded His crucifixion. The Mishnah claims that this was only possible if someone actually used the Yahweh Name:&nbsp;<em>Sanhedrin</em>&nbsp;7:5 outlines the protocol for condemning someone for this, in terms which have accurate correspondence with the Lord’s trial: “The blasphemer is not guilty until he have expressly uttered the Name... When the trial is over... the judges stand up and rend their clothes" (Quoted in F:F. Bruce,&nbsp;<em>The Spreading Flame (</em>Grand Rapids: Eerdmans<em>,&nbsp;</em>1995 ed:), p. 53). So when the Lord responded to their question as to His Messiahship by saying “I am", and went on to appropriate the Messianic words of <em><a href='B:340 7:13'>Dan 7:13</a></em> and <em><a href='B:230 110:1'>Psa 110:1</a></em> to Himself, He must have explicitly used the Yahweh Name about Himself. This is why they were so quick to accuse Him of blasphemy, and why the High Priest rent his clothes. The Lord died because He declared the Yahweh Name, unashamedly, knowing that His declaration of it would take Him to the cross. Our declaration of the essence of Yahweh, by truthfulness, forgiveness... this may cost us, although maybe not so dearly. Yet we can be inspired by the Lord’s example:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p><em>What further need have we of witnesses?</em>- Again, legal procedure, which they had tried so carefully to follow, was made a mockery of. They began with a conviction of plotting to destroy the temple buildings, then turned that into an accusation that He was a "Christ, the Son of God", a rival to Caesar; and now they jump on the charge of blasphemy, for which they gave Him the death penalty. And yet the Jews had no legal power to execute people; they had to present their case to the Roman authorities. And blasphemy was not a capital offence under Roman law. Their careful attempts to follow legal integrity broke down in pathetic collapse, and thereby they condemned themselves. The same word,&nbsp;<em>blasphemeo</em>, is then used of how the Jews "reviled" or blasphemed the Lord as He hung on the cross (27:39; <em><a href='B:490 22:65'>Luk 22:65</a></em>). They had earlier accused the Lord of blasphemy at least twice during His ministry (<em><a href='B:470 9:3'>Mat 9:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 10:36'>Joh 10:36</a></em> s:w:). So they should have thought of that earlier in the trial, seeing they themselves were the witnesses of that supposed crime. We are left with the impression of a judge and jury increasingly desperate to find the Lord guilty, progressively throwing their integrity and legalism to the winds in their obsession to make Him guilty of death. Little wonder that Pilate later remonstrated with them that Jesus was simply not legally guilty of any capital offence. But the more he made that point to them, the more they screamed for His death:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>14:64&nbsp;<em>You have heard the blasphemy. What think you?-&nbsp;</em>The spiritual culture of Almighty God is shown by the way in which although&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;the Council (<em><a href='B:480 14:64'>Mar 14:64</a></em>), including Joseph, condemned Christ to death by crucifixion, God overlooks Joseph's lack of boldness in not contesting this, and speaks of him in such glowing spiritual terms. His 'not consenting unto' Christ's death was deep within him. I would be inclined to say: 'The&nbsp;<em>least</em>&nbsp;you could have done was to have abstained from the vote'. But the record is far more positive than that. No note is made of Joseph or Nicodemus speaking out against it. The mob ruled, despite all the appearances of jurisprudence, spiritual and legal integrity. And yet the record speaks so positively of those two men. Perhaps this is because the Gospel records were encouraging those who had offered a pinch of incense to Caesar, or in some other way been silent in the Roman world when they should have stood up and been counted, that God’s grace was still with them- even though ultimately, providence tends to overrule circumstances so that we do have to stand up openly.</p><p><em>And they all condemned him to be worthy of death</em>- The Lord had earlier taught that whoever calls their brother 'Raca', worthless, would be "guilty" s:w. before "the Council", the Sanhedrin (<em><a href='B:470 5:21-22'>Mat 5:21-22</a></em>). He had in mind that the Sanhedrin of the Jews was not the ultimate court of judgment for God’s people, but rather the Heavenly council of Angels, presided over by God Almighty. The Lord must surely have been aware of this as the men of that human Sanhedrin condemned and abused Him. Human committees, courts or even groups of friends and family members are not the ultimate Sanhedrin; judge us as they may, the ultimate court is in Heaven. The same word for "guilty" is found in <em><a href='B:530 11:27'>1Co 11:27</a></em>, where Paul urges us to self-examination at the Lord's table lest we be guilty of His body and blood. The allusion shows that we as baptized believers can be no better than those evil men- unless we perceive Him and His death for what they really are.</p>


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<p>14:65&nbsp;<em>And some began to spit on him and to cover his face-&nbsp;</em>This was done by men who just minutes beforehand had been carefully upholding some isolated principles of Divine law and general legal integrity. Their appearance of culture vanished. They only could have been so crude and cruel if they first justified it in terms of their religion; spitting and beating would have been justified by them as the punishment due to a heretic. But here we see how they were justifying their own natural anger and jealousy by taking a tiny shard of Biblical precedent- for only in <em><a href='B:50 25:2'>Deu 25:2</a></em> do we have any justification for legal beating, and once it was finished, then there was to be no other punishment. The beating was to be on his back and not on his face; and there was no talk of spitting. But the Jews took that and used it to justify spitting in the Lord's<em>&nbsp;face</em>, beating Him with their fists and then further condemning Him to death. The only command to spit in the face of a man was if he refused to raise up children for his dead relative (<em><a href='B:50 25:9'>Deu 25:9</a></em>); but this was totally irrelevant to the Lord Jesus. He in any case was the ultimate example of a man who did build up His Father's house. There is anger in each of us, and religious people at times give full vent to that anger by justifying it as righteous anger, grabbing hold of the vague implication of some Bible verse and taking it way beyond the obvious meaning of the verse. In doing so, they are behaving no better than these the very worst of men who have ever lived, committing the worst ever crime ever committed in the cosmos. The face of Jesus shone at times with God’s glory; He was the face of God to men. And they spat in that face, and beat it. The wonder was that the Lord had specifically foreseen this- He had predicted that they would spit at Him (<em><a href='B:480 10:34'>Mar 10:34</a></em>). He foresaw how they would fuel their anger against Him with their persuasion that He was a heretic:&nbsp;</p><p><em>Striking him-&nbsp;</em>Slapping Him. A Semitic insult to a heretic. Again, their anger was fuelled by and excused by their religious convictions. This slapping (whilst He was blindfolded, <em><a href='B:490 22:64'>Luk 22:64</a></em>) was connected to their question: "Prophesy to us, you Christ Who is he that struck you?" (:68). Clearly they were seeking to test His claim to be the Christ. They thought that the Christ could demonstrate supernatural knowledge; and He had already demonstrated that multiple times. They clearly had in mind a section from the uninspired Psalms of Solomon, where false Messiahs were to be tested in this way. The warning to us is to never allow fragments of Scripture or our religious tradition or beloved writings to justify us in expressing our anger in this way:&nbsp;</p><p><em>And saying to him: Prophesy-&nbsp;</em>They had blindfolded Him, and were challenging Him to exercise the prophetic gift of discernment by saying the name of the soldier who had struck Him. We note that 'prophesy' is not to be understood solely as the prediction of future events. The fact is, the Lord did know who had struck Him. They were clearly alluding to the fact that the Jews had concluded the Lord was a false prophet and false Christ and were punishing Him as such.</p><p><em>And the guards took him and beat him with their hands</em>- Men smote “the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek" (<em><a href='B:400 5:1'>Mic 5:1</a></em>). The RVmg. of <em><a href='B:480 14:65'>Mar 14:65</a></em> says that the Lord was hit with “strokes of rods". Perhaps it was in this sense that the rod comforted Messiah (<em><a href='B:230 23:4'>Psa 23:4</a></em>) in that He saw immediately that prophecy was being fulfilled in Him. Our darkest moments likewise can be our greatest encouragement if only we perceive them as we should. As men mocked Him and smote Him, thus they were treating their judge at the time of judgment. In His time of dying, the Lord Jesus was the judge of Israel. This explains why when we come before the cross, not only at the breaking of bread but&nbsp;<em>whenever</em>&nbsp;we come into contact with Him, or reflect upon Him and His death, we are in some sense coming before Him in judgment.</p>


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<p>14:66&nbsp;<em>And as Peter was downstairs in the courtyard, there came-&nbsp;</em><em><a href='B:500 18:17'>Joh 18:17</a></em> says that the girl was keeping the door and let Peter through. As the door keeper she would have looked carefully at his face in the light of a torch. And then she came to him as he was sitting by the fire (Lk:), say some minutes later, as she realized who he was. This again has the ring of congruence about it, indicating how perfectly the records dovetail:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p><em>One of the maids of the high priest</em>- Gk. 'a servant girl', "one of the servant girls of the High Priest" (<em><a href='B:480 14:66'>Mar 14:66</a></em>). Her claim that "You also were with Jesus" may specifically refer to Peter's presence with Jesus in Gethsemane, for”&nbsp;the servants" of the High Priest had been there. Perhaps she was one of them. She describes Peter as being&nbsp;<em>meta&nbsp;</em>Jesus "you were with Jesus", and the same phrase&nbsp;<em>meta&nbsp;</em>Jesus is used to described the disciples being&nbsp;<em>meta&nbsp;</em>Jesus in Gethsemane (<em><a href='B:470 26:36'>Mat 26:36</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 26:51'>Mat 26:51</a></em>). Or since the Lord was a public figure in Jerusalem, it would be likely that Peter was known as one of those ever to be seen hanging around Him. <em><a href='B:500 18:17'>Joh 18:17</a></em> gives further information about her: "The maid keeping watch at the door said to Peter: Are you also one of this man's disciples? He said: I am not". The only other time we read of a servant girl who was a door keeper is in <em><a href='B:510 12:16'>Act 12:16</a></em>, where the servant girl s:w. called Rhoda was the door keeper at the home of the disciples in Jerusalem, and is thrilled when she realizes that it is Peter knocking at the door asking her to let him in. Note that "door keeper" is likely a technical term, a kind of profession. This heightens the similarity between the two characters. The similarities with the scene in <em><a href='B:500 18:17'>Joh 18:17</a></em> are too strong to be passed off as unintentional; for here Peter has to have the door to the courtyard opened by the servant girl, and it is at the gate that she recognizes him. Peter's failure, his denials, were the basis of his successful appeals for Israel to follow his pattern of repentance. Thousands heard him make those appeals in Jerusalem, for if a few thousand were baptized in one day, we can be sure that many others heard the message and didn’t act upon it. It's highly likely that that servant girl was in the crowd, and was one who responded. I suggest that Rhoda was that servant girl, converted by Peter's failure, repentance and experience of forgiveness. She converted from serving the Jewish High Priest to serving the Heavenly High Priest, the Lord Jesus; from being one of the crowd who went out to arrest Jesus, to being one who glorified His resurrection:&nbsp;</p><table><tr><td></p><p>Matthew</td><td>Mark</td><td>Luke</td><td>John</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Accusation 1</td><td>Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard, and a maid came to him, saying: You also were with Jesus the Galilean.</td><td>And as Peter was downstairs in the courtyard, there came one of the maids of the high priest:&nbsp; And seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said: You also were with the Nazarene, Jesus</td><td>And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat among them. And a certain maid seeing him as he sat in the light of the fire and looking earnestly upon him, said: This man also was with him.</td><td>Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. Now that disciple was known to the high priest; and he entered with Jesus into the court of the high priest:&nbsp; But Peter was standing outside the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the maid who kept watch at the door. The maid keeping watch at the door said to Peter: Are you also one of this man's disciples?</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Denial 1</td><td>But he denied before them all, saying: I do not know what you say.</td><td>But he denied it, saying: I neither know, nor understand what you say; and he went out into the porch; and the cock crew.</td><td>But he denied it, saying: Woman, I do not know him.</td><td>He said: I am not</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Accusation 2</td><td>And when he went out to the entrance, another maid saw him and said to the bystanders: This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.</td><td>And the maid saw him and began again to say to them that stood by: This is one of them</td><td>And after a little while another person saw him and said: You also are one of them.</td><td>Now the servants and the officers were standing there, having made a fire of coals. For it was cold, and they were warming themselves; and Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself... Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They said to him: Are you also one of his disciples?</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Denial 2</td><td>And again he denied with an oath: I do not know the man.</td><td>But he again denied it.</td><td>But Peter said: Man, I am not.</td><td>He denied and said: I am not</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Accusation 3</td><td>And after a little while they that stood by came and said to Peter: Of a truth you also are one of them, for your dialect makes you known.</td><td>And after a little while, again they that stood by said to Peter: Of a truth you are one of them; for you are a Galilean.</td><td>And after the space of about one hour another confidently affirmed, saying: Of a truth, this man also was with him. For he is a Galilean.</td><td>One of the servants of the high priest, being a relative of him whose ear Peter cut off, said: Did I not see you in the garden with him?</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Denial 3</td><td>Then he began to curse and to swear: I do not know the man And immediately the cock crowed.</td><td>But he began to curse and to swear under oath: I do not know this man of whom you speak. And immediately the second time the cock crew</td><td>But Peter said: Man, I do not know what you say. And immediately, as he spoke, the cock crew.</td><td>Peter denied again; and immediately the cock crew.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Peter's response 1</td><td>And Peter remembered the words which Jesus had said: Before the cock crows, you shall deny me three times.</td><td>And Peter remembered what Jesus had said to him: Before the cock crows twice, you shall deny me three times.</td><td>And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord that he had said to him: Before the cock crow this day, you shall deny me three times:&nbsp;</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Peter goes out</td><td>And he went out and wept bitterly.</td><td>And as he thought upon it, he wept.</td><td>And he went out and wept bitterly.</td><td></td><td></td></tr></table>


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<p>14:67<em> And seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said: You also were with the Nazarene, Jesus- </em>This has the ring of circumstantial truth to it. The light from the fire would have drawn attention to the features of Peter’s face. He would have been well known in Jerusalem as the Lord’s right hand man. We see here another hint at the simplicity and lack of wisdom in Peter. And yet he was the one the Lord used so powerfully<em>.</em></p>


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<p>14:68&nbsp;<em>But he denied it, saying-</em>&nbsp;Matthew stresses the denial was before them all. Peter was living out the scene of condemnation at the last day, where the verdict likewise will be manifest "before all". The Lord had used the same word in saying that whoever denied Him "before men" cp. "before all", He will deny before the Father at the last day (<em><a href='B:470 10:33'>Mat 10:33</a></em>). Peter appealed for Israel to repent on the basis that they had "denied" Christ (<em><a href='B:510 3:13-14'>Act 3:13-14</a></em> s:w:)- he is appealing for them to realize that they had done what he had done, and yet they could repent, convert and experience the same grace he had done. His appeal, made a stone's throw from where the denials were made and only 6 weeks later, was therefore so powerful. Peter likewise used his failure in his pastoral work with his converts, warning them that to even deny the Lord who redeemed us is the worst possible thing we can do (<em><a href='B:680 2:1'>2Pe 2:1</a></em>). Likewise <em><a href='B:690 2:22-23'>1Jn 2:22-23</a></em> speaks of denying Christ as being the characteristic of the AntiChrist. And John wrote in the context of the early church having Peter as its first leader, and John of course was fully aware of Peter's failure that night.</p><p>Peter in this life denied his Lord&nbsp;<em>in front of men</em>&nbsp;(<em><a href='B:470 26:70'>Mat 26:70</a></em>)- and the record of his failure intentionally looks back to the Lord's warning that whoever denies Him&nbsp;<em>before men&nbsp;</em>will be denied by Him at judgment day (<em><a href='B:470 10:33'>Mat 10:33</a></em>). He sinned, and in the court of Heaven was condemned. There is a passage in <em><a href='B:240 24:11-12'>Pro 24:11-12</a></em> which has a strange relevance to Peter's self-condemnation. Having spoken of those being led away to death (the very context of Peter's denial), we read: "If thou sayest, Behold we know not this man: doth not he that weigheth the hearts consider it? And shall not he render to every man according to his works?". This last phrase is quoted in <em><a href='B:730 22:12'>Rev 22:12</a></em> about the final judgment. Paul seems to consciously link Peter’s church hypocrisy and legalism with his earlier denials that he had ever known the Lord Jesus. He writes of how he had to reveal Peter’s denial of the Lord’s grace “before them all” (<em><a href='B:550 2:14'>Gal 2:14</a></em>), using the very same Greek phrase of <em><a href='B:470 26:70'>Mat 26:70</a></em>, where “before them all” Peter made the same essential denial.</p><p><em>I neither know, nor understand what you say; and he went out into the porch; and the cock crew</em>- Again, Peter was acting as the condemned, to whom the Lord will say "I know you not" (<em><a href='B:470 25:12'>Mat 25:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 13:25'>Luk 13:25</a></em>). The whole idea of ‘I don’t know Him’ must, sadly, be connected with the Lord’s words in <em><a href='B:470 7:23'>Mat 7:23</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 25:41'>Mat 25:41</a></em>, where He tells the rejected: “I never knew you”. By denying knowledge of the Saviour, Peter was effectively agreeing that the verdict of condemnation could appropriately be passed upon him:&nbsp; In one of his many allusions to the Gospels, Paul wrote that “If we deny him, he also will deny us” (<em><a href='B:620 2:12'>2Ti 2:12</a></em>). Peter in this life denied his Lord&nbsp;<em>in front of men</em>&nbsp;(<em><a href='B:470 26:70'>Mat 26:70</a></em>)- and the record of his failure intentionally looks back to the Lord’s warning that whoever denies Him&nbsp;<em>before men&nbsp;</em>will be denied by Him at judgment day (<em><a href='B:470 10:33'>Mat 10:33</a></em>). He sinned, and in the court of Heaven was condemned; and yet he could change the verdict by repentance.</p><p>Bible minded Peter must surely have later reflected that he had said those very words: 'I know not this man'. He "went out" from the Lord (<em><a href='B:480 14:68'>Mar 14:68</a></em>) and then some minutes later further "went out and wept bitterly" (<em><a href='B:490 22:62'>Luk 22:62</a></em>), living out the very figure of condemnation- and yet he was able to repent and come back. Peter's self condemnation is brought out in yet finer detail by considering what he meant when he thrice denied that he either knew nor understood about Jesus (<em><a href='B:480 14:68'>Mar 14:68</a></em>). By that time, everyone had heard about Jesus- after all, the trial of Jesus was going on, and all Jerusalem were waiting with bated breath for the outcome. And there was Peter, standing by the fire in the High Priest's house, with everyone talking about the Jesus affair. Peter hardly would've meant 'Jesus? 'Jesus' who? Never heard of him. Dunno who you're talking about'. What he therefore meant, or wished to be understood as meaning, was that he didn’t 'know' Jesus in a close sense, he wasn't a disciple of Jesus, he didn’t know nor understand Jesus, i:e:, he wasn't a follower of Jesus. When Peter tells the maid: "I know not, neither understand what you say about this Jesus" (<em><a href='B:480 14:68'>Mar 14:68</a></em>), the other records interpret this as meaning that Peter said that he didn’t know Jesus. So we may have to interpret the form of speech being used here; for Semitic speakers don't answer questions in the same way and form as we may be accustomed to. The "what you say" was about Jesus; and therefore Peter is saying that he neither knows closely nor understands this Jesus. And yet time and again, Peter's Lord had taught that those who did not or would not 'know and understand' Him were those who were "outside", unknown by Him, rejected. And Peter was saying, to save his skin, 'Yes, that's me'. And yet... Peter repented, and changed that verdict. Mark’s record of the Lord’s trial is not merely a historical account. It’s framed in terms of our need to testify for our faith too. The Lord’s example in His time of suffering was and is intended to be our example and inspiration, in that we are to in a very practical sense enter into His sufferings. Mark records the Lord’s prediction that His people would have to witness before both Jewish and Gentile authorities (<em><a href='B:480 13:9-13'>Mar 13:9-13</a></em>)- and then Mark goes on in the next chapter to describe Jesus doing just this. The Lord asked His suffering followers not to prepare speeches of self-defence- perhaps exemplified and patterned for us in the way that He remained silent before His accusers. Peter is recorded as denying Christ three times- just as the Romans interrogated Christians and asked them to three times deny Christ. The Christians were also asked to curse, or&nbsp;<em>anathematizein</em>, Jesus. And when we read of Peter’s cursing, the same word is used. We’re left with the impression that Peter actually cursed Christ. And so Mark, who was likely writing the Gospel on Peter’s behalf, is showing that Peter, the leader of the church, actually pathetically failed to follow his Lord at this time. And yet the Gospel of Mark was being distributed to Christians who were being dragged before Jewish and Roman courts. The idea was surely to give them an example and encouragement from Peter’s failure, rather than portray a positive example of a man overcoming the temptation to curse and deny Christ. But this was how the Lord used Peter- as an example from failure for all of us:&nbsp;<br/>"Went out" is the language of Judas going out (<em><a href='B:500 13:30'>Joh 13:30</a></em>), Cain '"went out" (<em><a href='B:10 4:16'>Gen 4:16</a></em>), as did Zedekiah in the judgment of Jerusalem (<em><a href='B:300 39:4'>Jer 39:4</a></em>; <em><a href='B:300 52:7'>Jer 52:7</a></em>). Esau went out from the land of Canaan into Edom, slinking away from the face of his brother Jacob, sensing his righteousness and his own carnality (<em><a href='B:10 36:2-8'>Gen 36:2-8</a></em>). Even in this life, those who leave the ecclesia 'go out' after the pattern of Judas, condemning themselves in advance of the judgment by their attitude to the ecclesia (<em><a href='B:690 2:19'>1Jn 2:19</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:510 15:24'>Act 15:24</a></em>). The unrighteous flee from God now, as they will then (<em><a href='B:350 7:13'>Hos 7:13</a></em>). The ungrateful servant "went out" and condemned his brother- thus condemning himself (<em><a href='B:470 18:28'>Mat 18:28</a></em>). Yet Peter in this life "went out" from the Lord (<em><a href='B:480 14:68'>Mar 14:68</a></em>) and then some minutes later further "went out and wept bitterly" (<em><a href='B:490 22:62'>Luk 22:62</a></em>), living out the very figure of rejection at the judgment-&nbsp; and yet was able to repent and come back. In this life we can be judged, condemned, weep…but still repent of it and thereby change our eternal destiny. But at the final judgment: it will be just too late. That 'judgment' will be a detailed statement of the outcome of the ongoing investigative <em><a href='B:720 1:1'>Jud 1:1</a></em> gment which is going on right now:&nbsp;<br/>Mark’s Peter’s Gospel omits many incidents, but also uses the device of repetition to stress what the writer considers significant. In <em><a href='B:480 14:68'>Mar 14:68</a></em> he records himself as having said: “I know, neither understand I what thou sayest”. He stresses the nature of his own rejection of knowledge of the Lord. A similar awareness of the weakness of the flesh is found in 7:21: “From within, out of the heart of man...".</p>


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<p>14:69&nbsp;<em>And the maid saw him and began again to say to them that stood by: This is one of them</em>-&nbsp; Peter overheard her talking to the men about him, and jumped in with a denial. This is absolutely psychologically credible:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>14:70&nbsp;<em>But he again denied it. And after a little while, again they that stood by said to Peter-&nbsp;</em>John says that a group of men made the second accusation; see the parallel texts at the commentary on :66. Luke says that Peter replied to the second accusation which Matthew says was made by a<em>&nbsp;woman</em>&nbsp;by saying “<em>Man</em>, I am not”. Clearly the accusations and denials were in groups- the second ‘denial’ involved a number of people a man, a woman and plural men making accusations and Peter denying them all. If we put together the various records of Peter’s three denials, it seems clear that a number of accusations were made, and he replied slightly differently each time. But there were three groups of accusations and denials. We can imagine the scene- there was a whole group of men and women present, all within earshot, and once one person made the accusation, others would’ve chimed in. But the account is stylized to group the denials in three groups, and Peter obviously perceived this after his final oath of denial. But in fact it seems that each denial was a series of separate denials. Indeed the tense of the verb “denied” suggests he kept on and on denying.</p><p><em>Of a truth you are one of them; for you are a Galilean</em>-&nbsp;<br/>From the larynx of a Palestinian Jew there came the words of Almighty God. And yet He spoke them in the accent of a rural Galilean. We know this because Peter was identified as being one of the Lord's close disciples because of His accent (<em><a href='B:470 26:73'>Mat 26:73</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 14:70'>Mar 14:70</a></em>). The dialect of Aramaic used in Galilee was a permanent topic of sarcasm in Jerusalem circles. There is a story in the Mishnah (bErubin 53b) which mocks how the Galileans pronounced words which began with a guttural deep-throat consonant. It ridicules how a Galilean in Jerusalem tries to buy something in a market but is mocked by the merchant: "You stupid Galilean, do you need something to ride on&nbsp;<em>hamair</em>- a donkey, or something to drink&nbsp;<em>hamar</em>- wine, or something to make a dress with&nbsp;<em>'amar</em>- wool, or something for a sacrifice&nbsp;<em>immar</em>- lamb". What an essay in God’s preference for using the things which man despises- that He should arrange for His Son to speak His words in the most humanly despised dialect of the ecclesia. In this context, it is interesting to note the debate over the original text of <em><a href='B:480 5:41'>Mar 5:41</a></em>, where the Lord is recorded as saying the Aramaic words&nbsp;<em>Talitha kum in</em>&nbsp;the oldest manuscripts, but it seems this has been changed to the more grammatically correct&nbsp;<em>Talitha kumi</em>&nbsp;in later codices:&nbsp;<em>Kum</em>&nbsp;would apparently have been the slovenly Galilean way of speaking, whereby the masculine form of the imperative is joined to a feminine subject. It could be that the Lord spoke in the Galilean way, technically incorrect grammatically- as a Londoner might say 'We was waiting for a bus' rather than 'we were waiting…'; or an Ulsterman 'how are yous all?' rather than using the more correct 'you' for 'you' plural. If this is so, we have another window into the person of Jesus. There was a naturalness about Him, an expression of the ultimate image of God in totally human form, which was so attractive.</p>


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<p>14:71&nbsp;<em>But he began-</em>&nbsp;The implication could be that he began to call down the curses of eternal condemnation and rejection at judgment day upon himself, but the crowing of the rooster made him stop.</p><p><em>To curse and to swear under oath: I do not know this man of whom you speak</em>- Not an expletive, but rather a Jewish oath. Many of them wished condemnation on the person making the oath if it were not true. Again, Peter is entering into condemnation, signing himself up for condemnation. James wrote to the very early church, probably to the Jerusalem ecclesia, who were clearly led by Peter. He urged them “Above all things, my brethren, swear not… neither by any other oath” (<em><a href='B:660 5:12'>Jas 5:12</a></em>). He was clearly saying, in effect: ‘Don’t be like Peter’. The weakness of Peter, and the way he had repented and been forgiven, was the basis of his success as a preacher and also of his special commission to feed the lambs of the early flock. He did not present himself as the flawless pastor, and neither did his fellow elders like James present him as such. But as with his Lord, it was his humanity which was the basis of his exaltation. This can be read as meaning that Peter actually cursed Christ, as well as taking an oath that he didn’t know Him. Commenting on the verb form of&nbsp;<em>anathematizein&nbsp;</em>there, Raymond Brown comments: "it should be taken transitively with 'Jesus' understood as the object: Peter cursed Jesus and took an oath that he had no personal acquaintance with him" - R:E. Brown,&nbsp;<em>The Death Of The Messiah</em>&nbsp;(Garden City: Doubleday, 1994) p. 605. I find it significant that the most awful detail about Peter's denials is provided in Mark's record, which I have suggested elsewhere is in fact Peter's record of the Gospel, written up by Mark.</p><p><em>"</em>This man" suggests he didn’t even know Jesus' name. He protested too much, for Jesus was a well known public figure in Jerusalem at the time (<em><a href='B:490 24:18-19'>Luk 24:18-19</a></em>).</p>


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<p>14:72&nbsp;<em>And immediately the second time the cock crew. And Peter remembered what Jesus had said to him: Before the cock crows twice, you shall deny me three times. And as he thought upon it, he wept</em>- It is only Mark who records the two cock crowings at the time of Peter’s denial. Peter wished to quietly emphasize the exactness of fulfilment of the Lord’s words about his denial. Mark / Peter likewise record Peter’s words as: “I neither know nor understand what you mean”. The ‘what’ can apply to both Jesus personally as well as the general ‘being with’ Jesus. Peter is admitting that He had denied having any understanding at all of the Lord- the Lord whose knowledge he now preached. One can imagine Peter’s voice quivering as he recounted his Gospel story. Note how Luke says that all the disciples slept in Gethsemane (<em><a href='B:490 22:45'>Luk 22:45</a></em>); but Mark Peter records how only Peter, James and John slept (<em><a href='B:480 14:37'>Mar 14:37</a></em>).</p><p>"Peter remembered" the Lord's words.<em>&nbsp;</em>The letters of Peter urge his readers to “be mindful of the words which were spoken before” (<em><a href='B:680 3:2'>2Pe 3:2</a></em>). Yet this is evidently alluding to the frequent references to the disciples being slow to “remember” s:w. “mindful” the words which their Lord had “spoken before” (<em><a href='B:490 24:6'>Luk 24:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 24:8'>Luk 24:8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 2:17'>Joh 2:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 2:22'>Joh 2:22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 12:16'>Joh 12:16</a></em>). Indeed, the same word is used about Peter ‘remembering’ s:w. “be mindful” all too late, the words which his Lord had “spoken before” to him (<em><a href='B:470 26:75'>Mat 26:75</a></em>). So Peter was aware that his readers knew that he had not ‘remembered’ the words his Lord had “spoken before” to&nbsp;<em>him</em>- and yet, knowing that, he exhorts his readers to ‘remember’ or ‘be mindful’ s:w. of words which had been previously spoken. His readers likely had memorized the Gospels by heart. And yet Peter asks them to learn from his mistake, not to be as slow to remember as the disciples had been, and he especially. This is the basis of powerful exhortation- a repentant life, not an appearance of sinlessness:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


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<p>15:1&nbsp;<em>And immediately in the morning the chief priests with the elders and scribes and the whole council, made their decision and bound Jesus and took him away and delivered him up to Pilate</em>- Trying a man through the night was hardly transparent or in accordance with the most basic standards of integrity. And yet on some issues, at this very same time, those men sought to carefully uphold their integrity and obedience to Divine principles. In this we see the tragic, cruel dualism of the human mind- and we understand again the call of God’s word to give ourselves to Him with our&nbsp;<em>whole</em>&nbsp;heart.</p><p>Israelites binding a man and delivering him over to Gentiles sounds very much like what Israel did to Samson. The Lord must’ve reflected how easily He likewise could have burst those bands and destroyed them all. The similarity with Samson is surely to remind us that He had those possibilities, but He was consciously choosing to give His life. The great paradox was that by accepting those bonds, He was thereby binding the strong man of sin and sin as manifested in the Jewish system (<em><a href='B:470 12:29'>Mat 12:29</a></em>). For "Took Him away" see on <em><a href='B:470 26:57'>Mat 26:57</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Led Him away.</em></p>


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<p>15:2&nbsp;<em>And Pilate asked him: Are you the King of the Jews?-&nbsp;</em>Out of the various Jewish accusations against the Lord, this was the only one which directly affected the Romans, and was the technical reason for Pilate agreeing to the death penalty; it was this reason which was written over the Lord’s head on the cross. The irony of the situation must have rubbed hard upon the Lord; He was dying as the King of a people, not one of whom would openly show loyalty to Him. In any suffering we may have because of feeling utterly alone, betrayed, having lived life to no end, not being shown loyalty by those we expect it of- we are connected with the spirit of the cross.</p><p><em>And he answering said to him: So you say</em>-&nbsp;<em>&nbsp;</em>Jesus before Pilate said just one word in Greek; translated "You say it". It is stressed there that Jesus said nothing else, so that Pilate marvelled at His silent self-control. Yet Paul speaks with pride of how the Lord Jesus "before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession" (<em><a href='B:610 6:13'>1Ti 6:13</a></em>). You'd expect him to be alluding to some major speech of Jesus. But it seems, reading his spirit, Paul's saying: 'Lord Jesus, your self control, your strength of purpose, was great. I salute you, I hold you up to Timothy as the supreme example. Just one word. What a witness'. &nbsp;As He witnessed in His ministry, so must we (<em><a href='B:520 2:19'>Rom 2:19</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:470 4:16'>Mat 4:16</a></em>). As He witnessed before Pilate, so must we witness (<em><a href='B:610 6:12-13'>1Ti 6:12-13</a></em>).</p>


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<p>15:3&nbsp;<em>And the chief priests accused him of many things</em>- The accusations were of course false (as Pilate himself pointed out, <em><a href='B:490 23:14'>Luk 23:14</a></em>), making the chief priests and Jewish system the 'devil', the false accuser. In my&nbsp;<em>The Real Devil</em>&nbsp;I demonstrated at length that the terms 'satan' and 'devil' often refer specifically to the Jewish system in the first century. The paradox was that it was those very Jews who were standing in the dock before God, accused by the writings of Moses (<em><a href='B:500 5:45'>Joh 5:45</a></em>). And yet we must give <em><a href='B:500 12:42'>Joh 12:42</a></em> its due weight- many of the chief rulers believed in Jesus as Christ but were fearful of the Pharisees and exclusion from the synagogue. So it has so often been- fear of religious excommunication leads believers to crucify their Christ brethren. Their behaviour is explained by the repeated descriptions of the Jews ‘gathering together’ to take their decisions about killing the Lord. In company, men adopt positions far beyond those they personally hold, and even strongly against their own personal convictions. Reading the account of Jewish treatment of Jesus, it seems incredible, at first blush, that some or even “many” of those men “believed in Him”. But this is the power of group think and the fear of appearing strange to others, or being rejected by others, especially from their religious fellowship.</p><p><em><a href='B:290 53:7'>Isa 53:7</a></em> speaks of the Lord at this time as being uncannily silent: " as a sheep before&nbsp;<em>her&nbsp;</em>shearers is silent”. The LXX has: “Because of his affliction he opens not his mouth", as if the silence was from pure fear as well as a reflection of an internal pain that was unspeakable. Job’s experience had foretold that the cross would be what the Lord had always “greatly feared". The Passover Lamb, so evidently typical of the Lord as He approached death, was to be&nbsp;<em>male</em>. And yet <em><a href='B:290 53:7'>Isa 53:7</a></em> conspicuously speaks of a female sheep. Why such an obvious contradiction? Was it not because the prophet foresaw that in the extraordinary breadth of experience the Lord was passing through, He was made to empathize with both men&nbsp;<em>and&nbsp;</em>women? He felt then, as He as the seed of the woman stood silent before those abusive men, as a woman would feel. This is not the only place where both the Father and Son are described in feminine terms. It doesn't mean, of course, that the Father is a woman; what it means is that He has the ability to appreciate and manifest feelings which a male would not normally be able to. Through His experience and zeal for our redemption, the Lord Jesus came to the same ability as His Father in these areas. Those who have suffered most are the most able to empathize. And yet somehow the Lord exceeded this principle; it was true of Him, but&nbsp;<em>such</em>&nbsp;were His sufferings and such His final empathy that this isn't a fully adequate explanation as to&nbsp;<em>how</em>&nbsp;He got to that point of supreme empathy and identity with us that He did:&nbsp;<em>Exactly</em>&nbsp;how He did it must surely remain a mystery; for God was in Him, reconciling the world unto Himself by that fully and totally representative sacrifice. The female element in Old Testament sacrifice pointed forward to the Lord’s sacrifice, as a sheep before her shearers. His identity with both male and female, as the ultimate representative of all humanity, meant that He took upon Himself things that were perceived as specifically feminine. The mother was the story teller of the family; when people heard the Lord tell parables and teach wisdom, it would have struck them that He was doing the work of the matriarch of a family. “Typical female behaviour included taking the last place at the table, serving others, forgiving wrongs, having compassion, and attempting to heal wounds", strife and arguments. And yet the woman was to be silent... as Christ was. All this was done by the Lord Jesus- especially in His time of dying and the lead up to it. He was in many ways the idealized mother / matriarch. His sacrifice for us was very much seen as woman’s work. And this is why the example of his mother Mary would have been a particular inspiration for Him in going through the final process of self-surrender and sacrifice for others, to bring about forgiveness and healing of strife between God and men. In a fascinating study, Diane Jacobs-Malina develops the thesis that a psychological analysis of the Gospels shows that the Lord Jesus played his roles like “the wife of the absent husband". And assuming that Joseph disappeared from the scene early in life, His own mother would have been His role model here- for she was indeed the wife of an absent husband. You’d have to read Jacobs-Malina’s study to be able to judge whether or not you think it’s all valid. But if she’s right, then it would be yet another tribute to the abiding influence of Mary upon the character of the Son of God.</p>


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<p>15:4&nbsp;<em>And Pilate again asked him: Have you no answer to make?-&nbsp;</em>The implication was 'Are you deaf?'. The Lord was fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies that Messiah would be as deaf before His accusers (<em><a href='B:230 38:13'>Psa 38:13</a></em> "I as a deaf man don't hear"; <em><a href='B:290 42:19'>Isa 42:19</a></em> "Who is blind, but My servant? Or who is as deaf as My messenger whom I send? Who is as blind as he who is at peace, and as blind as Yahweh’s servant?"). The quotation from Psalms 38 is from one of the Psalms David wrote concerning his failure with Bathsheba and subsequent sufferings. Many other of these Psalms, especially Psalms 22, 69, are full of material relevant to the Lord's sufferings. We observe therefore that through suffering for his sin, David came to know the sufferings of his future Messiah. We marvel at how God works through sin. He doesn't ignore it, nor simply punish men for the sake of needing to punish them. Those sufferings and the very experience of sin are somehow worked through by God in order to bring men to His Son and to His cross. We likewise should not turn away from sinners but rather seek to work with them to bring them to know Christ, knowing that this is indeed God’s game plan with them too. The allusion to <em><a href='B:290 42:19'>Isa 42:19</a></em> must be understood likewise in the context of that passage. The preceding verse has appealed to the blind and deaf within Judah at that time: "Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind" (<em><a href='B:290 42:18'>Isa 42:18</a></em>), and then goes on say that sinless Messiah likewise was deaf and blind. We see here a principle that was to be worked out throughout the Lord's passion- He identified with sinners. They were deaf and blind, and He now acted as deaf and blind, He identified with sinners to the point that He felt as a sinner. His silence to the accusations was therefore also capable of being understood as the silence of a guilty man before His accusers. Not that the Lord was guilty, but He identified with sinful man to the extent that He felt that way, and this all came to its final term in His genuine feeling that He had been forsaken even by God (:46). Not that He was, for God only forsakes sinners and never forsakes the righteous (see notes on :46). But He so identified with sinners that the Lord felt as one of us, although He was not a sinner. Yet as the Lord stood before His accusers silent, He knew great peace; so <em><a href='B:290 42:19'>Isa 42:19</a></em> assures us: "Who is blind, but My servant? Or who is as deaf as My messenger whom I send? Who is as blind as&nbsp;<em>he who is at peace</em>, and as blind as Yahweh’s servant?".</p><p><em>See how many accusations they make against you</em>- The Greek is used only four times in the New Testament; here and twice in the comment of the High Priest at the Lord's earlier trial (<em><a href='B:470 26:62'>Mat 26:62</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 14:60'>Mar 14:60</a></em>). Circumstances repeated. The Lord learnt silence at the first trial, and there was the same reaction from the judge; and now the situation repeated itself, although Pilate had not been present at the first trial. He overcame that first test, and repeated the victory. We have seen how in contrast to this, Peter was given various tests which he failed the first time and then subsequent times when they were repeated (e.g. the three failures to keep awake in Gethsemane, and the triple failure to not deny the Lord later that evening).</p><p>A theme of the whole record is that the Lord gave His life of His own volition. This must be remembered as we reflect upon the background to the crucifixion. His refusal to answer Pilate meant that Pilate had to pronounce Him guilty (<em><a href='B:480 15:4'>Mar 15:4</a></em>)- hence his marvel at the Lord's silence, as if the Lord was willingly allowing Himself to be condemned.</p>


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<p>15:5&nbsp;<em>But Jesus made no further answer; so that Pilate marvelled</em>- This is the same response by the judge as at the Lord's earlier trial (<em><a href='B:470 26:62-63'>Mat 26:62-63</a></em>; see on <em><a href='B:470 27:13'>Mat 27:13</a></em>&nbsp;<em>They testify against you</em>). Pilate had presided over many such cases of men being falsely accused. He was astounded at how a man in the face of such blatantly false accusation could be so self-controlled. This, in spiritual terms, was our Lord at one of His most supreme moments. He sets a supreme example to all those falsely accused. Pilate was also staggered at how the Lord had a good human chance of getting off the hook by answering what was blatantly false. But the Lord's mission was to give His life- it was not taken from Him, He gave it. And therefore He made no attempt to get Himself off.</p><p>Do we feel that our conscience is so dysfunctional and our heart so hardened in some places that nothing much can touch us and motivate us like it used to? The cross can touch and transform the hardest and most damaged heart. Apart from many real life examples around of this, consider the Biblical case of Pilate. Jewish and Roman historians paint a very different picture of Pilate than what we see in the Biblical record. Philo describes him as “ruthless, stubborn and of cruel disposition", famed for “frequent executions without trial". Josephus speaks of him as totally despising the Jews, stealing money from the temple treasury and brutally suppressing unruly crowds. Why then does he come over in the Gospels as a man desperately struggling with his conscience, to the extent that the Jewish crowds manipulate him to order the crucifixion of a man whom he genuinely believed to be innocent? Surely because the person of the Lord Jesus and the awfulness of putting the Son of God to death touched a conscience which appeared not to even exist. If the whole drama of the death of Jesus could touch the conscience and personality of even Pilate, it can touch each of us. Just compare the words of Philo and Josephus with how Mark records that Pilate was “amazed" at the self-control of Jesus under trial (<em><a href='B:480 15:5'>Mar 15:5</a></em>); how he almost pleads with his Jewish subjects for justice to be done: “Why, what evil has he done?" (<em><a href='B:480 15:14'>Mar 15:14</a></em>). Compare this with how Philo speaks of Pilate as a man of “inflexible, stubborn and cruel disposition", famous for “abusive behaviour… and endless savage ferocity". <em><a href='B:470 27:25'>Mat 27:25</a></em> describes how Pilate washes his hands, alluding to the Jewish rite based in Deuteronomy, to declare that he is innocent of the blood of a just man. But Josephus records how Pilate totally despised Jewish religious customs and sensibilities, and appeared to love to commit sacrilege against Jewish things. And in Luke’s record, Pilate is recorded as pronouncing Jesus innocent no less than three times. I so admire the way the Lord attempted even as He faced death in the face, to appeal to Pilate's conscience. I'd paraphrase <em><a href='B:480 15:2'>Mar 15:2</a></em> like this: 'Pilate: 'You are King of Israel?'. Jesus: 'You're saying it''. Why did the Lord put it like that? Surely because He knew that Pilate, in his conscience, did actually know that Jesus was King of Israel, and the very words in the original 'You are King of Israel' came out of his lips, as a kind of psychological slip. This small incident not only indicates how the suffering Jesus could touch even Pilate's conscience; but that the Lord was eagerly seeking the response of men, even the toughest and unspiritual, right to His very end. And He is the same today. May our feeble responses give Him pleasure and glory.</p>


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<p>15:6&nbsp;<em>Now at the feast he was accustomed to releasing one prisoner to them-&nbsp;</em>The Greek is also translated 'to forgive', and there was within the 'release' the idea that the crime had been forgiven. This was not, therefore, completely appropriate for the Lord Jesus, who had done no wrong. The same word is used in <em><a href='B:510 2:24'>Act 2:24</a></em> of how God "loosed" Jesus from the pangs of death. The Lord's temptation would have been to hope against hope that each of the human possibilities of release would come true. But He had resolutely decided to do God’s will unto the end, and therefore He knew that the only ultimate release would be in resurrection, and that would be performed by the Father rather than by any human power. The language of loosing or releasing s:w. is used about what the Lord achieved by His death (He 'loosed' the works of the devil, <em><a href='B:690 3:8'>1Jn 3:8</a></em>; loosed the middle wall of partition, <em><a href='B:560 2:14'>Eph 2:14</a></em>; loosed the seals on the book of life, <em><a href='B:730 5:5'>Rev 5:5</a></em>). As ever, the paradox was that this release, this form of salvation, falsely appeared to be in the power of those who crucified the Lord. But the Lord saw through it all. Likewise, they appeared His judges and He appeared the guilty; when the opposite was the case.</p><p><em>Whomever they requested</em>- Or, "wanted" (Mt:). In essence, they had made their choice earlier. The Lord had used the same word in <em><a href='B:470 12:7'>Mat 12:7</a></em>: "But if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not s:w. "wanted" have condemned the guiltless". The Lord perceived that the essence of the cross, the essence of all that was happening to Him, had already happened during His ministry. They had already condemned the guiltless. This would have helped Him not to hang too intensely on the possibility of the outcome of events changing suddenly at the last minute through some failure in their legal process. And we perceive too that there was no great divide between His final intense sufferings, and what He went through during His life. Our carrying of the cross likewise is a daily matter, rather than a few moments of intense choice which occur during our lives. The same Greek word translated "wanted" occurs three times in describing how they 'wanted' to condemn Jesus and 'wanted' Barabbas (<em><a href='B:470 26:15'>Mat 26:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 26:17'>Mat 26:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 26:21'>Mat 26:21</a></em>). <em><a href='B:490 23:25'>Luk 23:25</a></em> concludes the section by saying that Pilate "delivered Jesus to their will". It is the same word which the Lord had agonized over in Gethsemane- "Not as I&nbsp;<em>will</em>, but as You&nbsp;<em>will</em>" (<em><a href='B:470 26:39'>Mat 26:39</a></em>). Even though it appeared that the will of evil, conniving men was being done, it was in fact the Father's will. And we can take similar comfort when it appears that the will of evil men is being done. Ultimately, there is the Father's will far over and above them, working on a far higher level, although we cannot see the final picture of His purpose in specific moments. It can be painless of itself to pray the Father's will be done (<em><a href='B:470 6:10'>Mat 6:10</a></em>), but this is what it meant for the Lord. It took Him an hour long enough for the disciples to fall asleep to pray for the Father's will to be done, and not His (<em><a href='B:470 26:42'>Mat 26:42</a></em>). In the Lord's ministry, He had sought to do not His own will but the Father's (<em><a href='B:500 5:30'>Joh 5:30</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:38'>Joh 6:38</a></em>), and this came to its ultimate moment in His situation in Gethsemane facing the cross. Again we see that the essence of Gethsemane and of the Lord's choice to die on the cross was not simply in these final intense moments, but was an outflow of a life daily lived by that principle, in which to do the Father's will was the food He ate and the air He breathed (<em><a href='B:500 4:34'>Joh 4:34</a></em>). John doesn't record the Lord's struggle in Gethsemane concerning doing the Father's will rather than His own will, but as so often John has made the same point in other ways earlier in his Gospel; John has shown the Lord making this choice throughout His life, and inviting His followers to do likewise (<em><a href='B:500 4:34'>Joh 4:34</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 5:30'>Joh 5:30</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:38'>Joh 6:38</a></em>). This is John's way of showing that the essence of Gethsemane and the cross was to be found throughout the Lord's life.</p>


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<p>15:7&nbsp;<em>And among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man named Barabbas</em>- Son of Abba, the father. This man was clearly an anti-Christ, a fake Christ, a man set up in appearance as the Christ, the son of God, when he was the very opposite. And Israel chose him. His similarity with the Lord is made even more interesting by the fact that some early manuscripts (such as the Caesarean, the Sinaitic Palimpsest and the Palestinian Syriac) here read ‘Jesus Barabbas’ (Referenced in Craig A. Evans,&nbsp;<em>Matthew (New Cambridge Bible Commentary)&nbsp;</em>(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012 p:&nbsp;453:). The four gospel records only occasionally all record the same incident. When they do all mention the same thing, it seems that the Spirit intends us to see an especial significance in this. The fact that the crowd chose Barabbas rather than the Lord of glory is one of those aspects of the Passion which is recorded by all four writers. There is much information given about Barabbas, emphasizing the kind of criminal he was (<em><a href='B:470 27:16'>Mat 27:16</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 15:7'>Mar 15:7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:19'>Luk 23:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 18:40'>Joh 18:40</a></em>). That men would reject the righteousness of God, the Spotless Lamb of God, for such a man... this is the tragic story of our race and our nature. And it was the ecclesia of those days which made this dastard choice, and crucified the Lord Jesus. The same nature, the same blindness, is in us all.</p>


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<p>15:8&nbsp;<em>And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them</em>- They hated the Lord and wanted to see Him crucified. So they were coming to ask for the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Jesus. But Pilate is so desperate to get the Lord off, so screaming was his conscience, that he misread the situation and grasped at this tradition of releasing a prisoner, hoping the Jews would want their King released and not crucified. Actually his offer only fomented their passions the more. According to <em><a href='B:490 23:16'>Luk 23:16</a></em>, Pilate attempted to take the decision out of their hands by saying that Jesus was to be the prisoner to be released; and this also had the effect of piquing their desire for His crucifixion the more. For nobody, especially a mob, likes to feel railroaded out of their desired outcome at the last moment.</p>


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<p>15:9&nbsp;<em>And Pilate answered them saying: Will you have me release to you the King of the Jews?</em>- This word for "release" is used of how Paul could have been released or "let go" because after examination by the Romans, "there was no cause of death in me" (<em><a href='B:510 28:18'>Act 28:18</a></em>). Paul's trials are full of connection with those of the Lord, and Paul (like us) took special comfort in any similarity between the Lord's sufferings and his own. For this is indeed why we have such a mass of detail about the Lord's final sufferings- we are to see endless points of connection between His experiences and our own. And as Paul says, if we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him. It was to this process which we signed up to at baptism, in which we dedicated ourselves to a life of dying and living with Him.</p>


text:
<p>15:10&nbsp;<em>For he knew that because of envy the chief priests had delivered him up</em>- Pilate was encouraging them to choose Barabbas over Jesus so that the guilt of Jesus' crucifixion would be upon them and not him. Bible critics have pointed out that this was unusual behaviour for Pilate, renowned as he was for being a brutal and apparently conscienceless man. Indeed he was that- but the point is that the Lord Jesus in His time of dying can touch even the person whose conscience appears to be otherwise untouchable. This was and is the power of the cross of Christ. I suggest we are mistaken in reading this as if Pilate wanted them to choose Jesus for release and was mystified they chose Barabbas. He asked them to choose, knowing they had delivered Jesus to him out of envy. He wanted them to take the choice, in an attempt to assuage his own conscience.</p><p><em><a href='B:660 4:5'>Jas 4:5</a></em> reminds us that "The spirit that dwells in us lusts to envy" (s:w:). Envy is a basic human tendency which we must restrain. In the whole process of the Lord's betrayal, abuse and crucifixion we see the end result of basic human tendencies when they are let go unrestrained. The crucifixion of God’s Son is where they lead. This is the shocking message of the whole process the Gospels record concerning the Lord's death at the hands of the Jews. The point is that we have the same nature, and unrestrained, we shall end up in essence doing the same.</p>


text:
<p>15:11&nbsp;<em>But the chief priests stirred up the crowd, that instead he should release Barabbas to them</em>- The idea is not so much that Pilate wanted to release Jesus&nbsp;<em>but</em>&nbsp;the priests worked against that. Pilate knew they envied Jesus and were intent on having Him executed, and wished to place the decision as far as he could in their hands in order to not have the Lord’s blood on his hands. Such were his attempts to ease his conscience.</p><p>It could be that the Jewish leadership also had an uneasy conscience. Pilate wanted to shift the responsibility onto them, and they in turn wanted the crowd to be the ones who made the decision. Because it seems that the person to be released at Passover was not usually chosen by mass decision or request, rather the decision was made by Pilate. But in this case, he gets the Jewish leadership to choose between Jesus and Barabbas. And they in turn get the crowd involved in the choice, just as they kept ‘consulting together’ before each decision regarding Jesus. This all indicates how conscience was being touched in all those concerned. It is a powerful insight into the degree to which the Lord Jesus and His death can touch the most hardened conscience; and even those who appear to have absolutely no conscience do in fact have one, which can be touched by Christ. We see too the fickleness of the crowd- those who once welcomed Jesus as Messiah just a few days before, were so soon turned around against Him. And then turned back again a few weeks later by Peter’s preaching.</p>


text:
<p>15:12&nbsp;<em>And Pilate again answered and said to them: What then shall I do to him whom you call the King of the Jews?</em>- This is asking an obvious question, seeing that the record has noted that Pilate knew they had delivered Jesus to him out of envy, and they had made it abundantly clear that they sought the death penalty for Him. Pilate asked the question knowing full well the answer they were going to give. But he wanted to elicit from them in clear, specific and public terms that it was&nbsp;<em>their&nbsp;wish</em>&nbsp;that Jesus be crucified. See on <em><a href='B:470 27:21'>Mat 27:21</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Which of the two do you want me to release to you?&nbsp;</em>It was all part of an extended psychological game Pilate was playing with them, leading them to so clearly take the blame for the Lord's crucifixion. But he only bothered doing this because his conscience was troubling him, and in this we see a powerful insight into the way the Lord's death can touch the hardest of consciences. This is the very reason why reflection upon the Lord in His time of dying leads on naturally to true self-examination. And in this lies the connection between self-examination and the breaking of bread service.</p>


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<p>15:13&nbsp;<em>And they cried out again: Crucify him</em>- When people are pressed for a reason for their unreasonable positions and behaviours, they simply say the same thing again, but more loudly (in various ways). This is the classic example- they repeated their cry "Let Him be crucified". Surely Pilate knew that they would respond like this, and I see him as stage managing the entire crowd, purposefully leading the crowd to cry out ever louder, in order to set the stage for his public washing of his hands. But he played this elaborate game because he had a conscience, and wanted to try to separate himself from the decision to crucify the Lord.</p>


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<p>15:14&nbsp;<em>And Pilate said to them: Why? What evil has he done? But they cried out exceedingly: Crucify him</em>- We see here Pilate's persuasion of the Lord's sinlessness; and how he discounted even the talk about the Lord seeking to stop tribute being given to Caesar and to start a revolution. Pilate knew that they had delivered Jesus to him from envy, and that there was no legitimate reason for the death sentence. I suggest he is not so much seeking to change their minds, but rather purposefully seeking to elicit from the Jews a clear statement that they wanted Him crucified.</p>


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<p>15:15&nbsp;<em>And Pilate, wishing to calm the crowd, released to them Barabbas and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified</em>- As soon as the sentence was pronounced: You shall be crucified, the victim was stripped naked and fastened to a post about as high as the waist and then flogged. Josephus twice mentions that the body was stripped naked and flogged until the flesh hung down in shreds. 13 stripes were against His breast, 26 on the back. They probably chanted them. He may have had a slab of iron between His teeth to grit against. Men were known to have bitten their tongues in two during the whipping. John Pollock explains that the victim was stretched with hands above his head, whipped by naked slaves with a device of three leather thongs laced with pieces of sharpened bone, whilst a clerk stood with a slab on which to take down confessions. Scourging was usually "accomplished by tying the victim's wrists to an iron ring set about knee level, so that he would be bent over; or, facing or backed to a column, the wrists would be tied overhead. There were probably two scourgers, standing on each side, each with whips five or six feet long ending in two leather thongs tipped with metal. As the scourging whips fell across the victim's back they would wrap around his body at times lacerating his body front and back, so that scourge marks soon covered all of his body except the head, feet, and forearms... It was uncommon for the Romans to both scourge and crucify a person. Why was it done to Jesus? It has been conjectured by some scholars that Pilate thought by excessive scourging and beating of Jesus the Jewish council would be satisfied. They weren't". All men usually screamed out something, anything, in the hope that the lashing would therefore be shortened. The Lord's silence at this time would have been yet one more thing which awed His tormentors. There were runnels, Pollock says, in which the blood drained away. The scourging would already have been done twice for the thieves. The Angel watchers of the skies would have peered down into that blood, as they did in cherubic form into the blood on the mercy seat. The blood of the Son of God was treated by men as something ordinary, thoughtlessly mixed with that of criminals, and was trodden under foot. Perhaps it was to this aspect of the Lord's sufferings and insult that <em><a href='B:650 10:29'>Heb 10:29</a></em> refers to, in describing the crucifixion (and the Lord's&nbsp;<em>re-crucifixion</em>&nbsp;by fallen believers) as counting the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, and thereby treading underfoot the Son of God (cp. <em><a href='B:650 6:6'>Heb 6:6</a></em> RV mg “<em>while&nbsp;</em>they crucify the son of God", suggesting that once this ongoing re-crucifixion stops, men can be forgiven). The despising and treading under of that blood in a literal sense only occurred at the scourging. It was observed by some first century writers that the length of time it took a crucifixion victim to die was related to the severity of the scourging. The Lord's relatively quick death may therefore (although not necessarily) reflect the brutality with which He was treated at this time. When Peter speaks of how we are healed by Christ's "stripes" (<em><a href='B:670 2:24'>1Pe 2:24</a></em>), uses an especially intense word to describe the scourging. It could be that he somehow saw or heard about the scourging, and saw it as parallel to Christ suffering for us "on the tree". The Lord's bloody sweat in Gethsemane has been identified as hemohidrosis, an extreme nervous state in which there is haemorrhage into the sweat glands, and therefore the skin becomes fragile and tender. This would have meant that flogging, the carrying of the cross and the constant friction between His back and the rough wood would have been agonizing. Hemohidrosis also produces severe chills. The Lord would have been shivering in the cold darkness of His final hours, with every involuntary movement causing agony to the nerves which the nails purposefully transfixed.</p>


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<p>15:16&nbsp;<em>Then the soldiers led him away into the hall called Praetorium, and they called together the whole battalion</em>- We wonder how many of those soldiers later converted to the Lord's side. Because surely their degrading of Him was done with strong quirks of bad conscience.</p>


text:
<p>15:17&nbsp;<em>And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on him</em>- The thorns would have penetrated the scalp into the network of blood vessels there, producing a flow of blood onto the mock-kingly garment. We see here human nature at its most raw and primitive. That is one feature of the crucifixion accounts. They were also motivated by a desire to test His claims to royalty. He had made it clear that His Kingdom was not of this world; His teaching about the Kingdom, largely in the parables, was about life lived now under domination of the Father's principles. And yet they willingly overlooked that and focused on mocking Him as a king. We note that Babylon too is arrayed in purple (<em><a href='B:730 17:4'>Rev 17:4</a></em> s:w:), making her a veritable anti Christ, a fake imitation of Him.</p><p>The thorns were growing between the cobbles of the courtyard? Or were they using thorns on their courtyard fire? The thorns on the head would have reminded Him that He was being temporarily overcome by the result of the curse in Eden. As with several aspects of His mocking, His tormentors unknowingly gave Him spiritual stimulus by what they did. His mind was certainly in Eden, for He spoke of the Kingdom as "paradise", with evident allusion to Eden (<em><a href='B:490 23:43'>Luk 23:43</a></em>). Note that the Lord was beaten up at least three times: by the Jewish guards, by Herod's men and by the Roman soldiers. In a literal sense He was bruised for our iniquities, and chastised for us to obtain the peace of sin forgiven (<em><a href='B:290 53:5'>Isa 53:5</a></em>). And the Father surely foresaw all this back in <em><a href='B:10 3:15'>Gen 3:15</a></em>, where the promised seed was to be&nbsp;<em>bruised</em>. He willed (<em>not</em>&nbsp;"pleased", as AV) this bruising, and this putting to grief (<em><a href='B:290 53:10'>Isa 53:10</a></em>). The parallel here between the bruising, beating and putting to grief may suggest that the beatings up ('bruisings') really grieved the Lord. And note that the final sacrifice of which Isaiah 53 speaks was not&nbsp;<em>only</em>&nbsp;achieved by the hours spent hanging on the cross. This earlier beating and abusing was just as much a part of His final passion, as, in essence, His whole life was a living out of the principles of the cross. It has been suggested that the crown of thorns was not only a mockery, but a significant part of the physical torture of crucifixion. If the net of nerves and veins under the skin of the scalp are pierced, profuse bleeding and stunning head ache would occur. His hair would therefore have been bloody. It would have been a wreath, a&nbsp;<em>stephanos</em>&nbsp;similar to that worn by Tiberius. The mock homage to the crowned Saviour-Lord was surely in the Lord’s mind at His ascension, when all the Angels of God bowed before Him in true worship (<em><a href='B:650 1:6'>Heb 1:6</a></em>).</p>


text:
<p>15:18&nbsp;<em>And they began to salute him: Hail, King of the Jews</em>-&nbsp;<em>"</em>Hail" is literally, 'Be happy'. J:D. Crossan mentions a Jewish tradition, quoting Mishnah passages to support it, that the bruised scapegoat had scarlet wool tied to it, and that the Jews spat on the scapegoat in order to place their sins upon it (J:D. Crossan,&nbsp;<em>Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography&nbsp;</em>(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994)). It could be that the Roman soldiers were doing all this in mockery of this tradition. It would have given the Lord something more to fill His holy mind with. He knew that He was actually doing what they were mockingly suggesting- carrying Israel’s sins. God worked even through the spitting and mocking of men to work out the finest details of our redemption. The spitting is in the context of their mocking His Kingship. “Hail, King of the Jews “was in parody of ‘Ave, Caesar’. It was customary to give a kiss of homage to royalty. Their parody of this was to spit at Him, in the face, according to the type of <em><a href='B:220 30:10'>Job 30:10</a></em>. Earlier, at the trial, the Jews had spat in His face (<em><a href='B:470 26:67'>Mat 26:67</a></em>). Now He tasted Roman spittle. And this was the face from which the glory of God had shone (<em><a href='B:480 9:15'>Mar 9:15</a></em>?). One of the themes of the crucifixion records is that the same abuse and suffering was repeated to the Lord. Hence the frequent usage of the continuous tense. During the trial by Pilate, the Lord underwent mock worship and spitting (<em><a href='B:500 19:3'>Joh 19:3</a></em>). Then later it was mock worship, spitting, hitting on the head (<em><a href='B:470 27:29-30'>Mat 27:29-30</a></em>). And then hitting on the head, spitting, mock worship (<em><a href='B:480 15:19-20'>Mar 15:19-20</a></em>). It seems they alternated bruising / spitting on Christ with bruising / kneeling before Him in mock homage. The reed was used as a mock diadem, although instead of touching His shoulder with it they hit Him on the head with it. They put it in His hand as a sceptre and then snatched it back to hit Him on the head with it. Wave after wave of the same treatment. Notice how many times the word “again" features in the Greek text (<em>palin</em>). This is the essence of our temptations. And it was a big theme in the Lord's final human experience. Likewise a comparison of the records shows that "Come down..." was clearly said more than once, the continuous tenses notwithstanding (<em><a href='B:470 27:40'>Mat 27:40</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:480 15:30'>Mar 15:30</a></em>). However, it is worth cataloguing the use of continuous tenses in this part of the record: The crowd&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>crying out (as demons did), "Crucify him" (<em><a href='B:470 27:23'>Mat 27:23</a></em>); the soldiers&nbsp;<em>kept on</em>&nbsp;clothing Him (<em><a href='B:470 27:28'>Mat 27:28</a></em>),&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>coming to Him and kept on saying... (<em><a href='B:500 19:3'>Joh 19:3</a></em> Gk:), Pilate&nbsp;<em>kept on seeking</em>&nbsp;(imperfect) to deliver the Lord (<em><a href='B:500 19:12'>Joh 19:12</a></em>), thereby agitating the tension in the Lord's mind. They&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>kneeling (<em><a href='B:470 27:29'>Mat 27:29</a></em>),&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>spitting (v:30),&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>passing in front of Him on the cross and&nbsp;<em>kept on</em>&nbsp;shaking their heads (v. 39),&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>saying "…save thyself",&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>mocking and asking Him to come down from the cross (vv. 40,41), the soldiers&nbsp;<em>kept on</em>&nbsp;coming to Him and offering Him their vinegar in mock homage (<em><a href='B:490 23:36'>Luk 23:36</a></em>), they&nbsp;<em>kept on</em>&nbsp;offering Him the pain killer. They&nbsp;<em>kept on and on and on</em>. This is an undoubted theme.</p>


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<p>15:19&nbsp;<em>And they hit his head with a rod and spat upon him, and kneeled down in homage to him</em>- The question is to why Gentile soldiers would unleash such hatred upon Jesus, when the crucifixion of a Jew was just another job for them to do. We somehow do not imagine them doing this to the thieves or other crucifixion victims. I conclude that there was something in the Lord which forced men to either respond to Him, or go the other way in assuming that unless He was as He claimed, then He must be the worst of all and worthy of all hatred. We see the same effect upon men today, even if social norms mean that we express the passions both for and against Him in less dramatic and more restrained terms.</p>


text:
<p>15:20&nbsp;<em>And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple cloak and dressed him in his own garments-&nbsp;</em>The record that they put the Lord's own clothes on Him and then led Him to crucifixion conflicts with contemporary records of the victim being led out naked, or certainly without his own outer clothes. Christ was revealed, or 'revealed himself' (Gk:) on the cross, when He took away our sins (<em><a href='B:690 3:5'>1Jn 3:5</a></em>). This may be John referring to how he had witnessed Christ crucified naked. Yet we know that the Lord wore His outer robe right up to the impaling. It may be that the whipping and abuse He had suffered was far beyond what the soldiers had the right to minister. There were special directives concerning the need for the victim to die by crucifixion, not at the hands of the soldiers. It may be that they wanted to cover up the illegal marks on the body by making the Lord go to the cross fully dressed. In which case, again we see how He suffered the very&nbsp;<em>worst</em>&nbsp;of man's machinations. The Lord having His own clothes put back on Him meant that He would have been dressed in blood sprinkled garments for the walk to Golgotha. Again His holy mind would have been on the Messianic prophecies of Isaiah 63 about a Messiah with blood sprinkled garments lifted up in glorious victory. Or perhaps He saw the connection to <em><a href='B:30 8:30'>Lev 8:30</a></em>, where the priests had to have blood sprinkled garments in order to begin their priestly work. This would have sent His mind to us, for whom He was interceding. Likewise when He perceived that His garment would not be rent, He would have joyfully perceived that He was indeed as the High Priest whose garment was not to be rent (<em><a href='B:20 39:23'>Exo 39:23</a></em>).</p><p><em>And they led him out to crucify him</em>- The Greek word translated "led away" is used about 10 times in the Gospels for the leading away of Jesus to death. It occurs in another context, in <em><a href='B:470 7:13-14'>Mat 7:13-14</a></em>, where the Lord spoke of how wide and common is the way that 'leads away to' destruction compared to the way which 'leads away to' eternal life. He was being led away to destruction; He was sharing the path of all condemned sinners. This is a great theme of the crucifixion accounts- that the Lord identified totally with the position of condemned sinners. The logic is that by living the life of the flesh, we are led away to destruction; and yet by being led away to destruction with the Lord, in sharing His death, we are in fact being led away to life.</p><p>Tradition has it that the victim had to hold their hands out to receive the stake, which they then had to carry. The Lord's prophecy of Peter's crucifixion thus describes it as Peter stretching out his hands and being led to his death (<em><a href='B:500 21:18'>Joh 21:18</a></em>). Yet the Lord emphasized in His teaching that we must&nbsp;<em>take up</em>&nbsp;the cross, as He did (<em><a href='B:480 8:34'>Mar 8:34</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 10:21'>Mar 10:21</a></em>). This might just suggest that in line with the Lord's willing death, giving up of His life rather than it being taken from Him, He bent down and picked up the stake before the soldiers had the chance to offer it to Him. I imagine doing this in a deft manner. The deftness of the way He broke that bread apart and held the cup comes out in <em><a href='B:470 26:26'>Mat 26:26</a></em>. He knew what that breaking of bread was going to mean. His willingness would have been such a contrast to the unwilling hesitation of the thieves and other victims. The soldiers must have been blind indeed to still mock Him, despite all these indications that He was more than mere man. That piece of wood that was laid upon Him by the Father, however the Lord physically took it up, represented our sins, which were laid upon Him (<em><a href='B:290 53:6'>Isa 53:6</a></em>); your laziness to do your Bible readings early this morning, my snap at the woman in the bus, his hatred of his mother in law... that piece of wood was the symbol of our sins, every one of them. This is what we brought upon Him. It was our laziness, our enmity, our foolishness,&nbsp;<em>our weak will</em>... that necessitated the death of Jesus in this terrible way. He went through with it all "to make an end of sins" (<em><a href='B:340 9:26'>Dan 9:26</a></em>). Will we do our little bit in responding? The marks of His sufferings will be in Him eternally, and thereby we will be eternally reminded of the things we now only dimly appreciate (<em><a href='B:730 5:6'>Rev 5:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:450 13:6'>Zec 13:6</a></em>):&nbsp;<br/>The walk from the courthouse to Golgotha was probably about 800m (half a mile). One of the soldiers would have carried the sign displaying the Lord's Name and crime. The thieves were probably counting the paces (maybe the crowd was chanting them?). You know how it is when doing a heavy task, 'Just three more boxes to lug upstairs... just two more... last one'. But the Lord was above this. Of that I'm sure. Doing any physically strenuous task that takes you to the end of your strength, there is that concentration on nothing else but the job in hand. Hauling a heavy box or load, especially in situations of compulsion or urgency, it becomes irrelevant if you bump into someone or crush a child's toy beneath your heavy feet. But the Lord rose above. He turned and spoke to the women. Luke as a doctor knew that suffering makes one self-centred. It is perhaps because of this that he especially seems to concentrate on the wonder of the way in which the Lord looked out of His own agony to be so concerned with that of others. A:D. Norris has commented (<em>The Gospel Of Mark</em>): "It is he who reports the Lord's prayer for Simon Peter (<em><a href='B:490 22:31'>Luk 22:31</a></em>); who recounts the Lord's sympathetic warning to the women of Jerusalem (<em><a href='B:490 23:27-31'>Luk 23:27-31</a></em>); and who speaks of the Lord's forgiveness for His crucifiers, and remission for the penitent thief (<em><a href='B:490 23:34'>Luk 23:34</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:43'>Luk 23:43</a></em>)”.</p>


text:
<p>15:21&nbsp;<em>And they compelled a passer-by to carry his cross, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the countryside, the father of Alexander and Rufus</em>- Cyrene was where there was a strongly orthodox Jewish community (cp. <em><a href='B:510 6:9'>Act 6:9</a></em>). Simon was probably dark skinned, a countryman, a simple man, who had perhaps come up to Jerusalem in his zeal to keep Passover. What a comfort it was to the Lord to see a black man carrying His cross; for He had earlier said that&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;His true followers would carry the cross behind Him (<em><a href='B:470 10:38'>Mat 10:38</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 16:24'>Mat 16:24</a></em>). The Hebrew writer seemed to see Simon as typical of us all when writing of how we must go out of the city with the Lord, "bearing his reproach" (<em><a href='B:650 13:12-13'>Heb 13:12-13</a></em>, probably using 'reproach' as a parallel to 'the cross'). He would have seen in Simon a prototype of all His future, suffering, humiliated followers; "impressed" by the predestined calling, almost against our will, to carry His cross (<em><a href='B:470 27:32'>Mat 27:32</a></em> RV mg:). And was it accident that this prototype was almost certainly a black man, when perhaps ultimately it may appear that a large proportion of the faithful body of the Lord Jesus will have been black people? If indeed Simon was a black Jew (cp. modern Falashas) who had come up to keep the Passover, it would have been annoying beyond words for him to be made unclean by the blood of the Lord, which was inevitably on the stake after His first attempt at bearing it after His flogging. Not to mention the shame for a zealous Jew in having to carry the cross of this Jesus of Nazareth. Yet it would seem that he was later converted, and he in turn converted his wife and son (<em><a href='B:480 15:21'>Mar 15:21</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:520 16:13'>Rom 16:13</a></em>). Mark rarely records proper nouns, but he makes a special effort to mention that Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus. It would therefore seem that these men were well known in the early church. Simon may be the "Simeon called Niger" ('the black one') of <em><a href='B:510 13:1'>Act 13:1</a></em>. He is listed there next to Lucius, who was also from Cyrene. The thief and the centurion were likewise converted, and the faith of Joseph, Nicodemus and probably others was brought out into the open by the cross. Like Samson, the Lord won victories even in His death. The spiritual turn-around in Simon is a type of what is experienced by all whom the Lord compels to carry His cross. He was passing by, going somewhere else, full of his own plans, going about to establish his own righteousness... and then, out of the blue, he was called to what he much later realized was the greatest honour a man could be called to: to accompany the Son of God and carry His cross, right to the end. We are left to imagine him plonking it down, as if to say to Jesus 'Now you've got to do the rest', and then slipping off into the crowd.</p><p>Another reading of Simon is possible. Simon is a Greek name, and the names of his sons are Greco-Roman. The way he is described as “coming out of the field" (<em><a href='B:490 23:26'>Luk 23:26</a></em>) could imply that he was working, doing what was improper on a feast day, because he was a Gentile. It could be that he simply lived and worked near Jerusalem, he wasn’t a religious guy, and like Saul out looking for lost cattle, he was going some place else…until the Lord as it were arrested him with the message of the cross.</p>


text:
<p>15:22&nbsp;<em>And they brought him to the place named Golgotha, which means, Place of the skull</em>- See on <em><a href='B:500 19:25'>Joh 19:25</a></em>. John says that the Lord went out bearing His cross. Luke says that Simon was asked to carry the hinder part of the cross behind Him. Matthew and Mark say Simon carried the cross. <em><a href='B:480 15:22'>Mar 15:22</a></em> (Gk:) says that the soldiers carried Jesus to Golgotha. J:B. Phillips renders it: "They got him to a place Golgotha". It would seem that the Lord collapsed, perhaps fainting. If He was crucified on an olive tree (excavations of crucified men suggest this is what was used), it would not have been simply because of the weight of the stake. Take a picture of Him lying there, with the face that was marred more than the children of men pressed into the hot dust of that Jerusalem street. And some human fool probably said something like 'Come on, get up' (doubtless with embellishments). If indeed He did faint, there would have been that sense of 'coming round', the "Where am I?”, the memory and consciousness flooding back. "Have I died and been resurrected?" No, as some nameless soldier kicked Him and told Him to get up.</p>


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<p>15:23&nbsp;<em>And they offered him wine mingled with myrrh; but he did not accept it</em>- To give strong drink to those ready to perish was a well-known custom at crucifixion. The fact victims survived two or three days was only because they were given drink. The Lord didn’t simply refuse the pain killer. He took it, tasted it, and then refused it. Why did He first taste it? Surely He knew the custom, and He knew what it was. Various alternatives arise in the mind, each a source of devotional inspiration:</p><p>- Was it that His eyesight was damaged by the punches and He didn’t see what it was until He tasted it? "When Jesus therefore saw his mother..." may suggest that He didn’t initially recognize her. The Messianic Scriptures mention the affliction of eyesight in Messiah's final suffering. Early crucifixion art shows the Lord with His right eye damaged (as does the Turin shroud). The mucous membrane (the thin slippery tissues which lubricate the human body) would have dried so that “they rip layers of tissues from the eyes every time the pupil is moved or blinked" (C:M. Ward):&nbsp;<br/>- Maybe He realized as He had the cup on His lips that they were giving this to Him in the spirit of <em><a href='B:300 23:15'>Jer 23:15</a></em>: to show that He was a false prophet. In this case, for the sake of His respect for the implications of Holy Scripture, He endured a far higher degree of pain.<br/>- Another explanation is that He wanted to speak out loud, saying (several times?) "Father, forgive them", and to perhaps recite Psalms 22. He was so parched from thirst (He had lost body fluid in Gethsemane) that He knew He couldn't speak out loud without some liquid. The dehydration would have made His tongue thicken so that speech was eventually almost impossible. But He only drank enough to moisten His throat, not to deaden any pain. This shows the majestic self-mastery within the Lord; He knew just when to stop, even though it must have been so tempting to keep on drinking.<br/>- Taking the pain killer would not have been a sin, neither would it have theologically damaged the atonement. Perhaps the Lord took it, as doubtless the others did, and then had the self-control to think better of it and give it back. Such was His devotion to the absolute height of identity with us. It makes His action all the more poignant if He first tasted and then refused, rather than just refusing outright.</p><p>He was&nbsp;<em>repeatedly</em>&nbsp;offered the pain killer, the tense implies. Men offering Him myrrh in (mock) homage would have sent His mind back to the story dear Mary had told Him about the wise men bringing myrrh. And inevitably her tortured mind would have gone back there too. But I have another suggestion. When we read that “someone" offered him a sponge with wine mixed with myrrh (<em><a href='B:480 15:36'>Mar 15:36</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:48'>Mat 27:48</a></em>), we recall the use of myrrh in preparing bodies for burial (<em><a href='B:480 14:3'>Mar 14:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:56'>Luk 23:56</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 12:3'>Joh 12:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 19:39'>Joh 19:39</a></em>). Pliny (<em>Natural History</em>&nbsp;14:15:92,107) records: “The finest wine in early days was that spiced with the scent of myrrh… I also find that aromatic wine is constantly made from almost the same ingredient as perfumes, from myrrh". This alerts me to the real possibility that the unnamed bystander who did this was Mary Magdalene. Earlier she had anointed the Lord’s body with myrrh “to the burial". And now she has prepared the most expensive form of wine as some sort of pain killer. Perhaps the Lord was so touched by this that He accepted it, but didn’t drink it. His doing this is otherwise very hard to understand. Her love was on one hand inappropriate, and yet the Lord still accepted it, even though He couldn’t use it. He could have felt angry with her for tempting Him to the easier way. But He didn’t. And in so doing He showed her that the essence of the cross is that there is no easy way. The principles of all this are to be reflected in our cross carrying.</p><p>Another alternative presents itself from the Hebrew text of <em><a href='B:230 69:21'>Psa 69:21</a></em>: “They gave me also gall". The Hebrew can stand the translation ‘poison’ (see RSV). Given the extended, agitated torture of crucifixion, there was a custom for close friends to get close enough to the cross to lift up a poisonous substance which the crucified would lick, and thereby die quickly. It is just possible that a friend (or even his mother?) or a sympathetic soldier did this. Again, in this case it would seem that the Lord chose the highest level; our salvation would surely have been theologically achievable if He had taken it. But He chose to attain for us not only salvation, but “such&nbsp;<em>great&nbsp;</em>salvation" (<em><a href='B:650 2:3'>Heb 2:3</a></em>) by always taking the highest level. He became obedient not only to death, but “even the death of the cross".</p><p>One feels that the Lord would have been justified in accepting the pain killer that was offered Him in His final agony; but He refused it, it seems to me, in order to achieve the&nbsp;<em>greatest&nbsp;</em>salvation for us. He never once used what I have called the principle of Jephthah's vow. In the same spirit, some faithful men of old refused legitimate deliverance from torture so that they might obtain "a better resurrection" (<em><a href='B:650 11:35'>Heb 11:35</a></em>). The record of the cross is full of examples of where the Lord in physical terms rejected legitimate comforts in His final hours. Yet throughout His life, He was ever ready to concede to the weakness of those who would genuinely follow Him. The way He spoke about demons without giving His hearers a lecture about the folly of such belief is proof of this. He could have insisted, as we do, on the rejection of such superstitions. But this was not His way. I am not suggesting that&nbsp;<em>we</em>&nbsp;have the right to make such concessions in our preaching and baptizing. But He did:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>15:24&nbsp;<em>And they crucify him and part his garments among themselves, casting lots for them to determine what every man should take</em>- There seems to have been something unusual about the Lord’s outer garment. The same Greek word&nbsp;<em>chiton</em>&nbsp;used in <em><a href='B:500 19:23-24'>Joh 19:23-24</a></em> is that used in the LXX of <em><a href='B:10 37:3'>Gen 37:3</a></em> to describe Joseph’s coat of many pieces. Josephus (<em>Antiquities</em>&nbsp;3:7:4,161) uses the word for the tunic of the High Priest, which was likewise not to be rent (<em><a href='B:30 21:10'>Lev 21:10</a></em>). The Lord in His time of dying is thus set up as High Priest, gaining forgiveness for His people, to ‘come out’ of the grave as on the day of Atonement, pronouncing the forgiveness gained, and bidding His people spread that good news world-wide. The robe was not to be torn,&nbsp;<em>schizein</em>. There was to be no schism in it. Ahijah tore his garment into twelve pieces to symbolize the division of Israel (<em><a href='B:110 11:30-31'>1Ki 11:30-31</a></em>). The Lord’s coat being unrent may therefore be another reflection of how His death brought about unity amongst His people (<em><a href='B:500 11:52'>Joh 11:52</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 17:21-22'>Joh 17:21-22</a></em>). Before Him, there, we simply cannot be divided amongst ourselves. Likewise the net through which the Lord gathers His people was unbroken (<em><a href='B:500 21:11'>Joh 21:11</a></em>). Note how all these references are in John- as if he perceived this theme of unity through the cross.</p><p>It is likely that the Lord was crucified naked, thereby sharing the shame of Adam's nakedness. The&nbsp;<em>shame</em>&nbsp;of the cross is stressed (<em><a href='B:650 11:26'>Heb 11:26</a></em>; <em><a href='B:650 12:2'>Heb 12:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 31:17'>Psa 31:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 69:6-7'>Psa 69:6-7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 69:12'>Psa 69:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 69:19-20'>Psa 69:19-20</a></em>). And we are to share those sufferings. There&nbsp;<em>must</em>, therefore, be an open standing up for what we believe in the eyes of a hostile world. Preaching, in this sense, is for all of us. And if we dodge this, we put the Son of God to a naked shame; we re-crucify Him naked, we shame Him again (<em><a href='B:650 6:6'>Heb 6:6</a></em>). He was crucified naked, and the sun went in for three hours. He must have been cold, very cold (<em><a href='B:500 18:18'>Joh 18:18</a></em>). Artemidorus Daldianus (<em>Oneirokritika&nbsp;</em>2:53) confirms that the Romans usually crucified victims naked. Melito of Sardis, writing in the 2nd century, writes of “his body naked and not even deemed worthy of a clothing that it might not be seen. Therefore the heavenly lights turned away and the day darkened in order that he might be hidden who was denuded upon the cross" (<em>On the Pasch</em>&nbsp;97). The earliest portrayals of the crucified Jesus, on carved gems, feature Him naked. There is reason to think that the Jews put the Lord to the maximum possible shame and pain; therefore they may well have crucified Him naked. T. Mommsen&nbsp;<em>The Digest Of Justinian&nbsp;</em>48:20:6 reports that “the garments that the condemned person is wearing may not be demanded by the torturers"- the fact that they gambled for His clothes shows that the Lord was yet again treated illegally (quite a feature of the records) and to the maximum level of abuse. We not only get this impression from the Biblical record, but from a passage in the Wisdom of Solomon (2:12-20) which would have been well known to them, and which has a surprising number of similarities to the Lord’s life amongst the Jews (Susan Garrett lists several Greek words and phrases found in the Gospel of Mark which are identical to those in this section of the Wisdom of Solomon. It would seem that Mark was aware of this passage in the Wisdom of Solomon, and sought to show how throughout the Lord's ministry, and especially in His death, the Jews were seeking to apply it to Him in the way they treated Him. See Susan Garrett,&nbsp;<em>The Temptations Of Jesus In Mark's Gospel</em>&nbsp;(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) p. 68):</p><p>“Let us lie in wait for the virtuous man, since he annoys us and opposes our way of life, reproaches us for our breaches of the law an accuses us of playing false... he claims to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a son of the Lord. Before us he stands, a reproof to our way of thinking, the very sight of him weighs our spirits down; His way of life is not like other men’s... in His opinion we are counterfeit…and boasts of having God as His father. let us see if what he says is true, let us observe what kind of end he himself will have. If the virtuous man is God’s son, God will take his part and rescue him from the clutches of his enemies<em>. Let us test him with cruelty and with torture, and thus explore this gentleness of His and put His endurance to the proof. Let us condemn him to a shameful death</em>&nbsp;since he will be looked after- we have his word for it".</p><p>The idea of the Lord being subjected to the maximum pain and mocking must, sadly, be applied to Seneca’s description of how some victims of crucifixion were nailed through their genitals (<em>Dialogi</em>&nbsp;6:20:3). In this sense the paradox of Isaiah 53 would have come true- through losing His ability to bring forth children, the Lord brought forth a huge multitude of spiritual children world-wide. It’s an honour to be one of them:&nbsp;<br/><em>By casting lots</em>- Did they throw the die on top of His outer garment? Note the focus of the soldiers upon the dividing up of the clothes, whilst the Son of God played out the ultimate spiritual drama for human salvation just a metre or so away from them. And our pettiness is worked out all too often in sight of the same cross. As those miserable men argued over the clothes at the foot of the cross, so when Israel stood before the glory of Yahweh at Sinai, they still suffered “disputes" amongst themselves (<em><a href='B:20 24:12'>Exo 24:12</a></em> NIV cp. <em><a href='B:650 12:29'>Heb 12:29</a></em>). So pressing and important do human pettinesses appear, despite the awesomeness of that bigger picture to which we stand related.</p><p>The sheer and utter reality of the crucifixion needs to be meditated upon just as much as the actual reality of the fact that Jesus actually existed. A Psalm foretold that Jesus at His death would be the song of the drunkards. Many Nazi exterminators took to drink. And it would seem almost inevitable that the soldiers who crucified Jesus went out drinking afterwards. Ernest Hemingway wrote a chilling fictional story of how those men went into a tavern late on that Friday evening. After drunkenly debating whether “Today is Friday", they decide that it really is Friday, and then tell how they nailed Him and lifted Him up. ''When the weight starts to pull on 'em, that's when it gets em... Ain't I seen em? I seen plenty of 'em . I tell you, he was pretty good today". And that last phrase runs like a refrain through their drunken evening. Whether or not this is an accurate reconstruction isn't my point- we have a serious duty to seek to imagine what it might have been like. Both Nazi and Soviet executioners admit how vital it was to never look the man you were murdering in the face. It was why they put on a roughness which covered their real personalities. And the Lord’s executioners would have done the same. To look into His face, especially His eyes, dark with love and grief for His people, would have driven those men to either suicide or conversion. I imagine them stealing a look at His face, the face of this man who didn’t struggle with them but willingly laid Himself down on the wood. The cross struck an educated Greek as barbaric folly, a Roman citizen as sheer disgrace, and a Jew as God’s curse. Yet Jesus turned the sign of disgrace into a sign of victory. Through it, He announced a radical revaluation of all values. He made it a symbol for a brave life, without fear even in the face of fatal risks; through struggle, suffering, death, in firm trust and hope in the goal of true freedom, life, humanity, eternal life. The offence, the sheer scandal, was turned into an amazing experience of salvation, the way of the cross into a possible way of life. The risen Christ was and is just as much a living reality. Suetonius records that Claudius expelled Jewish Christians from Rome because they were agitated by one Chrestus; i:e. Jesus the Christ. Yet the historian speaks as if He was actually alive and actively present in person. In essence, He was. All the volumes of confused theology, the senseless theories about the Trinity. would all have been avoided if only men had had the faith to believe that the man Jesus who really died and rose, both never sinned and was also indeed the Son of God. And that His achievement of perfection in human flesh was real. Yes it takes faith- and all the wrong theology was only an excuse for a lack of such faith.</p><p>Several crucifixion victims have been unearthed. One was nailed with nails 18c:m. long (7 inches). A piece of acacia word seems to have been inserted between the nail head and the flesh:&nbsp;<em>Did the Lord cry out in initial pain and shock?</em>&nbsp;Probably, as far as I can reconstruct it; for He would have had all the physical reflex reactions of any man. But yet I also sense that He didn’t flinch as other men did. He came to offer His life, willingly; not grudgingly, resistantly give it up. He went through the panic of approaching the pain threshold. The nailing of the hands and feet just where the nerves were would have sent bolts of pain through the Lord's arms every time He moved or spoke. The pain would have been such that even with the eyelids closed, a penetrating red glare would have throbbed in the Lord’s vision. Hence the value and intensity of those words He did speak. The pulling up on the nails in the hands as the cross was lifted up would have been excruciating. The hands were nailed through the 'Destot gap', between the first and second row of wrist bones, touching an extra sensitive nerve which controls the movement of the thumb and signals receipt of pain. They would not have been nailed through the palms or the body would not have been supportable . It has been reconstructed that in order to breathe, the crucified would have had to pull up on his hands, lift the head for a breath, and then let the head subside. The sheer physical agony of it all cannot be minimized. Zenon Ziolkowski (<em>Spor O Calun</em>) discusses contemporary descriptions of the faces of the crucified, including Jehohanan the Zealot, whose crucifixion Josephus mentions. Their faces were renowned for being terribly distorted by pain. The Lord's face was marred more than that of any other, so much so that those who saw Him looked away (<em><a href='B:290 52:14'>Isa 52:14</a></em>). That prophecy may suggest that for the Lord, the crucifixion process hurt even more. We suggest later that He purposefully refused to take relief from pushing down on the 'seat', and thus died more painfully and quicker. Several of the unearthed victims were crucified on olive trees. So it was perhaps an olive tree which the Lord had to carry. He would have thought of this as He prayed among the olive trees of Gethsemane (perhaps they took it from that garden?). I would not have gone through with this. I would have chosen a lesser death and the achieving of a lesser salvation. I would have had more pity on myself. But the Lord of all did it&nbsp;<em>for me</em>, He became obedient&nbsp;<em>even</em>&nbsp;to death on a cross (<em><a href='B:570 2:8'>Phi 2:8</a></em>), as if He could have been obedient to a lesser death, but He chose this ultimately high level. I can only marvel at the Father's gentleness with us, that despite the ineffable trauma of death, the way He takes us is so much more gentle than how He allowed His only begotten to go.</p><p>Presumably there were many soldiers around. The temple guard which was seconded to the Jews (<em><a href='B:470 27:65'>Mat 27:65</a></em>) was doubtless there in full force, lest there be any attempt to save Jesus by the crowd or the disciples. And yet <em><a href='B:500 19:23'>Joh 19:23</a></em> suggests there were only four soldiers, each of whom received a part of His clothing. This must mean that there were four actually involved in the crucifixion: one for each hand and foot. He had signs of nails (plural) in His hands. We are left to meditate as to whether He was nailed hand over hand as tradition has it (which would have meant two very long nails were used); or both hands separately.</p><p>Despite much prior meditation, there perhaps dawned on the Lord some 'physical' realizations as to the nature of His crucified position: the utter impossibility of making the slightest change of position, especially when tormented by flies, the fact that the hands and feet had been pierced in the most sensitive areas; the fact that the arms were arranged in such a way so that the weight of the body hung only on the muscles, not on the bones and tendons. The smell of blood would have brought forth yelping dogs, circling birds of prey, flying insects…an incessant barrage of annoyances, things to distract the Lord’s mind. As we too also face. He would have realized that the whole process was designed to produce tension in every part of the body. All His body, every part of it, in every aspect, had to suffer (and He would have realized the significance of this, and seen&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;of us as suffering with Him). The muscles were all hopelessly overworked, cramps due to the malcirculation of blood would have created an overwhelming desire to move. All victims would have writhed and wriggled within the few millimetres leeway which they had, to avoid a splinter pushing into the back lacerated from flogging... But my sense is that the Lord somehow didn’t do this. He didn’t push down on the footrests for relief (see 54), He didn’t take the pain killer, He didn’t ask for a drink until the end, when presumably the others accepted. Every muscle in the body would have become locked after two hours or so. Every part of His body suffered, symbolic of how through His sufferings He was able to identify with every member of His spiritual body- for "we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones" (<em><a href='B:560 5:30'>Eph 5:30</a></em>). He had perhaps foreseen something of all this when He likened the killing of His body to the taking down of a tent / tabernacle- every bone and sinew, like every pole and canvass, had to be uprooted, 'taken down' (<em><a href='B:500 2:19'>Joh 2:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 2:21'>Joh 2:21</a></em>).</p><p>The moment of lifting the stake up vertical, probably amidst a renewed surge of abuse or cheering from the crowd, had been long foreseen and imagined by the Lord. "If, if I be&nbsp;<em>lifted up</em>..." (<em><a href='B:500 12:32'>Joh 12:32</a></em>). He foresaw the physical (and spiritual) details of the crucifixion process in such detail. Recall how He foresaw that moment of handing over to death. And yet still He asked for the cup to pass, still He panicked and felt forsaken. If the theory of the cross was so hard to actually live out in practice for the Lord, then how hard it must be for us. The Lord's descriptions of Himself as being 'lifted up' use a phrase which carried in Hebrew the idea of exaltation and glory. As He was lifted up physically, the ground swaying before His eyes, His mind fixed upon the Father and the forgiveness which He was making possible through His sacrifice, covered in blood and spittle, struggling for breath... He was 'lifted up' in glory and exaltation, to those who have open eyes to see and hearts to imagine and brains to comprehend.</p><p>Imagine yourself being crucified. Go through the stages in the process. The Lord invited us to do this when He asked us to figuratively crucify ourselves daily. Consider all the language of the sacrifices which pointed forward to the final, supreme act of the Lord: poured out, pierced, parted in pieces, beaten out; the rock smitten... and this is the process which we are going through, although the Father deals with us infinitely more gently than with His only Son.</p><p>It is one of the greatest internal proofs of inspiration that this climactic act is recorded by each of the Gospel writers as a participial or subordinate clause. The concentration is on the splitting up of the clothes, which happened, of course, after the impaling. It is as if the record at this point is from the perspective of the soldiers. Get the job done, and&nbsp;<em>then</em>, on with the important bit- the dividing of the clothes No human author would ever have written like this. It's rather like the way Mary thinks that the risen Lord is a gardener. There is something artless and utterly Divine about it all. The record is full of what I would call spiritual culture. It has the hallmark of the Divine. This may be why some of the 'obvious' fulfilments of prophecy aren't mentioned, e.g. <em><a href='B:290 53:7'>Isa 53:7</a></em> concerning the Lamb dumb before her shearers. Likewise there is no record of the faithful women weeping, or moaning as the body was taken down.</p>


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<p>15:25&nbsp;<em>And it was the third hour when they crucified him</em>- "And it was the third hour and (not 'when') they crucified Him" (<em><a href='B:480 15:25'>Mar 15:25</a></em>) suggests they were waiting for the hour to come. It was in their brief to do it at the third hour. It may be that they got there a little early, and there was an agonizing wait for the third hour. Mark 15 has so many usages of the word “and”; circle them in your Bible (especially AV). This is to emphasize the relentlessness of it all, the repetition of everything, the way it droned remorselessly on. This is a feature of the cross, which we must carry. The crucifixion of Christ was at 9 a:m. He would have willingly laid Himself down on the stake, whereas most victims had to be thrown down on the ground by the soldiers. He gave His life, it wasn't taken from Him. Likewise He&nbsp;<em>gave</em>&nbsp;His back to the smiters when they flogged Him; He gave His face to them when they spoke about pulling out His beard (<em><a href='B:290 50:6'>Isa 50:6</a></em>). Men usually clenched their fists to stop the nails being driven in, and apparently fingers were often broken by the soldiers to ease their task. Not a bone of the Lord was broken. We can imagine Him willingly opening His palms to the nails; as we, so far away from it all, should have something of a willing acceptance of what being in Him demands of us. It may be that He undressed Himself when they finally reached the place of crucifixion. In similar vein, early paintings of the flogging show the Lord standing there&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;tied to the flogging post, as victims usually were. As He lay there horizontal, His eyes would have been heavenwards, for the last time in His mortality. Perhaps He went through the business of thinking ‘this is the last time I'll do this…or that…’. How often He had lifted up His eyes to Heaven and prayed (<em><a href='B:500 11:41'>Joh 11:41</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 17:1'>Joh 17:1</a></em>). And now, this was the last time, except for the final raising of the head at His death. “While four soldiers held the prisoner, a Centurion placed the sharp five inch spike in the dead centre of the palm…four to five strokes would hammer the spike deep into the rough plank and a fifth turned it up so that the hand would not slip free" (C:M. Ward,&nbsp;<em>Treasury Of Praise</em>). If it is indeed so that a Centurion usually did the nailing, it is a wondrous testimony that it was the Centurion who could say later that “truly this was the Son of God". The very man who actually nailed the Son of God was not struck dead on the spot, as a human ‘deity’ would have done. God’s patient grace was extended, with the result that this man too came to faith.</p><p>The Hebrew language so often reflects the character of God. And His artless self-expression is no clearer seen in the way He inspired the records of the death of His Son. The record of the death of God’s Son is something altogether beyond the use of devices as primitive as adjectives. The way in which the actual act of impaling is recorded as just a subordinate clause is perhaps the clearest illustration of this. The way Mary thinks the risen Lord is a gardener is another such. Or the weeping of the women, and Joseph, and Nicodemus (presumably this happened) when the body was taken from the cross, as the nails were taken out: this isn't recorded. Likewise, only Matthew records the suicide of Judas; the Father chose not to emphasize in the records that the man who did the worst a man has ever done or could ever do- to betray the peerless Son of God- actually went and took his own life (and even made a mess of doing that). If it were my son, I would have wanted to emphasize this. But the Almighty doesn't. In similar vein, it is almost incredible that there was no immediate judgment on the men who did the Son of God to death. The judgments of AD70 only came on the next generation. Those middle aged men who stood and derided the Saviour in His time of finest trial: they died, as far as we know, in their beds. And the Roman / Italian empire went on for a long time afterwards, even if God did in fact impute guilt to them for what their soldiers did.</p><p>Another hallmark of God’s Hand in the record is that what to us are the most obvious OT prophecies are not quoted; e.g. <em><a href='B:290 53:7'>Isa 53:7</a></em>: "He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth". A human author would have made great capital from such detailed fulfilments. But not so the Almighty. Hebrew, along with all the Semitic languages, has no superlatives. God doesn’t need them. And the record of the cross is a classic example. The record of the resurrection reflects a similar culture. The actual resurrection isn’t ever described in marked contrast to how it is in the uninspired ‘gospels’. Instead we read of the impact of His resurrection upon His disciples. The spiritual culture of Almighty God is also shown by the way in which although&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;the Council (<em><a href='B:480 14:64'>Mar 14:64</a></em>), including Joseph, condemned Christ to death by crucifixion, God overlooks Joseph's lack of boldness in not contesting this, and speaks of him in such glowing spiritual terms. His 'not consenting unto' Christ's death was deep within him. I would be inclined to say: 'The&nbsp;<em>least</em>&nbsp;you could have done was to have abstained from the vote'. But the record is far more positive than that.</p><p>For want of a better way of putting it, the spiritual culture of God comes through so sublimely in these records. He began His written revelation with the comment, as an almost throw-away clause, that "He made the stars also" (<em><a href='B:10 1:16'>Gen 1:16</a></em>). The vastness of that creation, far more wondrous and extensive than just this planet, is treated&nbsp;<em>en passant</em>. The actual resurrection of the Lord Jesus is likewise not recorded; we only learn of it from the recorded witness of those who went to the tomb, and who later met the Lord. The uninspired&nbsp;<em>Gospel of Peter&nbsp;</em>39-42 does record the actual arising of the Lord’s dead body; but immediately it becomes evident that this isn’t inspired, simply because of the lack of spiritual culture which we are accustomed to in the inspired writings. Likewise it has been observed that God uses "an economy of miracle" when He has acted openly. The record of the disciples' baptism, whether and how the Lord met His mother after the resurrection (for surely He did), Saul changing his name to Paul, Aaron's repentance after the golden calf- all these things are left unrecorded. The Gospel writers do not praise the majestic temple and city of Jerusalem in any way, unlike the uninspired contemporary writers. And that same spiritual culture comes out especially in the account of the crucifixion. It makes a good exercise to read through one of the records, especially John 19, and make a list of the adjectives used. There are virtually none. Read a page of any human novelist or historian: the pages are cluttered with them. Hebrew is deficient in adjectives, and because of this it often uses 'Son of…' plus an abstract noun, instead of an adjective. Thus we read of a "son of peace" (<em><a href='B:490 10:5-6'>Luk 10:5-6</a></em>), or "a man of tongue" (<em><a href='B:230 140:11'>Psa 140:11</a></em> RVmg; AV "an evil speaker").</p>


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<p>15:26&nbsp;<em>And the inscription of the charge against him read: The King of the Jews</em>- It was also written in Hebrew (Jn:), and putting together the gospel records, it said "This is Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews". Did Pilate write it in his own handwriting? Did they use the same ladder to place the inscription which Joseph later used to retrieve the body? Why do the records suggest that the inscription was placed after the stake had been erected? Was there initial resistance from the Jews? Was He impaled with the placard around His neck, and then the ladder was put up, and a soldier lifted it off and nailed it above His head? "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" written in Hebrew would have used words whose first letters created the sacred Name: YHWH. Perhaps this was why there was such opposition to it. "King of the Jews" would have been understood as a Messianic title. Either Pilate was sarcastic, or really believed it, or just wanted to provoke the Jews. In any case, somehow the Yahweh Name was linked with the Messiah: King of the Jews. The Name was declared in the Lord’s death, as He had foretold (<em><a href='B:500 17:26'>Joh 17:26</a></em>). Forgiveness of sins is through baptism into the Name (<em><a href='B:510 2:38'>Act 2:38</a></em>), as even in OT times forgiveness was for the sake of the Name (<em><a href='B:230 79:9'>Psa 79:9</a></em>). And yet through the cross and blood of Christ is forgiveness made possible. His blood and death therefore was the supreme declaration of God’s Name; through His cross the grace and forgiveness, love, salvation and judgment implicit in the Name was all enabled and revealed in practice. <em><a href='B:230 22:22'>Psa 22:22</a></em> prophesied that “I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation&nbsp;<em>ekklesia</em>, LXX". It was to us His brethren that the Name was declared; in the eyes of an unbelieving world, this was just another crucified man, a failure, a wannabe who never made it. But to us, it is the declaration of the Name. It was and is done in the midst of the ecclesia, as if the whole church from that day to this beholds it all at first hand. And our response is to in turn “Declare his righteousness" (<em><a href='B:230 22:31'>Psa 22:31</a></em>), in response to seeing the Name declared, we declare to Him… in lives of love for the brethren. For the Name was declared, that the love that was between the Father and Son might be in us:&nbsp;</p><p>It is possible to argue that "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" written in Hebrew would require the use of words, the first letters of which created the word YHWH:</p><p>y Jesus- Yeshua<br/>h The Nazarene- Ha’Natzri cp. “the sect of ‘The Nazarene(s)’, <em><a href='B:510 24:5'>Act 24:5</a></em><br/>v and King- u’Melek<br/>h of the Jews- Ha’Yehudim<br/>giving the Yahweh Name:<br/>hvhy</p><p>This is why the Jews minded it so strongly when the title was put up. Pilate’s retort “What I have written I have written" may well have been an oblique reference to ‘I am that I am’. It was his attempt to have the last laugh with the Jews who had manipulated him into crucifying a man against whom there was no real charge. It was as if the Lord suffered as He did with a placard above Him which effectively said: 'This is Yahweh'. The Name was declared there, as the Lord had foreseen (<em><a href='B:500 17:26'>Joh 17:26</a></em>). The declaration of Yahweh’s Name to Moses in <em><a href='B:20 34:6'>Exo 34:6</a></em> thus becomes a foretaste of the Lord’s crucifixion. Some LXX versions render <em><a href='B:20 34:6'>Exo 34:6</a></em> as ‘Yahweh, Yahweh,&nbsp;<em>a man</em>&nbsp;full of mercy…’. In the crucifixion of the man Christ Jesus the essence of Yahweh was declared. And we, John says with reference to the cross, saw that glory, as it were cowering in the rock like Moses,&nbsp;<em>full</em>&nbsp;of grace and truth (<em><a href='B:500 1:14'>Joh 1:14</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:20 34:6'>Exo 34:6</a></em> RV).</p><p>There are other reasons for thinking that there was the supreme manifestation of Yahweh in the cross of His Son:<br/>·&nbsp;It has been observed that the blood of the Passover Lamb on the lintels of the doors at the Exodus, three sides of a square, would have recalled the two repeated letters of ‘Yahweh’ (see above panel), as if His Name was manifested in the blood of the slain lamb:&nbsp;<br/>·&nbsp;Yahweh laid on the Lord the iniquity of us all, as if He was present there when the soldiers laid the cross upon the Lord's shoulders (<em><a href='B:290 53:6'>Isa 53:6</a></em>):&nbsp;<br/>·&nbsp;Yahweh had prophesied of what He would achieve through the crucified Christ: “I am, I am: He that blots out thy transgressions" (<em><a href='B:290 43:25'>Isa 43:25</a></em> LXX). He declares His Name as being supremely demonstrated in His forgiveness of our sins through and in the Lord’s cross:&nbsp;<br/>·&nbsp;Jehovah-Jireh can mean “Yahweh will show Yah" (<em><a href='B:10 22:14'>Gen 22:14</a></em>), in eloquent prophecy of the crucifixion. There Yahweh was to be manifested supremely:&nbsp;<br/>·&nbsp;Paul speaks of how the cross of Christ should humble us, so that no flesh should glory in God’s presence (<em><a href='B:530 1:29'>1Co 1:29</a></em>); as if God’s presence is found in the cross, before which we cannot have any form of pride.</p><p>·&nbsp;The LXX uses the word translated “propitiation" in the NT with reference to how God forgave / propitiated for Israel’s sins for His Name’s sake (<em><a href='B:20 32:14'>Exo 32:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 79:9'>Psa 79:9</a></em>). That propitiation was only for the sake of the Lord’s future death, which would be the propitiation God ultimately accepted. Having no past or future with Him, Yahweh could act as if His Son’s death had already occurred. But that death and forgiveness for “His name’s sake" were one and the same thing. The Son’s death was the expression of the Father’s Name:&nbsp;<br/>·&nbsp;There was a Jewish tradition that the only time when the Yahweh Name could be pronounced was by the High Priest, when he sprinkled the blood of Israel's atonement on the altar. The Name was expressed in that blood:&nbsp;<br/>·&nbsp; <em><a href='B:450 11:13'>Zec 11:13</a></em> speaks of Yahweh being priced at thirty shekels of silver by Israel. But these words are appropriated to the Lord in His time of betrayal. What men did to Him, they did to the Father:&nbsp;<br/>-The Red Heifer was to be slain before the face of the priest, "as he watches" (<em><a href='B:40 19:3-5'>Num 19:3-5</a></em> NIV), pointing forward to the Lord's slaughter in the personal presence of the Father.</p><p>- The blood of the sin offering was to be sprinkled “before the LORD, before the veil" (<em><a href='B:30 4:6'>Lev 4:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:30 4:17'>Lev 4:17</a></em>). Yet the veil was a symbol of the flesh of the Lord Jesus at the time of His dying. At the time of the sprinkling of blood when the sin offering was made, the veil the flesh of the Lord Jesus was identifiable with Yahweh Himself. The blood of the offerings was poured out “before Yahweh" (<em><a href='B:30 4:15'>Lev 4:15</a></em> etc:), pointing forward to how God Himself, from so physically far away, “came down" so that the blood shedding of His Son was done as it were in His presence. And who is to say that the theophany that afternoon, of earthquake and thick darkness, was not the personal presence of Yahweh, hovering above crucifixion hill? Over the mercy seat (a symbol of the Lord Jesus in Hebrews), between the cherubim where the blood was sprinkled, “there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee" (<em><a href='B:20 25:22'>Exo 25:22</a></em>). There we see the essence of God, and there in the cross we hear the essential word and message of God made flesh:&nbsp;<br/>· The smitten rock was an evident type of the Lord’s smiting on the cross. And yet in Deuteronomy especially it is made clear that Israel were to understand Yahweh as their rock. And yet “that rock was Christ". God Himself said that he would stand upon the rock as it was smitten- presumably fulfilled by the Angel standing or hovering above / upon the rock, while Moses smote it. And yet again it is Yahweh who is described as smiting the rock in Psalms 78 and <em><a href='B:290 48:21'>Isa 48:21</a></em>. He was with Christ, directly identified with Him, at the very same time as He ‘smote’ Him.</p><p>Significantly, very few actual details are given by the Gospel writers of both the scourging and the crucifixion. It could be that they felt it impossible to dwell upon these things; or it could be that they and their readers knew what was involved in these practices, and we are left to dwell upon them in our own imagination. We are intended to reconstruct in our own minds what may have happened… We have a solemn duty towards Him to do this. This is perhaps why the tenses change so dramatically in the records. Take just <em><a href='B:480 15:23-26'>Mar 15:23-26</a></em>: “They offered… they crucify… and part… casting lots… crucified… was written". These arresting changes are surely to encourage us to re-live it all. Mark speaks of “they crucify him", going on to say that “then are there two crucified with him" (<em><a href='B:480 15:38'>Mar 15:38</a></em> RV), whereas Luke records the act in the past tense. Mark’s present tenses are arresting: “plaiting… they clothe him… they smote…" (:17,19 RV). Perhaps Mark is seeking consciously to make us imagine it all as going on before our eyes. <em><a href='B:470 27:38'>Mat 27:38</a></em> RV has a similar dramatic change: “Then are there crucified with him…".</p>


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<p>15:27&nbsp;<em>And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right hand and one on his left</em>- <em><a href='B:470 27:38'>Mat 27:38</a></em> RV has a dramatic change of tense: “Then are there crucified with him…". Mark’s present tenses are also arresting: “plaiting…&nbsp; they clothe him… they smote…" (:17,19 RV). Perhaps Mark is seeking consciously to make us imagine it all as going on before our eyes. Take just <em><a href='B:480 15:23-26'>Mar 15:23-26</a></em>: “They offered…&nbsp; they crucify…&nbsp; and part… casting lots… crucified… was written". These arresting changes are surely to encourage us to re-live it all. Mark speaks of “they crucify him", going on to say that “then are there two crucified with him" (<em><a href='B:480 15:38'>Mar 15:38</a></em> RV), whereas Luke records the act in the past tense. Significantly, very few actual details are given by the Gospel writers of both the scourging and the crucifixion. It could be that they felt it impossible to dwell upon these things; or it could be that they and their readers knew what was involved in these practices, and we are left to dwell upon them in our own imagination. We are intended to reconstruct in our own minds what may have happened… We have a solemn duty towards Him to do this. This is perhaps why the tenses change so dramatically in the records.</p><p>The crucified Christ is portrayed as King of criminals, King of the basest sort, enthroned between them, taking the place of their leader Barabbas, who ought to have been where the Lord was. Both Barabbas and the thieves are described with the same Greek word, translated "robber" (<em><a href='B:500 18:40'>Joh 18:40</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 15:27'>Mar 15:27</a></em>). The Lord uses the same word when He points out that His persecutors were treating him as a "robber" (<em><a href='B:470 26:55'>Mat 26:55</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 14:48'>Mar 14:48</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 22:52'>Luk 22:52</a></em>); He seems to be aware that what the experience He is going through is setting up Barabbas as a kind of inverse type of Himself, the true 'Son of the Father' (= 'Barabbas'). Those low, desperate men, the dregs of society, were types of us. Barabbas especially becomes a symbol of us all. According to Jewish tradition at the time (<em>Pesach</em>&nbsp;8:6) “They may slaughter the Passover lamb…for one whom they the authorities have promised to release from prison". The Passover amnesty freed a man justly condemned to death- on account of the death of the lamb. We can imagine the relief and joy and almost unbelief of Barabbas, as he watched or reflected upon the crucifixion of Jesus- that he who rightfully should have been there on the cross, was delivered from such a death because of the cross of Christ. The image of condemned prisoners being released due to the death of Messiah is an undoubted Old Testament figure for our redemption from slavery. Some of the legal terms used in the NT for our redemption imply that Christ redeemed us from slavery through His death. And yet one could redeem a slave by oneself becoming a slave (<em><a href='B:530 6:20'>1Co 6:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 7:23'>1Co 7:23</a></em>; <em><a href='B:550 3:13'>Gal 3:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:550 4:5'>Gal 4:5</a></em>). This is why the crucified Jesus is typified by the suffering servant / slave of Isaiah’s prophesies. And Paul seems to have risen up to something similar when he speaks of giving his body to be branded, i:e. becoming a slave (<em><a href='B:530 13:3'>1Co 13:3</a></em> Gk:).</p><p>John’s Gospel has many references to Moses, as catalogued elsewhere. When John records the death of the Lord with two men either side of Him, he seems to do so with his mind on the record of Moses praying with Aaron and Hur on each side of him (<em><a href='B:20 17:12'>Exo 17:12</a></em>). John’s account in English reads: “They crucified him, and with him two others, on either side one” (<em><a href='B:500 19:18'>Joh 19:18</a></em>). Karl Delitzsch translated the Greek New Testament into Hebrew, and the Hebrew phrase he chose to use here is identical with that in <em><a href='B:20 17:12'>Exo 17:12</a></em>. Perhaps this explains why John alone of the Gospel writers doesn’t mention that the two men on either side of the Lord were in fact criminals- he calls them “two others” (<em><a href='B:500 19:18'>Joh 19:18</a></em>) and “… the legs of the first and of the other” (<em><a href='B:500 19:32'>Joh 19:32</a></em>). Thus John may’ve chosen to highlight simply how there were two men on either side of the Lord, in order to bring out the connection with the Moses scene.</p>


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<p>15:28&nbsp;<em>And the scripture was fulfilled, which said: And he was numbered with the transgressors</em>- Perhaps the idea is that in the eyes of men, the Lord was considered just another dying criminal, counted along with the two thieves. The idea of numbering might refer to some legal report of the crucifixion being made, numbering three victims. The context of <em><a href='B:290 53:12'>Isa 53:12</a></em> is that it was through being numbered with sinners that the Lord could bare their sin. This means that sin no longer totally separates man from God; because the Lord was so identified with sinful man, feeling as a sinner although he never actually sinned. But the Hebrew idea of 'numbering' is of preparing (s:w. <em><a href='B:340 1:5'>Dan 1:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:340 1:10'>Dan 1:10</a></em>; <em><a href='B:390 1:17'>Jon 1:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:390 4:6-8'>Jon 4:6-8</a></em>). Through the crucifixion experience, the Lord was prepared for His role of identification with us; and this was visually exemplified by His death amongst the worst of criminals.</p>


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<p>15:29&nbsp;<em>And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying: Ha You that would destroy the temple and build it in three days</em>- The Christian life, as crucified with Christ, cannot be kept secret from the world. This is why the place of crucifixion was so public- it was near a road, for passers by spoke to the crucified Jesus (<em><a href='B:480 15:29'>Mar 15:29</a></em>), and Simon was a passer-by coming in from the field (Gk:&nbsp;<em>agros</em>, <em><a href='B:490 23:26'>Luk 23:26</a></em>). The cross confronted people in their daily living, just as it should us today. Quintillian (<em>Declamationes</em>&nbsp;274) records how crucifixions were always held in the most public places where crowds would gather. For us, if we are living the crucified life with Jesus, it cannot be done in a corner. See on <em><a href='B:520 4:25'>Rom 4:25</a></em>.</p><p>This would have reminded Him that He was doing this to Himself, they weren't doing it to Him. He knew that the temple would be ripped apart stone by stone. And so He knew the temple of His body must be, for in that body He bore our sins on the tree. He had foretold that the tabernacle of His body would be 'taken down' as that in the wilderness was, taken apart piece by piece. In that lengthy procedure He had seen foretold the excruciating nature of His death, as every aspect of humanity was taken apart. "…and buildest it in three days" would have taken His mind forward to that certain future. So their taunt would have aided His efforts to remain spiritual. Likewise their allusions to Psalms 22 ("He trusted in God...") served to steer the Lord's mind there, and to take comfort from the rest of the Psalm and the context of their mocking quotations. Yet even in the mocking, the Lord’s Bible mind would have found some sort of encouragement. For the Lord was so clearly bearing the judgment of Israel’s sins: “All who pass along the way clap their hands at you: they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem" (<em><a href='B:310 2:15'>Lam 2:15</a></em>). And note too <em><a href='B:300 48:27'>Jer 48:27</a></em> (LXX 31:27): “Is Israel a laughing stock? Was she caught between thieves that you wag your head?". This is exactly the Lord’s position, between thieves, and mocked- but by Israel. These prophecies imply it was the Gentiles who would mock Israel; thus by treating the Lord as they did, they declared themselves to be no longer God’s people but Gentiles. The darkness that came down would have recalled <em><a href='B:300 33:19-21'>Jer 33:19-21</a></em> - when day and night no longer follow their normal sequence, God is breaking His covenant. Israel’s condemnation would be that “even at midday you will grope like a blind man in the dark" (<em><a href='B:50 28:29'>Deu 28:29</a></em>). And yet the Lord would have known that He was suffering for Israel, treated as an apostate Israel, and thus He was the more inspired to pray for their ultimate forgiveness and salvation, seeing He had borne their condemnation. The Lord suffered “for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due" (<em><a href='B:290 53:8'>Isa 53:8</a></em> RVmg:). There are therefore elements of the crucifixion sufferings of Jesus in every suffering of natural Israel.</p>


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<p>15:30&nbsp;<em>Save yourself and come down from the cross</em>- All the emphasis on save&nbsp;<em>yourself</em>&nbsp;was a temptation for Him to forget&nbsp;<em>us</em>. He would have reflected that He was saving Himself and us by staying where He was; coming down from the cross wouldn't lead to salvation. What the flesh understands by salvation and what the spirit understands by it are vastly different.</p>


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<p>15:31&nbsp;<em>In like manner also the chief priests mocked among themselves and the scribes, saying: He saved others. Himself he cannot save</em>- Matthew and Mark record the same incident. The priests said among themselves (Mk:); Matthew implies they said it to Him. They spoke in mock whispers, huddled in their group, but loud enough for Him to hear. Many of "the elders" believed in Him (<em><a href='B:500 12:42'>Joh 12:42</a></em>), but were led to this awful behaviour by the need to keep up appearances and the fear of exclusion from the synagogue.</p>


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<p>15:32&nbsp;<em>Let the Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so we may see and believe And they that were crucified with him ridiculed him</em>- "Come down from the cross" was a repeat of the wilderness temptation to come down from the temple pinnacle. This temptation was at the hands of the Jews, and there is every reason to think that the wilderness temptations likewise were somehow involved with the Jewish satan. The Lord had likened His death on the cross, His giving of His flesh for the life of the world, to the coming down of manna from Heaven (<em><a href='B:500 6:50-51'>Joh 6:50-51</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:58'>Joh 6:58</a></em>). 'Coming down' was the classic language of theophany and God manifestation; the Lord's ascension was on the very basis that He had indeed 'come down' (<em><a href='B:560 4:10'>Eph 4:10</a></em>). And He was indeed 'coming down', not a mere meter or so from the stake to the ground, but from Heaven to earth- for their salvation. Time and again the situations associated with the Lord's suffering were full of reference to His earlier teachings and beliefs. He was thus confirmed by the hand of providence in the path He had taken, realizing that this was not at all 'bad luck' or a suffering to simply be endured, but rather every detail of it was under God’s hand controlled to confirm Him in His path to glory.</p><p>“Come down from the cross” was a repeat of the second temptation: Come down from the temple tower; throw yourself to death in Gehenna below, and perhaps the Angels will even then save you. This had been a temptation to commit suicide, to give up life without giving it for His friends, and hope that somehow the Angels would save Him personally. Victory in one temptation leads to victory again and again. All the wilderness temptations recurred during the crucifixion. Notice how the three temptations of Jesus in the desert are repeated in the three mockeries of Him on the cross recorded in Matthew and Luke. The comment that the devil departed from Him “for a season" may imply ‘he’ returned at the cross. And clearly enough, the temptations at the end were internal, even if voiced by an external person.</p>


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<p>15:33&nbsp;<em>And when the sixth hour had come, darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour</em>- Darkness is often associated in the OT with mourning. <em><a href='B:370 8:9-10'>Amo 8:9-10</a></em> speaks of earthquake and darkness at noon because "I will make it as the mourning for an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day", i:e. a funeral. The darkness was a sign of&nbsp;<em>Almighty God mourning for His Son</em>.<br/>Mark’s account of the crucifixion has 5 component parts. The third part, the centrepiece as it were, is the account of the actual death of the Lord; but it is surrounded by cameos of human response to it (consider <em><a href='B:480 15:22-27'>Mar 15:22-27</a></em>; the actual death of Jesus, <em><a href='B:480 15:33-37'>Mar 15:33-37</a></em>; then <em><a href='B:480 15:38-41'>Mar 15:38-41</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 15:42-47'>Mar 15:42-47</a></em>). See on <em><a href='B:490 23:48'>Luk 23:48</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 19:25'>Joh 19:25</a></em>.</p>


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<p>15:34&nbsp;<em>And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? Which means: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?</em>-</p><p>The Greek seems to mean "Why&nbsp;<em>did You</em>&nbsp;forsake me", perhaps implying that He had already overcome the feeling of being forsaken. Mark records "Eloi"; Matthew "Eli". Why? There&nbsp;<em>is</em>&nbsp;a difference. Did He say "Eli, Eli, Eloi, Eloi”? Four times calling upon God?&nbsp; We are going to suggest that these words indicate a crisis in the mind of the Lord Jesus. We would wish to write in almost every sentence of this study that the Lord Jesus was utterly sinless. Yet as one tempted to the limit, He must have come close to the edge. One of the superlative marvels of the Lord in His death was the way He never seems to have lost His spiritual composure, despite every physical and mental assault. Yet in these words we have Him perhaps nearer to such a breakdown of composure than anywhere else. Another example of His being 'close to the edge' was when He was in the Garden, asking for the cup to be taken away from Him. Compare those words with His clear understanding that He would have to die on a cross and later be resurrected. The clarity of His understanding is to be marvelled at. He went to the cross “knowing all things that should come upon him" (<em><a href='B:500 18:4'>Joh 18:4</a></em>). He not only foresaw His death by crucifixion and subsequent resurrection, but many other details besides. Thus He spoke of how He was like a seed which would be buried in a&nbsp;<em>garden</em>&nbsp;(as He was) and then rise again (<em><a href='B:490 13:19'>Luk 13:19</a></em>). But compare all this with His plea for another way to be found in Gethsemane, and also the cry "Why hast thou forsaken me?". There is only one realistic conclusion from this comparison: those words indicate a faltering in the Lord Jesus, a blip on the screen, a wavering in purpose. One marvels that there were not more such occasions recorded.</p><p>The first blip on the screen was in Gethsemane. The second one was when He cried "Why have You forsaken me?". We should remind ourselves of the chronology of events around the crucifixion (1):</p><table><tr><td></p><p>14th Nissan</td><td>9p:m.</td><td>Last Supper</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>12p:m.</td><td>Arrest</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>9a:m. (the third hour”)</td><td>Crucifixion</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>12a:m. - 3p:m. ("sixth to the ninth hour")</td><td>Darkness</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>3p:m. ("the ninth hour")</td><td>Death; Passover lambs killed</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>15th Nissan</td><td>9p:m.</td><td>Israel eat Passover</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>16th Nissan</td><td>6p:m.</td><td>Passover Sabbath ends</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>5a:m.</td><td>Resurrection?</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>6a:m.</td><td>Women at the tomb</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>3p:m.</td><td>Walk to Emmaus</td><td></td><td></td></tr></table><p>The fact is, Christ died "at the ninth hour". It was at the ninth hour that he cried "It is finished" and "Father into thy hands I commend my spirit". Yet it was also&nbsp;<em>at&nbsp;</em>the ninth hour that He said "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (<em><a href='B:480 15:34'>Mar 15:34</a></em>). The conclusion is that&nbsp;<em>at the very last moment</em>&nbsp;our Lord faltered. It was 11:59, and He faltered. Enter,&nbsp;<em>please</em>, into the sense of crisis and intensity. This is the only time that he prays to God as “God" rather than “Father" /&nbsp;<em>abba</em>. This itself reflects the sense of distance that enveloped Him. For He was your Lord and your Saviour hanging there, it was your salvation which hung in the balance. There is a very telling point to be made from <em><a href='B:470 27:46'>Mat 27:46</a></em>. There we read that at "<em>about</em>&nbsp;the ninth hour, Jesus cried" those words about being forsaken. Mark says it was at the ninth hour, and we know it was at the ninth hour that Christ uttered His final words of victory. Yet it must have been only a few minutes before the ninth hour when Christ faltered; hence Matthew says that it was "<em>about</em>&nbsp;the ninth hour". What is a few minutes? Only a few hundred seconds, only moments. Only moments before the sweetness of the final victory, "It is finished" or accomplished, the Son of God was faltering. The more we appreciate this wavering at the last minute, the more fully we will appreciate the power and sense of victory behind Christ's final two sayings on the cross, uttered only moments later.</p><p>And so we come to the crux of the problem. How and why was Christ forsaken by the Father? Ultimately, of course, the Father did not forsake the Son in His time of greatest need and agony. I would suggest that Christ only&nbsp;<em>felt</em>&nbsp;forsaken; although if you&nbsp;<em>feel</em>&nbsp;forsaken, in a sense you are forsaken. The prototype of Christ feeling forsaken was in David feeling forsaken by God when he fled from Absalom (<em><a href='B:230 42:9'>Psa 42:9</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 43:2'>Psa 43:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 88:14'>Psa 88:14</a></em>); but clearly he was not actually forsaken. But&nbsp;<em>why</em>&nbsp;did our Lord falter like this, at 11:59, one minute to twelve, at this agonizing last moment? Seeing the Father did not forsake the Son, there seems to have been some kind of intellectual failure in the Lord’s reasoning. In the terrible circumstances in which He was, this is hardly surprising. Yet such genuine intellectual failure, a real, unpretended failure to correctly understand something, usually has a psychological basis. The Lord, it seems to me,&nbsp;<em>feared death more than any other man</em>. He knew that death was separation from God, the wages of sin. Different people have varying degrees of fear of death (e.g. the unrepentant thief was totally resigned to it). It would seem that the Lord had the highest conceivable level of unresignation to death, to the point of being almost paranoid about it- even though He knew He must die. Two prototypes of the Lord had similar experiences. Abraham suffered “an horror of great darkness" (<em><a href='B:10 15:12'>Gen 15:12</a></em>), in an event rich in reference to the crucifixion. And Job’s sufferings were the very things which he “greatly feared" (<em><a href='B:220 3:25'>Job 3:25</a></em>). The Lord stood as a lamb dumb before His shearers; and the lamb is struck dumb with fear. This all makes the Lord’s death&nbsp;<em>for us</em>&nbsp;so much the more awesome.</p><p>We have elsewhere commented concerning the possibility that Christ felt that although He would be tied to the cross as Isaac was, yet somehow He would be delivered. <em><a href='B:10 22:22'>Gen 22:22</a></em> LXX speaks of Abraham not withholding his son- and the same word is found in <em><a href='B:520 8:32'>Rom 8:32</a></em> about God ‘not sparing’ His own son. Clearly the offering of Isaac is to be understood as prophetic of the Lord’s sacrifice. The Lord's growing realization that the entangled ram represented Him rather than Isaac would have led to this sense of panic which He now expressed. There is more evidence than we sometimes care to consider that Christ's understanding was indeed limited; He was capable of misunderstanding Scripture, especially under the stress of the cross. Earlier, in the garden, He had panicked; He was "sore amazed" (<em><a href='B:480 14:33'>Mar 14:33</a></em>, s:w. "greatly wondering", <em><a href='B:510 3:11'>Act 3:11</a></em>).</p><p>This desire for personal deliverance from the cross would have been there within our Lord throughout the six hours He hung there. And yet His only other earlier utterances which are recorded are all concerned with the welfare of others; us, the Jews, the thief, His mother. He supremely mastered His own flare of panic and desire for His personal salvation and relief, subjecting it to His spiritual and practical concern for others.</p><p>A study of Psalms 22 indicates deeper reasons why Christ felt forsaken. He had been crying out loud for deliverance, presumably for some time, according to <em><a href='B:230 22:1-6'>Psa 22:1-6</a></em>, both during and before the unnatural three hour darkness. He felt that His desire for deliverance was not being heard, although the prayers of others had been heard in the past when they cried with a like intensity. The Lord Jesus was well aware of the connection between God’s refusal to answer prayer and His recognition of sin in the person praying (<em><a href='B:100 22:42'>2Sa 22:42</a></em> = <em><a href='B:230 2:2-5'>Psa 2:2-5</a></em>). It is emphasized time and again that God will not forsake those who love Him (e.g. <em><a href='B:50 4:31'>Deu 4:31</a></em>; <em><a href='B:50 31:6'>Deu 31:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:90 12:22'>1Sa 12:22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:110 6:13'>1Ki 6:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 94:14'>Psa 94:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 41:17'>Isa 41:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 42:16'>Isa 42:16</a></em>). Every one of these passages must have been well known to our Lord, the word made flesh. He knew that God forsaking Israel was a punishment for their sin (<em><a href='B:70 6:13'>Jdg 6:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:120 21:14'>2Ki 21:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 2:6'>Isa 2:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:300 23:33'>Jer 23:33</a></em>). God would forsake Israel only if they forsook Him (<em><a href='B:50 31:16-17'>Deu 31:16-17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:140 15:2'>2Ch 15:2</a></em>). It may be helpful to summarize the two strands of Bible teaching concerning being forsaken:</p><p>God will not forsake His people if they are righteous<br/>"When thou art in tribulation... and shalt be obedient unto his voice... he will not forsake thee" (<em><a href='B:50 4:18-19'>Deu 4:18-19</a></em>)<br/>"The Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee" (<em><a href='B:50 31:6'>Deu 31:6</a></em>)<br/>"The Lord will not forsake His people for his great name's sake: because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people" (<em><a href='B:90 12:22'>1Sa 12:22</a></em>)<br/>"If thou wilt walk in my statutes... and keep all my commandments to walk in them... I will not forsake my people" (<em><a href='B:110 6:12-13'>1Ki 6:12-13</a></em>)<br/>"Blessed is the man (Messiah) whom thou chastenest... for the Lord will not cast off his people, neither forsake his inheritance... all the upright in heart" (<em><a href='B:230 94:12-15'>Psa 94:12-15</a></em>)<br/>"When the poor and needy seek water... I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them" (<em><a href='B:290 41:17'>Isa 41:17</a></em>); i:e. God not forsaking was shown in His answering of prayer (cp. <em><a href='B:230 22:1-11'>Psa 22:1-11</a></em>).</p><p>God will forsake His people if they sin<br/>"Now the Lord hath forsaken us" because of Israel's disobedience at the time of the Judges (<em><a href='B:70 6:9'>Jdg 6:9</a></em>; <em><a href='B:70 6:13'>Jdg 6:13</a></em>)<br/>"Because Mannaseh hath done these abominations... I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies" (<em><a href='B:120 21:14'>2Ki 21:14</a></em>)<br/>"Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people... because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers and they please themselves" (<em><a href='B:290 2:6'>Isa 2:6</a></em>)<br/>"I am against the (false) prophets... (therefore) I will even forsake you" (<em><a href='B:300 23:33'>Jer 23:33</a></em>)<br/>"If ye seek him, he will be found of you; but ye forsake him, he will forsake you" (<em><a href='B:140 15:2'>2Ch 15:2</a></em>)<br/>"This people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the land... and will forsake me... then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them" (<em><a href='B:50 31:16-17'>Deu 31:16-17</a></em>).</p><p>Knowing all this, He cried out: "<em>Why</em>&nbsp;have You forsaken me?". He felt forsaken by God, and Biblically, without a doubt, being forsaken by God means you are a sinner. "<em>Why</em>&nbsp;(oh&nbsp;<em>why</em>) have You forsaken me?" is surely the Lord Jesus searching His conscience with desperate intensity, finding nothing wrong, and crying to God to show Him where He had failed, why the Father had forsaken Him. It may be that initially He assumed He had sinned (<em><a href='B:230 69:5'>Psa 69:5</a></em>), going through the self-doubt which David went through at the time of Absalom's rebellion (<em><a href='B:230 3:2'>Psa 3:2</a></em>). As David had felt then that God had cast him off, even though "My lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail", so the Lord felt (<em><a href='B:230 89:33'>Psa 89:33</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 89:38'>Psa 89:38</a></em>). But then with an unsurpassedly rigorous self-examination, He came to know that He really hadn't. This means that once over the crisis, our Lord died with a purity of conscience known by no other being, with a profound sense of His own totality of righteousness. Again, this enables us to better enter into the intensity of "<em>It</em>&nbsp;is finished".</p><p>The Lord understood His death as drinking a cup from God. But that cup was, in Old Testament language, the cup of God’s wrath against a disobedient people. The Lord knew that His death was a bearing of their judgment- which is not to say, of course, that the Lord’s murderers, as any sinners, have to also answer for their sins. He so wished to gather the “chicks" of Jerusalem under His wings, but they would not, and thus the house of the temple would be left desolate. The image seems to be of a farmyard hen in a fire, gathering the chicks under wings as the house burnt down, so that afterwards, beneath her charred and destroyed body, her brood would be found alive. The Lord so wished the burnt offering of the cross to result in the salvation of the Israel of His day- but they would not. This was His level of love for those who baited Him, irritated Him, dogged His every step.</p><p>Christ knew from Isaiah 53 that He was to bear Israel's sins, that the judgments for their sins were to fall upon Him. Israel ‘bore their iniquities’ by being condemned for them (<em><a href='B:40 14:34-35'>Num 14:34-35</a></em>; <em><a href='B:30 5:17'>Lev 5:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:30 20:17'>Lev 20:17</a></em>); to be a sin bearer was therefore to be one condemned. To die in punishment for your sin was to bear you sin. There is a difference between sin, and sin being laid upon a person. <em><a href='B:40 12:11'>Num 12:11</a></em> brings this out: “Lay not the sin upon us… wherein we have sinned”. The idea of sin being laid upon a person therefore refers to condemnation for sin. Our sin being laid upon Jesus therefore means that He was treated&nbsp;<em>as if</em>&nbsp;He were a condemned sinner. He briefly endured within Him the torment of soul which the condemned will feel. It seems that even our Lord did not appreciate the extent to which He would be identified with sinful Israel, the extent to which He would have our sins imputed to Him, the weight of them, the degree to which He would be made sin for us, although knowing no sin (<em><a href='B:540 5:21'>2Co 5:21</a></em>). And if He found this hard to come to terms with, no wonder we do too. The fact that the judgment for sin is sometimes equated with the sin itself was doubtless appreciated by the Lord (cp. <em><a href='B:120 15:23'>2Ki 15:23</a></em>); but the extent of this principle was what seemed to have been unappreciated by Him until the cross. Likewise, He would have meditated upon the way righteous men had taken upon themselves the sins of their people. Thus Jeremiah speaks as if he has committed Israel's sins; Ezra rends his clothes and plucks off his hair, as if&nbsp;<em>he</em>&nbsp;has married out of the Faith (<em><a href='B:150 9:4'>Ezr 9:4</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:160 13:25'>Neh 13:25</a></em>; the Lord received the same sinner's treatment, <em><a href='B:290 50:6'>Isa 50:6</a></em>). Moses' prayer for God to relent and let him enter the land was only rejected for the sake of his association with Israel's sins (<em><a href='B:50 3:26'>Deu 3:26</a></em>). But the&nbsp;<em>extent</em>&nbsp;to which the Lord would bear our sins was perhaps unforeseen by Him. And indeed, through His sin- bearing and sin-feeling, He enabled God Himself to know something of it too, as a Father learns and feels through a son. Thus God is likened to a man who goes away into a far country (<em><a href='B:470 21:33'>Mat 21:33</a></em>)- the very words used by the Lord to describe how the sinner goes into a far country in his departure from the Father (<em><a href='B:490 15:13'>Luk 15:13</a></em>). “My servant" was both Israel and the Lord Jesus; He was their representative in His sufferings. Which may well explain why in an exhibition of prisoners art from the Auschwitz death camp, there were so many crucifixes and ‘stages of the cross’ drawn by Jews, even in the wood of the huts, etched with their finger nails. They saw then, and will see again, the extent to which Jesus of Nazareth, through His cross, identifies with the suffering servant of Israel. Isaiah brings this point out Biblically- early in his prophecy he speaks of how “my servant" Israel will be wounded, bruised, tormented with “fresh stripes" (<em><a href='B:290 1:6'>Isa 1:6</a></em> RVmg)- exactly the language Isaiah later uses about the sufferings of the Lord Jesus in His death.</p><p>Christ died to save Israel rather than everyone in the Gentile world (<em><a href='B:290 49:5'>Isa 49:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 53:8'>Isa 53:8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:550 4:4-5'>Gal 4:4-5</a></em>), He was “a servant to the circumcised" (<em><a href='B:520 15:8'>Rom 15:8</a></em>), " the consolation&nbsp;<em>of Israel</em>”, unto&nbsp;<em>them</em>&nbsp;was born a saviour (<em><a href='B:490 2:11'>Luk 2:11</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 2:25'>Luk 2:25</a></em>), and therefore He had to be exactly representative of them. For this reason it was theologically necessary for Jesus to be Jewish in order to achieve the work He did. We are only saved by reason of becoming in Christ and therefore part of the Israel of God (<em><a href='B:550 3:27-29'>Gal 3:27-29</a></em>). The Jewish basis of salvation is absolutely fundamental to a correct understanding of the Gospel.</p><p>Consider the following evidence that fundamentally, Christ died to save Israel:<br/>"For unto us (Israel) a child is born, unto us a son is given" (<em><a href='B:290 9:6'>Isa 9:6</a></em>)<br/>"The Lord formed me in the womb to be His servant, to bring Jacob again to Him" (<em><a href='B:290 49:5'>Isa 49:5</a></em>)<br/>"For the transgression of my people was he stricken" (<em><a href='B:290 53:8'>Isa 53:8</a></em>)<br/>“God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law" (<em><a href='B:550 4:4-5'>Gal 4:4-5</a></em>)<br/>The good news of Christ’s birth was for “all the people" of Israel, primarily (<em><a href='B:490 2:10'>Luk 2:10</a></em> RV).<br/>The Lord laid down His life “for the sheep" of Israel (<em><a href='B:500 10:15-16'>Joh 10:15-16</a></em>).</p><p>Both Peter and Paul appealed to the Jews to repent because it was for them that Christ had died: "Ye are the children…of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying…. And in thy seed shall all the kindreds (tribes) of the earth (land) be blessed. Unto you first (i:e. most importantly) God, having raised up his son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities... God raised unto Israel a Saviour… men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham... to you is the word of this salvation sent... we declare unto you glad tidings (the Gospel), how that the promise (of salvation in Christ) which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children" (<em><a href='B:510 3:25-26'>Act 3:25-26</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 13:23'>Act 13:23</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 13:26'>Act 13:26</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 13:32-33'>Act 13:32-33</a></em>).</p><p>"For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision (<em><a href='B:520 15:17'>Rom 15:17</a></em>) has reference to Isaiah’s Servant prophecies of the crucifixion. But it is also, as so often in Paul, a reference to the Lord’s words; in this case, <em><a href='B:470 20:26-28'>Mat 20:26-28</a></em>: "It is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many". The ‘becoming a servant’ refers to His death; and He became a servant, Paul says, to the Jews above all.</p><p>Because of all this, the sufferings of Christ on the cross have connections with the punishments for Israel's sins (e.g. being offered gall to drink = <em><a href='B:300 8:14'>Jer 8:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:310 3:5'>Lam 3:5</a></em>). Israel were temporarily forsaken by God because of their sins (<em><a href='B:290 49:14'>Isa 49:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 54:7'>Isa 54:7</a></em>), and therefore so was Christ. Christ was chastened with the rod of men "and with the stripes of the children of men", i:e. Israel (<em><a href='B:290 53:5'>Isa 53:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:670 2:24'>1Pe 2:24</a></em>; <em><a href='B:400 5:1'>Mic 5:1</a></em>), in His death on the cross. But punishment with rod and stripes was to be given if Messiah sinned (<em><a href='B:100 7:14'>2Sa 7:14</a></em>). Yet Christ received this punishment; because God counted Him as if He were a sinner. His sharing in our condemnation was no harmless piece of theology. He really did feel, deep inside Him, that He was a sinner, forsaken by God. Instead of lifting up His face to Heaven, with the freedom of sinlessness, He fell on His face before the Father in Gethsemane (<em><a href='B:470 26:39'>Mat 26:39</a></em>), bearing the guilt of human sin. There are times when we may feel that the righteousness of Christ makes Him somehow inaccessible to us. Even among contemporary brethren and sisters, there are some who I feel somehow distanced from, simply because I know they are far more righteous than I. And I know that there are many of us who feel the same. We feel that they just don't know what it feels like to be spiritually down and out, to feel and deeply know the dirt of our own nature. And if we have this problem with each other, we will surely have it with the Lord Jesus too. For this reason many of us lack the dynamic, close personal relationship with Christ which we should have.</p><p>And yet here on the cross, we see our Lord with all the panic of the sinner who knows He is facing judgment and death, feeling every bit, right throughout His very being, the alienation from God which sin brings. He knew the agony of separation from God because of sin. He was a sin bearer (<em><a href='B:290 53:11'>Isa 53:11</a></em>); and the idea of sin bearing was almost an idiom for being personally guilty and sinful (<em><a href='B:40 14:34'>Num 14:34</a></em>; <em><a href='B:20 28:43'>Exo 28:43</a></em>). The Lord was our sin bearer and yet personally guiltless. This is the paradox which even He struggled with; no wonder we do, on a far more abstract level. <em><a href='B:290 63:2-3'>Isa 63:2-3</a></em> explains how in the process of obtaining salvation, the Lord’s clothing would be made red. Red clothes in Isaiah suggest sinfulness that needs cleansing (<em><a href='B:290 1:18'>Isa 1:18</a></em>). He was completely identified with us, to the point of feeling a sinner even although He never sinned. Perhaps this was why Pilate marvelled so greatly at Christ's silence when under false accusation (<em><a href='B:480 15:5'>Mar 15:5</a></em>); Pilate knew Jesus was innocent, and he had seen many innocent men being condemned in that court situation. Innocent men usually protest their innocence, desperately. But this innocent man didn’t. Perhaps the paradox is explained by the fact that Jesus felt so closely identified with sinful, guilty humanity that He didn’t do the natural thing, which would've been to loudly proclaim His own innocence.</p><p>The Greek word translated "forsaken" occurs also in <em><a href='B:510 2:27'>Act 2:27</a></em>, where Peter quotes from Psalms 16 concerning how Christ was always aware of His own righteousness, and therefore confidently knew that God would not "<em>leave</em>&nbsp;(forsake) his soul in hell". In <em><a href='B:230 22:1'>Psa 22:1</a></em>, our Lord was doubting His previous thoughts, as prophesied in <em><a href='B:230 16:10'>Psa 16:10</a></em>. He now feared that God had forsaken Him, when previously He had been full of confidence that God would not do so, on account of His perfect character. Because Christ felt such a sinner deep within Him, He even doubted if He really was the Messiah. This is how deeply, how deeply, our Lord was our representative, this is how thoroughly He bare our own sins in His own body on the tree, this is how deeply He came to know us, to be able to exactly empathize with us in our spiritual weakness; this was how He became able to have a fellow feeling with those who are out of the way, who have lost the faith, "for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity" (<em><a href='B:650 5:2'>Heb 5:2</a></em>). The way the Lord felt as a sinner without being one is possibly reflected in the way He framed the parable of the prodigal son. For like it or not, the prodigal is portrayed in terms which are elsewhere applicable to Jesus- the beloved son of the Father, given the Father's wealth as His inheritance, He who was rich becoming poor, going into the Gentile world, accused of companying with prostitutes, bitterly rejected by the elder brother cp. the Pharisees, accused of wasting wealth by Judas, received with joy by the Father. Of course, the Lord Jesus did not sin. But why is the sinner framed in the story in the very terms which are applicable to the sinless Son of God? Surely the Lord did this to reflect the degree to which He felt His identity with sinners, although He never sinned.</p><p>The greatest fear within a righteous man is that of sinning. There are many Messianic Psalms in which David, in the spirit of Christ, speaks of His fear of being forsaken by God:&nbsp;<br/>"Leave me not, neither forsake me,&nbsp;<em>O God of my&nbsp;</em>salvation" (<em><a href='B:230 27:9'>Psa 27:9</a></em>; cp. "<em>My God</em>, Why hast thou forsaken me")<br/>"Forsake me not, O Lord:&nbsp;<em>O my God</em>&nbsp;be not far from me" (<em><a href='B:230 38:21'>Psa 38:21</a></em>)<br/>"Hide not they face from thy servant... hear me speedily" (<em><a href='B:230 69:17'>Psa 69:17</a></em>)- implying that a lack of response to prayer (as He experienced on the cross) was perceived by the Lord as rejection.<br/>"Forsake me not…&nbsp;<em>O God</em>, forsake me not" (<em><a href='B:230 71:9'>Psa 71:9</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 71:18'>Psa 71:18</a></em>)<br/>"I will keep thy statutes: O forsake me not" (<em><a href='B:230 119:8'>Psa 119:8</a></em>)<br/>"Forsake not the works of thine own hands" (<em><a href='B:230 138:8'>Psa 138:8</a></em>).</p><p>This points forward to how our Lord had this lifelong fear of being forsaken by God as a result of sin. Under the extreme pressure of the cross, amidst His constant self-examination, it is understandable that Christ's greatest fear, perhaps almost His paranoia, appeared to become realized. The crowd had been trying to brainwash our Lord with the idea that He had sinned; and because of His humanity and sensitivity of His personality, the Lord Jesus was perhaps subconsciously influenced by all this. He was no hard man, insensitive to the jeers of men. Remember how He was laughed&nbsp;<em>to scorn&nbsp;</em>both on the cross and in the home of Jairus, and how He did not hide His face from the&nbsp;<em>shame</em>&nbsp;which He was made to feel by men (<em><a href='B:470 9:24'>Mat 9:24</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 22:7'>Psa 22:7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 50:6'>Isa 50:6</a></em>). Job's sufferings were another type of Christ's, and his sufferings (cp. Christ's experience on the cross) was the thing which He had greatly feared all his life (<em><a href='B:220 3:25'>Job 3:25</a></em>). The thing which Christ greatly feared, according to the Psalms, was being forsaken by God. And true enough to the Job type, this came upon Him:&nbsp;<br/>Because Christ truly felt a sinner, He felt forsaken by God. This is to me the explanation of one of Scripture’s most enigmatic verses: “Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see. Who is blind, but my servant? Or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? Who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord’s servant?" (<em><a href='B:290 42:18-19'>Isa 42:18-19</a></em>). The Lord Jesus, as the servant, was to share the blindness and deafness of an obdurate Israel. He identified with us even in our sinfulness; and yet He was the blind who was perfect; and this is the very thing that empowers the spiritually blind to see. When God made His soul sin on the cross AV “offering for sin" is not in the Hebrew text- it’s an interpretation,&nbsp;<em>then</em>&nbsp;He saw Heb. to perceive / discern His seed (<em><a href='B:290 53:10'>Isa 53:10</a></em>). This all seems to mean that it was through this feeling as a sinner deep within His very soul, that the Lord Jesus came to ‘see’, to closely identify with, to perceive truly, us His sinful seed / children. And He did this right at the very end of His hours of suffering, as if this was the climax of His sufferings- they led Him to a full and total identity with sinful men and women. And once He reached that point, He died. The total identity of the Lord with our sinfulness is brought out in passages like <em><a href='B:520 8:3'>Rom 8:3</a></em>, describing Jesus as being “in the likeness of sinful flesh" when He was made a sin offering; and <em><a href='B:670 2:24'>1Pe 2:24</a></em>, which speaks of how He “his own self…in his own body" bore our sins “upon the tree". Note that it was at the time of His death that He was especially like this. I believe that these passages speak more of the Lord’s moral association with sinners, which reached a climax in His death, than they do of His ‘nature’. The Greek words&nbsp;<em>charis</em>&nbsp;grace and&nbsp;<em>choris</em>&nbsp;apart differ by one very small squiggle. This is why there’s an alternative reading of <em><a href='B:650 2:9'>Heb 2:9</a></em>: “So that apart from God&nbsp;<em>choris theou</em>&nbsp;he Jesus tasted death for us” (2). This would then be a clear reference to the way that the Lord Jesus felt apart from God at His very end. Not that He was, but if He felt like that, then this was in practice the experience which He had. Thus even when we feel apart from God- the Lord Jesus knows even that feeling.</p><p>In every other recorded prayer of His in the Gospels, the Lord addressed the Almighty as “Father"; but now He uses the more distant “My God", reflecting the separation He felt. But therefore His mind flew to <em><a href='B:230 22:1'>Psa 22:1</a></em>, and He quoted those words: "My God, why hast thou forsaken me". But the fact His mind went to the Scriptures like that was His salvation. There is reason to think that in His last few minutes, the Lord quoted the whole of Psalms 22 out loud. Thus He asked for a drink " that the Scripture might be fulfilled”, or finished, and then His words "It is finished" followed- which are actually an exact quote from the Septuagint of the last verse of Psalms 22. Psalms 22, 69 can be clearly divided into two halves; the first half speaks of the confused thoughts of the Lord Jesus as He hung on the cross, but then there is a sudden rally, and His thoughts become clearly more confident and positive, centred around the certainty of our future salvation. As Christ quoted or at least thought through Psalms 22, He came to the glorious conclusion: Of course this is how Messiah must feel, He&nbsp;<em>must</em>&nbsp;feel forsaken, as Psalms 22 prophesied, but He would go on to save God’s people Just because Messiah would&nbsp;<em>feel</em>&nbsp;forsaken didn’t mean that He Himself had sinned We can almost sense the wave of reassurance that swept over our Lord, that deep knowledge of His own good conscience. And therefore how desperate He was, despite that ravaging thirst, to utter to the world that cry, "It is finished"; to show to us all that He had achieved God’s work, that He&nbsp;<em>had</em>&nbsp;perfectly manifested the Father, and that thereby He really had achieved our redemption:&nbsp;<br/>Notes<br/>(1) This chronology is my preferred one. Yet it presents the problem (for some) of reading "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (<em><a href='B:470 12:40'>Mat 12:40</a></em>) as an idiom rather than a literal time period. This problem is well handled in H:A:Whittaker, 'Three days and three nights',&nbsp;in&nbsp;<em>Studies in the Gospels</em>:&nbsp;<br/>&nbsp;(2) A reading justified at length in Philip E. Hughes,&nbsp;<em>A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews</em>&nbsp;(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1977) pp. 87-97.</p>


text:
<p>15:35&nbsp;<em>And some of them that stood by, when they heard it, said: Look, he calls Elijah</em>- They were confusing "Eliyahu" with "Eloi, Eloi". With teeth loose or missing, throat parched from the fever induced by the iron nails in the blood stream, the difficulty of speaking because of being suspended by the arms... this confusion isn't surprising.</p>


text:
<p>15:36&nbsp;<em>And one ran and filling a sponge full of vinegar, put it on a rod and gave it to him to drink, saying: Leave him be. Let us see if Elijah will come to take Him down-</em>&nbsp;When we read that “someone” offered him a sponge with wine mixed with myrrh (<em><a href='B:480 15:36'>Mar 15:36</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:48'>Mat 27:48</a></em>), we recall the use of myrrh in preparing bodies for burial (<em><a href='B:480 14:3'>Mar 14:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:56'>Luk 23:56</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 12:3'>Joh 12:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 19:39'>Joh 19:39</a></em>). Pliny (<em>Natural History</em>&nbsp;14:15:92,107) records: “The finest wine in early days was that spiced with the scent of myrrh…I also find that aromatic wine is constantly made from almost the same ingredient as perfumes, from myrrh”. This alerts me to the real possibility that the unnamed bystander who did this was Mary Magdalene. Earlier she had anointed the Lord’s body with myrrh “to the burial”. And now she has prepared the most expensive form of wine as some sort of pain killer. Perhaps the Lord was so touched by this that He accepted it, but didn’t drink it. His doing this is otherwise very hard to understand. Her love was on one hand inappropriate, and yet the Lord still accepted it, even though He couldn’t use it. He could have felt angry with her for tempting Him to the easier way. But He didn’t. And in so doing He showed her that the essence of the cross is that there is no easy way. The principles of all this are to be reflected in our cross carrying:&nbsp;</p>


text:
<p>15:37&nbsp;<em>And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed his last</em>- <em><a href='B:470 27:50'>Mat 27:50</a></em> suggests that this cry&nbsp;<em>was</em>&nbsp;the giving up of the spirit: “Then Jesus crying out again with a loud voice, expired". For the huge significance of this, see on <em><a href='B:490 23:46'>Luk 23:46</a></em>. The Lord gave His life, it was not taken from Him (<em><a href='B:500 10:18'>Joh 10:18</a></em>); He consciously controlled the giving out of His last breath.</p>


text:
<p>15:38&nbsp;<em>And the veil of the temple was torn in two- from the top to the bottom</em>- The way into the most holy was now open to all, the veil torn from top to bottom because this was done by God. The High Priest's garments had been torn by him, and now the veil itself was open. Judaism was effectively over. Direct fellowship with God was now made possible through the Lord's death. We note by contrast how the same word is used to describe how the Lord's garment was&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;rent (<em><a href='B:500 19:24'>Joh 19:24</a></em>). "From the top" indicates that this was done by God. He was no longer hidden behind ritual, stones and sacred space. The rending of the veil is clearly alluded to in <em><a href='B:650 9:3'>Heb 9:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:650 10:19'>Heb 10:19</a></em>; but as noted there, we must have boldness to enter in to the holiest. We all now are to act as the High Priest, going into the very presence of God for the same of others.<br/>&nbsp;</p>


text:
<p>15:39<em>&nbsp;And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw how he breathed his last breath, he said: Truly this man was the Son of God</em>-<em>&nbsp;&nbsp;</em>He said it twice: "This was a righteous man (Lk:), truly this man was the son of God" (Mk:). And he might well have added in his own thoughts: “And I’ve crucified him". The Lord died through an act of utter self control; consciously breathing out His last breath in the form of the words "Father into your hands I commit my spirit". He gave His life, it was not taken from Him (<em><a href='B:500 10:18'>Joh 10:18</a></em>).</p>


text:
<p>15:40<em>&nbsp;And there were also women watching from afar, among whom were both Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome</em>-Perhaps when He crossed Kidron He would have thought back to how Asa had to separate himself from his mother in the very same place (<em><a href='B:110 15:13'>1Ki 15:13</a></em>). The crucifixion record describes Mary the mother of Jesus as Mary the mother of James and Joses (<em><a href='B:480 15:40'>Mar 15:40</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:470 13:55'>Mat 13:55</a></em>)- not Mary the mother of Jesus. It’s as if the record itself seeks to show that separation between mother and Son which occurred there. Both Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James- i:e. the mother of Jesus too (<em><a href='B:480 16:1'>Mar 16:1</a></em> = <em><a href='B:480 15:40'>Mar 15:40</a></em> = <em><a href='B:470 13:55'>Mat 13:55</a></em>) came to the sepulchre, but Jesus chose to appear to Mary Magdalene first (<em><a href='B:480 15:9'>Mar 15:9</a></em>), and not His own dear mother. <em><a href='B:470 27:61'>Mat 27:61</a></em> almost cruelly rubs the point in: “There was Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre”, but the Lord appeared to Mary Magdalene first. Indeed, there is no record that He ever appeared to His mother. This would presumably have been to help her in realizing that she must relate to Him as her Lord and Saviour now, like any other woman had to, and not as a woman with special maternal privileges in her relationship with her now Almighty Son. It must have so pained the Lord to do this- to not appear to his dear mother first. But as He oftentimes acts with us, so He did with her- doing something which even in Divine nature must have been so painful for Him, in order to help her in her growth. &nbsp;</p><p>We read in <em><a href='B:480 15:40'>Mar 15:40</a></em> that “Mary the mother of James the little one and of Joses” stood by the cross (RVmg:). I take this Mary to be Mary the mother of Jesus, for <em><a href='B:470 13:55'>Mat 13:55</a></em> records that James and Joses were brothers of Jesus and thus children of Mary. Remember that Mark is writing under inspiration a transcript of the preaching of the Gospel by the apostles, as they recounted the message of Jesus time and again. Could it not be that in the preaching of that Gospel, when it came to the cross, James asked to be surnamed “the little one”, remembering his earlier rejection of Jesus his brother? Now it is not at all surprising that Saul of Tarsus too decides to call himself ‘the little one’, through sustained meditation upon the cross. &nbsp;See on <em><a href='B:500 19:25'>Joh 19:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:730 14:4'>Rev 14:4</a></em>.</p>


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<p>15:41&nbsp;<em>Who, when he was in Galilee, had also followed him and ministered to him; and many other women that also had come with him up to Jerusalem</em>- The connection is between following the Lord in the easier times, at the height of His popularity in Galilee; and also following Him when all seems hopeless, and there seems absolutely no human advantage from identity with Him. The reference to "many" women coming up to Jerusalem in support of Him would suggest that He may have had more female supporters than male.</p>


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<p>15:42&nbsp;<em>And when evening had come, because it was the Preparation day, that is, the day before the Sabbath</em>- This confirms that the Lord died at the same time as the Passover lambs were slain; just as He had planned. His "last supper" was therefore a Passover held in advance.</p>


text:
<p>15:43&nbsp;<em>Joseph of Arimathaea, a councillor of honourable rank, who also was looking for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus</em>- Perhaps Old Testament 'Ramah', birthplace and home of Samuel. He was 'also' a disciple (Mt:), in God’s eyes, in the same category as the women disciples who were so public about their discipleship (<em><a href='B:470 27:56'>Mat 27:56</a></em>). Whilst secret discipleship is not the Lord's intention, and He will arrange circumstances so that we 'come out' publicly, it is not for us to say that He doesn't count secret disciples as also His disciples, just as He did Joseph.</p><p>Joseph is now showing his open affinity with this crucified man; for only close family members could ask for the body. At that time, he didn’t firmly believe in the resurrection. For sheer&nbsp;<em>love</em>&nbsp;of this crucified man, he was willing to sacrifice his standing in society, his economic position, risk his life, grovel before the hated Pilate to beg (Lk:), crave (Mk:) the body. This was something which only the close relatives of the crucified could presume to do. But he felt already that new relationship to the Lord, and whether or not He would ever be raised he wanted to show openly to the world his connection with Him, come what may. This was the effect of the Lord’s death upon him.</p><p>The text records that the Jews desired Pilate for the death of Jesus; but the very same Greek words are used to describe how Joseph desired Pilate to let him have the body of Jesus (<em><a href='B:470 27:58'>Mat 27:58</a></em>)- as if to show how Joseph openly undid his request for the crucifixion, by requesting the body. It is twice stressed that Joseph was on the Sanhedrin council. So was Nicodemus (<em><a href='B:500 3:2'>Joh 3:2</a></em>). Yet the whole council unanimously voted for the crucifixion (<em><a href='B:480 14:64'>Mar 14:64</a></em>). "The whole Sanhedrin" (<em><a href='B:480 15:1'>Mar 15:1</a></em> NIV) agreed the High Priests' plan of action. They&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;interrogated Him and “the whole multitude of them" led Jesus to Pilate (<em><a href='B:490 22:66'>Luk 22:66</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 22:70'>Luk 22:70</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:1'>Luk 23:1</a></em>). This is some emphasIs. Joseph “was not in agreement" with them, we are told, but it seems this was a position held within his own conscience; indeed, “many” of the elders actually believed in Jesus (<em><a href='B:500 12:42'>Joh 12:42</a></em>). It was only the actual cross which brought faith into the open. “You shall not be in agreement with the wicked as an unjust witness" (<em><a href='B:20 23:1'>Exo 23:1</a></em>) probably tore out his heart. It may be that these men weren't present and that the Jews broke their own law, that the death sentence must be unanimously agreed. However, I have an intuitive sense (and nothing more) that these men voted for the Lord's death; and that they went along with the discussion in which " all" the council were involved, as to which incidents in His life they could remember for which they could condemn Him (<em><a href='B:480 14:55'>Mar 14:55</a></em>). They may not have consented to what was done in their hearts, but they still went along with it all on the surface. <em><a href='B:510 13:28-29'>Act 13:28-29</a></em> is at pains, almost, to associate Joseph, Nicodemus and the rest of the Sanhedrin: "<em>They</em>&nbsp;have fulfilled them in condemning him. And though&nbsp;<em>they</em>&nbsp;found no cause of death in him, yet desired&nbsp;<em>they</em>&nbsp;Pilate that He should be slain…&nbsp;<em>they</em>&nbsp;took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre".</p><p>They were secret disciples, fearing the loss of standing among the Jews. It was only after the Lord's death that they came out in the open. It seems to me that they voted for the Son of God to die. But in His grace, the Father emphasizes in the record that Joseph was a good man, and a just; a disciple, although secretly. The grace of God shines through the whole record. Thus only Matthew speaks about the suicide of Judas; the other three records are silent. A human god would inevitably have stressed that the betrayer of His Son went out in shame and took his own life. But the God of all grace is higher than reflecting vindictiveness in His word:&nbsp;<br/>If the Lord died at 3p:m. and sunset was at 6p:m:, there were only three hours for Joseph to find Pilate, gain a hearing, make his request, for Pilate to verify that the body was dead, and then for Nicodemus to buy the spices and for the burial to be done. Joseph and Nicodemus must have decided almost immediately what they were going to do. And the lesson for us: Beholding the cross makes us see what we ought to do, it becomes urgently apparent, and then we give our all, with the spirit of 'nothing else matters', to achieve it as far as we can. But we can enter into their thoughts: I wish I'd done more for Him while He was alive, and now, even now, because of the pressure of time, I just can't bury and honour this body as I'd like to. All these things are against me. The self hate and loathing and regret would have arisen within them, mixed with that love and devotion to the Lord of all grace. And there would have been an earnest desire for God to accept what little they could do, with time, the surrounding world, the Jewish culture, the unchangeable past, and their own present natures, all militating against the height of devotion they fain would show.</p><p>John gives the additional detail about the concern that Jesus might not be fully dead, and the piercing of His side. It is difficult to tell if a body is dead or not. But there was something about the Lord's corpse which somehow shone forth the message that He had given up His life. " He that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe" (<em><a href='B:500 19:35'>Joh 19:35</a></em>). Do we not get the sense here of a man, even under inspiration, grasping for adequate words and finding there are none? This is an experience beyond the paradigm of verbal description. The description of blood and water flowing has raised the question as to whether the Lord had been fasting, or had emptied His bowels in Gethsemane, before the crucifixion. It has been suggested that for this to have happened the Lord would have been pierced from the right hand side above the fifth rib, piercing the right auricle of the heart (from which the blood came) and also the pericardium, from where the serum came which appeared like water. However there are critics of these suggestions, which leaves the possibility that the flow of blood and water was in fact a miracle- hence John’s insistence that yes, he actually saw this happen. And he says that he records it so that we might believe. The implication is that meditation upon the cross is what inspires faith, as well as conviction of sin and repentance. The way the Lord’s blood flowed out from His heart is highly evocative of powerful lessons. He gave out from the very core and foundation of His being. We may serve God in good deeds, in writing books, in labouring for Him, without any real demand being made on our innermost self. The challenge of the cross is to give from the very centre and fountain of our life, our very selves, our person, our most vital soul.</p>


text:
<p>15:44&nbsp;<em>And Pilate wondered if he were already dead, and called the centurion. He asked him whether he was already dead</em>- Josephus records that victims usually lingered for two days or so before death. The Lord died so quickly. And the legs were broken so that the victims would die quickly (not, as has sometimes been supposed, to stop them running away). These things are harmonized by realizing that there was a support on which the victim could seek temporal relief in order to keep himself alive. Werner Keller (<em>The Bible As History</em>&nbsp;p. 356) explains: "There was often a small support attached called a "sedile" (seat). if the victim hanging there eased his misery from time to time by supporting himself on this, the blood returned to the upper half of his body... when the torture of the crucified man was finally to be brought to an end, the "crucifragrum" was proceeded with: his legs were broken. That meant that he could no longer ease his weight in the footrests and heart failure quickly followed". It seems to me that in keeping with His refusal of the pain killer, His not requesting a drink until the very end, His willing giving of His life... that the Lord didn’t press down on the seat, so that effectively He tortured Himself to death. If the victim did not press down on the sedile, the dead weight of the body would cause the intercostal muscles that facilitate inhaling to become too weakened to function. The lungs, unable to empty, would become full of carbon dioxide and death would result from asphyxia. The fact the Lord was making the effort to talk to people and yet, it seems, not pressing down on the sedile… is simply an essay in His self control, in His love, to bother to talk to others… which should inspire us to rise out of our introspection and make the effort likewise to connect with others. Seneca (<em>Dialogue 3</em>) writes: “Is it worth to weigh down on one’s own wound and hand impaled on a gibbet to postpone something which Is... the end of punishment i:e. death?". In practice, the victim was only prolonging his own agony by pressing down on the rest. If the Lord didn’t do this, He must have been extremely faint. Keller also comments: "In the case of a person suspended by his two hands the blood sinks very quickly into the lower half of the body. After six to twelve minutes blood pressure has dropped by 50% and the pulse rate has doubled". The Lord must have felt His every heartbeat, and therefore been able to sense when He was approaching death. Yet amidst the faintness, the knowledge that His heart was about to give out, the Lord remained, I am convinced, completely intellectually consciousness. Deep within Him, that perfect mind was centred on the Father and His word. Several Psalms take on a literal reference to the Lord's final agony: "My heart panteth, my strength faileth me: as for the light of mine eyes, it also is gone from me... my flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever" (<em><a href='B:230 38:10'>Psa 38:10</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 73:26'>Psa 73:26</a></em>).</p>


text:
<p>15:45&nbsp;<em>And when it was confirmed by the centurion, he granted the corpse to Joseph</em>- We get the impression that the one thing Joseph wanted was to be given the crucified body of the Lord. And we are each "given" just that, as memorialized in the communion service. His body is given for each of us, and we should realize that it ought to cost us every penny we have and all our standing in society.</p>


text:
<p>15:46&nbsp;<em>And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock-&nbsp;</em>Luke's record that Joseph himself took the body down invites us to imagine him using a ladder, perhaps that used to place the title. However, <em><a href='B:510 13:29'>Act 13:29</a></em> suggests that the Roman soldiers on behalf of Jewish people (i:e. Joseph) took the body down; Pilate "commanded the body to be delivered", implying he gave a command to underlings. So in what sense did&nbsp;<em>Joseph</em>&nbsp;take the body down and wrap it? Are we to imagine him humbling himself before the crowd to assist those soldiers in the physical act of taking the nails out and lowering the body down? Or it could be that he attracted so much attention to himself and had to humble himself so much to ask the soldiers to do it, that it was effectively as if he did it. But there is no reason to think that he himself didn’t walk out in that no man’s land between the crowd and the cross and humble himself to take it down, hearing the gasp from the crowd as he touched the blood and dead body which would make him unclean for the feast. His act was a tremendous mental sacrifice as well as a social and physical one. He is described as "honourable", literally 'well-formed / bodied', as if to emphasis his deportment befitting a leader of men. But he humbled himself before that stake. "He took it down" may imply that the stake was left standing. Or was it laid backwards and lowered down horizontal, with Joseph's anxious hands guiding it down? His contact with the body meant that he couldn't keep the Passover (<em><a href='B:40 9:9-10'>Num 9:9-10</a></em>). The people would have watched incredulous as one of the leaders of Israel openly showed his preference for the crucified Nazarene as opposed to keeping the Mosaic Law. The obsession with cleanliness at Passover time would have meant that everyone was extremely sensitive to what Joseph did.</p><p><em>And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb</em>- This apparently needless detail is added because the camera is as it were focused on the closed tomb, with Joseph now walking away from it.</p>


text:
<p>15:47&nbsp;<em>And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses observed where he was laid</em>- They didn’t stay there long, but the camera is focused on Joseph, sealing the tomb and walking away from it, but in the background the camera picks up (blurred and out of focus, as it were) the women sitting there.</p><p>The crucifixion record describes Mary the mother of Jesus as Mary the mother of James and Joses (<em><a href='B:480 15:40'>Mar 15:40</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:470 13:55'>Mat 13:55</a></em>)- not Mary the mother of Jesus. It’s as if the record itself seeks to show that separation between mother and Son which occurred there. Both Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James- i:e. the mother of Jesus too (<em><a href='B:480 16:1'>Mar 16:1</a></em> = <em><a href='B:480 15:40'>Mar 15:40</a></em> = <em><a href='B:470 13:55'>Mat 13:55</a></em>) came to the sepulchre, but Jesus chose to appear to Mary Magdalene first (<em><a href='B:480 15:9'>Mar 15:9</a></em>), and not His own dear mother. <em><a href='B:470 27:61'>Mat 27:61</a></em> almost cruelly rubs the point in: “There was Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre”, but the Lord appeared to Mary Magdalene first. Indeed, there is no record that He ever appeared to His mother. This would presumably have been to help her in realizing that she must relate to Him as her Lord and Saviour now, like any other woman had to, and not as a woman with special maternal privileges in her relationship with her now Almighty Son. It must have so pained the Lord to do this- to not appear to his dear mother first. But as He oftentimes acts with us, so He did with her- doing something which even in Divine nature must have been so painful for Him, in order to help her in her growth. &nbsp;We read in <em><a href='B:480 15:40'>Mar 15:40</a></em> that “Mary the mother of James the little one and of Joses” stood by the cross (RVmg:). I take this Mary to be Mary the mother of Jesus, for <em><a href='B:470 13:55'>Mat 13:55</a></em> records that James and Joses were brothers of Jesus and thus children of Mary. Remember that Mark is writing under inspiration a transcript of the preaching of the Gospel by the apostles, as they recounted the message of Jesus time and again. Could it not be that in the preaching of that Gospel, when it came to the cross, James asked to be surnamed “the little one”, remembering his earlier rejection of Jesus his brother? Now it is not at all surprising that Saul of Tarsus too decides to call himself ‘the little one’, through sustained meditation upon the cross.</p>


text:
<p>16:1&nbsp;<em>And when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome, bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him</em>- As noted on Jn:, Joseph had bought a huge amount of spices to anoint the Lord, far more than used even for the burials of the Caesars. But the women still bought some more. They too made their sacrifice, in order to anoint the Lord. This all arose from their abiding belief that He was Jesus the Christ, the anointed one; and their duty was therefore to anoint Him. Belief in the Lord Jesus as Christ can roll off the tongue and be apparently painless; but it demanded all for Joseph and the women.</p><p>In Matthew too, Mary Magdalene is first in the list. As discussed on :4, these women headed by Mary Magdalene are the primary witnesses to the Lord's resurrection. And of them, Mary Magdalene has primacy in the list, and she was the least qualified humanly speaking. She had a history of 'seven demons' [mental illness] and possibly prostitution. 'Magdalene' could mean 'the one with braided hair', something later criticized by Paul as inappropriate for Godly women, but referencing her dubious past. For "Magdalene" was not a surname but a term of differentiation. Or it may refer simply to Magdala, which she had now left because that is why she is known as the Magdalene, the woman from Magdala. Or again, it could mean a trader in perfume, which would explain her prominence in anointing the Lord's body.</p>


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<p>16:2&nbsp;<em>And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun was risen, they went to the tomb</em>-  "They went" is an arresting present tense, they come, they draw near. We are being invited to play Bible television with the text and see the whole wondrous story time and again for the first time. 
The language hints very much at a new creation beginning. And yet it began in darkness, not only literally, but also in the darkness of the disciples' disappointment, misunderstanding and weak faith. From all this, great light was to arise:&nbsp;</p><p>Mary came seeking the Lord early in the morning… and this inevitably takes our minds to some OT passages which speak of doing just this:</p><p>- “O God, thou&nbsp;<em>art</em>&nbsp;my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; To see thy power and thy glory” (<em><a href='B:230 63:1-2'>Psa 63:1-2</a></em>). The resurrection of Jesus showed clearly both the power (<em><a href='B:540 13:4'>2Co 13:4</a></em>) and glory (<em><a href='B:520 6:4'>Rom 6:4</a></em>) of the Father. For Mary, life without her Lord was a dry and thirsty land. This was why she went to the grave early that morning. She was simply aching for Him. And she had well learnt the Lord’s teaching, that her brother’s resurrection had been associated with the glory of the Father (<em><a href='B:500 11:40'>Joh 11:40</a></em>). She went early to the tomb to seek the Father’s glory- so the allusion to Psalms 63 implies. She was the one person who had actually believed in advance the Lord’s teaching about resurrection. And yet even she was confused- half her brain perceived it all and believed it, and was rewarded by being the first to see the risen Lord; and yet another part of her brain was simply overcome with grief, believing that the gardener had somehow removed the body some place else. And our own highest heights of spiritual perception are likewise shrouded by such humanity too.<br/>- “I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me” (<em><a href='B:240 8:17'>Pro 8:17</a></em>) is written in the first instance of wisdom. And yet the Lord Jesus has “wisdom” as one of His titles (<em><a href='B:470 12:42'>Mat 12:42</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 1:24'>1Co 1:24</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 1:30'>1Co 1:30</a></em>). Mary sat at the Lord’s feet to hear His wisdom; to her, she showed in practice what it means to comprehend Jesus as “the wisdom of God”. She anxiously heard His words. And thus she sought Him early…because she so wanted to hear His wisdom again. Of course, she loved Him. But that love was rooted in respect and almost an addiction to His wisdom. It was this that she loved about Him, and it was this which led her to the grave early. And it was this which led her to the honour of being the first to see the risen Jesus.<br/>- “Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of&nbsp;<em>our</em>&nbsp;soul&nbsp;<em>is</em>&nbsp;to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early” (<em><a href='B:290 26:8-9'>Isa 26:8-9</a></em>) makes the same connection between seeking the Lord early, and loving His words. &nbsp;</p>


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<p>16:3&nbsp;<em>And they were talking among themselves: Who shall roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?</em>- They had seen the stone rolled there (Mk. 15:46). We are being shown the problem: they went to anoint a body within an already closed tomb. This is recorded in order to give the impression of their devoted loyalty in the midst of mind numbing grief. And it is so psychologically credible. "Looking up..." (:4) implies they were walking along looking at the ground. It's typical of how those in grief would act, totally credible as description. Their love for the Lord is thereby well demonstrated. 
The women who came to the garden tomb weren't looking for the risen Lord; they came to anoint the body. But their love of the Lord was counted to them as seeking Him (<em><a href='B:470 28:5'>Mat 28:5</a></em>). Here's an example of our prayers and needs being answered whilst we are yet speaking. They worried about what had already been sorted</p>


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<p>16:4&nbsp;<em>And looking up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled aside</em>- "Looking up" enables us to see them walking with their heads down in sadness. The Angel descended and did this before the women arrived; for on the way, they had worried about how they would roll the stone away, but when they got there, they found it done already (<em><a href='B:480 16:2'>Mar 16:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 16:4'>Mar 16:4</a></em>). Women unable to roll away a stone recalls the scene when Rachel and her girls were unable to roll the stone away from the well until Jacob did it (<em><a href='B:10 29:3'>Gen 29:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:10 29:10'>Gen 29:10</a></em>). The idea would therefore be that the Lord's tomb was in fact a well of living water, the gift of the Spirit, which would flow for God’s people after and on account of His resurrection; and this idea is elsewhere stated specifically by the Lord in John's Gospel:&nbsp;</p><p>They apparently didn’t see the Angel sitting on the stone who is mentioned in <em><a href='B:470 27:2'>Mat 27:2</a></em>. Perhaps the Divine plan was that they ought to have been searching for the empty tomb and rejoiced on finding it; and believed without the revelation of Angels. But eventually they needed the Angelic revelations. We too can walk by Angels sitting on stones...</p><p>We note the emphasis of "they saw", also in :5 and in :6 "Behold / see the place where He lay". The other Gospels give even more examples. These women were the first eye witnesses of the events of the Lord's resurrection, and Mary Magdalene the first to see the risen Lord. The verb can mean "to observe something with sustained attention" [Walter Bauer and Frederick William Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature p. 360]. At the end of Mk. 15 we have these same women likewise described as seeing / observing His death, embalming and burial. They were the eye witnesses to it all. Luke and John stress the women standing, both at the cross and the tomb. Matthew and Luke stress the seeing / observing. Between them, the records present these women as the legal witnesses. Female witness was disallowed in Jewish and Roman courts. But not with God. He chose those whose disqualifications were in fact their qualifications, and He does the same with us.</p>


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<p>16:5&nbsp;<em>And entering into the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed</em>- If "the right side" refers to where the Lord had lain, we are invited to see Him now as enthroned superior to Angels, with them at His right hand, subject to Him. This is visual representation of what Hebrews 1 states specifically.</p>


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<p>16:6&nbsp;<em>And he said to them: Do not be alarmed-&nbsp;</em>The idea is '<em>You</em>&nbsp;do not need to be fearful, unlike these soldiers who are paralyzed by their own fears'. Their weakness is still apparent in the record, because <em><a href='B:470 28:8'>Mat 28:8</a></em> says that they left the scene "with fear...":&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p><em>You seek Jesus the Nazarene who was crucified. He is risen He is not here See the place where they laid him</em>- The women had come to anoint the Lord's dead body, with apparently no expectation that He would indeed rise the third day as He had predicted. And yet the Angel generously counts this to them (Mt. 'I know / perceive / accept / count it') as if they were actively looking for Jesus. Their obvious error- that they assumed Him to still be dead- is not rebuked because the good news is simply so much greater. The resurrection records are full of such imputed righteousness. <em><a href='B:490 24:5'>Luk 24:5</a></em> enquires why they are 'seeking the living amongst the dead'. They were not seeking the living- they had come to anoint a dead body. Yet they are graciously counted as seeking Jesus as if they were seeking for a living person. John's record has the Lord asking Mary&nbsp;<em>whom</em>&nbsp;she is 'seeking', and this is how John's Gospel opens, with the Lord enquiring of His followers&nbsp;<em>whom</em>&nbsp;they were seeking (<em><a href='B:500 1:38'>Joh 1:38</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 20:15'>Joh 20:15</a></em>). This question as to the Lord's identity echoes down to us, for we too can feel a devotion and identity with the idea of 'Jesus' without perceiving that He really is alive and active. The Lord counted righteousness to them, they are commended by the Angels for ‘seeking the Lord’- even though that seeking was deep in their subconscious. Yet the record notices that even incipient faith and understanding in those women, and counts it to them. Would that we would be so generous in our perception of others. The weeping, helpless standing afar off at the cross are described as still following the Lord Jesus and ministering to Him, as they did in the happier Galilee days (<em><a href='B:480 15:41'>Mar 15:41</a></em>). Their essential spirit was understood and credited to them, even though their actions seemed to belie this. Likewise our essential desires are read as our prayers, even if the words we use seem quite different.</p><p><em><a href='B:480 16:6'>Mar 16:6</a></em> adds to the other records "Jesus of Nazareth", as if emphasizing the Lord's humanity and death as compared to the wonderful reality of His resurrection.</p><p>The idea may be that He is 'Not here in a tomb, in a place for the dead', in the spirit of <em><a href='B:490 24:5'>Luk 24:5</a></em> "Why do you seek the living amongst the dead?". There is no hint that the women obeyed and went to see the place where the Lord lay. They had arrived at the tomb and had gone in and found the body missing (<em><a href='B:490 24:3'>Luk 24:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 24:23'>Luk 24:23</a></em>), and then the Angels appeared to them. Now the Angels are inviting them to go into the tomb again and behold the place where the Lord's body had lain- perhaps because now there were Angels sitting at the head and feet of where the Lord's body had lain (<em><a href='B:500 20:12'>Joh 20:12</a></em>). Along with imputed faith and righteousness, the disobedience of the disciples is also emphasized by the records. They struggle to believe His clear predictions of resurrection, are disobedient to the various commands to witness about it, disbelieve the women, and still appear depressed and sceptical that it is really Him when He appears to them for the third time in Galilee. Or it could be that they did go and see the place where the Lord lay, and yet found the body missing and were confused (<em><a href='B:490 24:3'>Luk 24:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 24:23'>Luk 24:23</a></em>)- even with an Angel standing there telling them the Lord had risen as He had said</p>


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<p>16:7<em>&nbsp;Go tell his disciples, and Peter, that he goes ahead of you into Galilee. There shall you see him, just as he told you</em>-&nbsp;<br/>Angelic unity with the risen Lord Jesus is brought out by a comparison of the words spoken to the women after the resurrection. <em><a href='B:480 16:7'>Mar 16:7</a></em> has the Angels telling the women: “He is going before you to Galilee; they you will see him, as he told you”. But <em><a href='B:470 28:7'>Mat 28:7</a></em> has the Angel saying: “He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. Lo, I the Angel have told you”. Perhaps what the Angel said was: “… as he told you… Lo, I have told you”, thus bringing out the new unity between the risen Christ and the Angel.</p><p>The Lord's original plan to meet them first in Galilee was changed; for He appeared to them in Jerusalem after they had first disbelieved. He was so eager to see them; and their faith and obedience was weak. This addresses their obvious although unspoken question: 'Where's the body? When can we see Him?'. The answer was 'As He explained before, you must show your obedience to Him by going into Galilee and there you will see Him'. But this plan, explained by the Lord earlier and now repeated by the Angel, was cut short by the Lord Himself. For right after this, He appears to Mary and the women. Right there, and not in Galilee. And soon afterwards He appears to the eleven in Jerusalem; and when He does finally meet the disciples in Galilee, this was the third appearance He had made to them, the earlier two having been in Jerusalem (<em><a href='B:500 21:14'>Joh 21:14</a></em>). This change of plan was perhaps partly quite simply from the excitement of love, emotions which are still possible even within Divine nature. But partly it may have been because of the very weak state of the disciples' faith, and the Lord's sense that He must act urgently so that they did not lose faith permanently; see on&nbsp;<em>Go quickly and tell...</em>. The idea of the Lord going before them into Galilee is based upon the Lord's teaching in <em><a href='B:470 26:31-32'>Mat 26:31-32</a></em>: "I will smite the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. But after I am raised up, I will go ahead of you into Galilee". The 'going ahead' is also a sheep and shepherd allusion; although the sheep would be scattered, the Lord would go ahead of them into Galilee and like sheep obedient to the shepherd's voice, they would follow Him there. But perhaps the Lord now realized that their faith and obedience was just not enough for them to do that, and so He appeared to them anyway. Indeed, according to John, the disciples appeared to have finally returned to Galilee in order to return to their fishing business, despite having met the risen Lord in Jerusalem. They were very slow to really grasp the reality of His resurrection. The Gospels are their own account of their preaching, and it's as if they are telling the world how slow they had been to believe and were urging the world to do better than them, and to believe more quickly.</p><p>The urgency required was partly because the wonder of the good news does itself impart an urgency to our presentation of it. And we need to analyse our own approach to witness and discern whether there is any sense of urgency to it; the record of baptisms in the early church was of immediate baptism, the very moment the person had believed, rather than waiting as many do today until a convenient time and place. But the urgency was also to tell the disciples before they totally lost their faith. The Lord was clearly concerned that they would lose faith entirely; and this explains His change of plans concerning revealing Himself to them in Galilee.</p><p>The initial plan had been that the women also would need to go to Galilee before meeting the Lord (<em><a href='B:470 28:7'>Mat 28:7</a></em>). The Lord changed that plan and appeared to the women immediately; but His plan was still that He would reveal Himself to His male disciples for the first time in Galilee. But He soon changed that plan too, for the other records make it clear that the Lord twice appeared to them in Jerusalem (<em><a href='B:500 21:14'>Joh 21:14</a></em>):&nbsp;</p><p>Put together the following passages:<br/>-&nbsp;The disciples’ return to Galilee after the resurrection was a result of their lack of faith (<em><a href='B:500 16:31-32'>Joh 16:31-32</a></em>)<br/>-&nbsp;But the Lord went before them, as a shepherd goes before His sheep, into Galilee (<em><a href='B:470 28:7'>Mat 28:7</a></em>). Even in their weakness of faith, He was still their shepherd, they were still His sheep, and He led them even then.<br/>-&nbsp;The Lord told them to go to Galilee (<em><a href='B:470 28:10'>Mat 28:10</a></em>). He accepted their lower level of faith. And He worked through that and led them through it:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>The return to Galilee is seen in an even worse light once we reflect on the circumstances surrounding the first calling of the disciples, nearly four years earlier. John’s Gospel implies that they were called at Bethany; whereas the other Gospels say they were called whilst fishing at the sea of Galilee. This is usually, and correctly, harmonized by concluding that they were called as John says in Bethany, but they then returned to their fishing in Galilee, and the Lord went there to call them again. So returning to their fishing in Galilee had already been shown to them as being a running away from the call of their Lord. And yet still they did it. And yet John’s inspired record is so positive; he speaks as if the disciples were called at Bethany and unwaveringly responded immediately. The point that they actually lost their intensity and returned home is gently omitted from specific mention.</p>


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<p>16:8<em>&nbsp;And they went out and ran from the tomb. Trembling and astonishment had come upon them, and they said nothing to anyone. For they were afraid</em>-There has always been opposition to spreading the Gospel outside our own environment. Jonah was unwilling to take it to Nineveh, Israel failed miserably in their intended role as a missionary nation, and the apostles showed remarkable reluctance to obey the command to take Christ into all the world in the first century. The women were told to go tell the disciples of the resurrection, but they went away and told nobody, Mark records (<em><a href='B:480 16:7-8'>Mar 16:7-8</a></em>). The other records say that they did tell the disciples. There is no contradiction here; Mark’s point is surely that they were reluctant to obey the great commission initially.</p><p>It was only later that they told the disciples, once their fear subsided and joy began to be their dominant emotion. We recall how the shepherds were told not to fear but to focus upon the joy of the Lord's birth (<em><a href='B:490 2:10'>Luk 2:10</a></em>). Fear and joy do not remain coexistent for long, and to their credit, the women's joy became greater than their fear. See on :10&nbsp;<em>Fear Not</em>. But putting meaning into words, what were they fearful about? Surely they now realized that they had so failed to believe the Lord’s clear words about His resurrection; and they knew now that since He was alive, they must meet Him and explain. So their fear related to their own sense of unworthiness; and yet it was paradoxically mixed with the “great joy” of knowing His resurrection. And there is reason to understand that those women are typical of all those who are to fulfil the great commission:&nbsp;</p><p>The accounts of the Lord’s resurrection and the imparting of that good news to others are studded with the idea of speedy response. “Go quickly and tell his disciples… and they departed quickly… and did run to bring his disciples word” (<em><a href='B:470 28:7-8'>Mat 28:7-8</a></em>). The accounts show how Mary “quickly” told the disciples, the women did likewise, the two on the way to Emmaus ran back to town and urgently told the others that the Lord had risen… and then the record climaxes in bidding us take that very same good news of the resurrection to the whole world. But the implication from the context is that it is to be done with the same spirit of urgency. We are merely continuing in the spirit of those who first spread that good news.</p><p>After initially saying nothing, they did eventually tell the disciples. Matthew and Luke omit this disobedience to the Lord's command to witness. The record in a beautiful way both covers their weakness, and yet also brings it out. In fact resistance to the command to tell others, or being slow to fulfil it, is another theme of the resurrection accounts.</p>


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<p>16:9<em>&nbsp;Now when he had risen from the dead early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons</em>-One would have expected that the Lord Jesus would have first of all appeared to His dear mother, after resurrecting. His mother could so easily have taken this as yet another snub, similar to the way in which He had rebuked her for not knowing He must be in His Father’s house, how He addressed her at Cana as “Woman” and asked her what He had to do with her; how He told those who informed Him that His mother was outside that all those who heard God’s word were His mothers; how He said that His mother wasn’t blessed for suckling Him, but rather, blessed were all those who heard God’s word. And the way He chose to appear to the other Mary rather than His own mother could have been taken by her as yet another snub. Yet these incidents weren’t snubs. The Lord loved His mother, with a depth of passion and emotion that maybe we and she will never know. Yet He wanted the best for her spiritually. He wanted her to relate to Him for who He really was, not for who she perceived Him to be. It must have so hurt the Lord to work with her in this way. And so it is with His workings with us, as He seeks to bring us to know Him in truth. It must be hard for Him to bring distress into our lives. Yet with His dear mother, it worked. For the next we read of her, she is meeting with the rest of the ecclesia in Jerusalem (<em><a href='B:510 1:14'>Act 1:14</a></em>), and, according to how we read Revelation 12, the Lord Himself saw her as clothed with the sun in glory, responsible for the birth of Himself as the man child, who would bring the Kingdom of God on earth. She made it in the end.</p><p>Mary Magdalene was the least qualified to be a witness. Women's testimony was not accepted in the Roman world; and Mary had previously been seriously 'demon possessed', probably referring to mental illness. And in addition to that she had worked as a prostitute. Yet she was the one chosen by the Lord as His star witness. We should not therefore worry about our own apparent inadequacy as witnesses. The Lord delights to use our inadequacies in this work of witness.</p><p>Mary Magdalene is always noted first in the appearance lists in the gospels. It is unusual that the first appearance would involve women as in that culture their role as witnesses would not be well accepted. It is a sign of the veracity of the account, because if an ancient were to create such a story he would never have it start with women. But inspiration disregards this. The Lord so wanted those women to be His leading witnesses. Joachim Jeremias quotes extensively from Jewish sources to show that “a woman had no right to bear witness, because it was concluded from <em><a href='B:10 18:15'>Gen 18:15</a></em> that she was a liar”. And Josephus (<em>Antiquities Of The Jews</em>&nbsp;4:219) concurs: “Let not the testimony of women be admitted because of the levity and boldness of their sex”. And so it should not surprise us that He chooses today the most unlikely of witnesses, indeed, those who somehow shock and arrest the attention of others. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


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<p>16:10<em>&nbsp;She went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept</em>-The account of the disciples' response to the realisation of the resurrection shows perfectly how men will rise above every barrier, both within them and without, to speak the good news of what they now realise to be absolute truth. Mary, bashful ex-hooker that she was, "went and told them that had been with him", the broken-down women "with great joy... did run to bring his disciples word”, those on the Emmaus road "went and told it unto the residue", "the other disciples&nbsp;<em>therefore</em>”&nbsp;told Thomas, John told Peter "It is the Lord", and finally they all "went forth, and preached everywhere" the news of the resurrection (<em><a href='B:470 28:8'>Mat 28:8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 16:10'>Mar 16:10</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 16:13'>Mar 16:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 16:20'>Mar 16:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 20:25'>Joh 20:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 21:7'>Joh 21:7</a></em>). The speed and spirit of the narrative pounds away at a major theme: The natural desire to tell others the Gospel of the Lord's resurrection. This same spirit of&nbsp;<em>urgently&nbsp;</em>passing on good news pervades the preaching recorded in Acts.</p><p>Note that the disciples are described as "weeping" for the loss of Jesus, the Greek word meaning specifically to weep aloud (<em><a href='B:480 16:10'>Mar 16:10</a></em>). And yet the Lord appears to them in that state and upbraids them for not believing His words and for having&nbsp;<em>hard</em>&nbsp;hearts (<em><a href='B:480 16:14'>Mar 16:14</a></em>). Faith is&nbsp;<em>so</em>&nbsp;crucial- and for all their<em>&nbsp;love&nbsp;</em>of Him, they didn’t have much&nbsp;<em>faith&nbsp;</em>in Jesus. Are there similarities with ourselves? Do we on one hand love Him, and yet remain hard hearted to His words?</p>


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<p>16:11&nbsp;<em>And they, when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, disbelieved</em>- There is a strong theme in the Gospels that the disciples repeatedly disbelieved the news of the resurrection. And yet they were appealing for people to believe the message of the Lord's resurrection and be baptized into it. But they made that appeal on the basis of their own weakness and slowness to believe. They considered it "Idle talk" (<em><a href='B:490 24:11'>Luk 24:11</a></em>), which means literally the talk of the crazy. They assumed this was a story of the once demon-possessed Mary Magdalene, an outcome of her previous mental disturbance. When the Lord had so clearly foretold His resurrection. Luke is pointing out their own disbelief, implying it was almost to the point of blasphemy. Each of the Gospel writers brings out a sense of inadequacy about themselves or the disciples, this self-criticism, in different ways.</p>


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<p>16:12<em>&nbsp;And after these things he was manifested in another guise to two of them as they walked on their way into the countryside</em>- The two could well have been Cleopas and his wife Mary, who had been at the crucifixion (see on <em><a href='B:490 24:13'>Luk 24:13</a></em>). We wonder why He appeared in various forms which as it were disguised Him. Perhaps this was because He wanted them to believe with a minimum of miracle; He wanted them, as He wants us, to join the dots and believe, rather than having His in-your-face revelation directly to as it were force belief. And maybe the lesson was also that the same Lord can reveal Himself to us in different ways and forms through the persons of various ordinary people. Note too that&nbsp;<em>morphe</em>, "guise" or "form", does not refer to His essential nature, but to His appearance and deportment. This is valuable to bear in mind when considering the usage of&nbsp;<em>morphe</em>&nbsp;in Philippians 2 "the form of God".</p>


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<p>16:13&nbsp;<em>And they went away, and told it to the rest, who did not believe them either</em>- Although the disciples accepted that Jesus had appeared to Simon, they didn’t believe the account of Cleopas and his friend. The record emphasizes their refusal to believe- and then goes on to appeal to the hearers or readers of their message to learn from their slowness, and to believe and be baptized (:16). Their stubborn refusal to believe is so emphasized.</p>


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<p>16:14&nbsp;<em>And later he was manifested to the eleven themselves as they were eating; and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those that had seen him after he had risen</em>- The Lord “upbraided” the disciples for their immaturity and unbelief concerning His cross and resurrection. The Greek word is always used in a very severe context of ‘reviling’ (<em><a href='B:470 5:11'>Mat 5:11</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 11:20'>Mat 11:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:44'>Mat 27:44</a></em>; <em><a href='B:520 15:3'>Rom 15:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:610 4:10'>1Ti 4:10</a></em>); it’s a tough and abusive word. It appears out of place when applied to the Lord. Yet what it indicates is that the Lord was so angry with them for not believing the witness of the women. Discounting people’s experience of Jesus merely on account of their gender or background was&nbsp;<em>so</em>&nbsp;angering to the Lord. And He’s the same today.</p><p>A read through the Gospels reveals the deep frustration and anger of the Lord Jesus because of the blindness of the disciples. Mark's record brings this out especially. The following comments by the Lord, almost under His breath, were all made within a matter of days of each other: "Peter said, Declare unto us this parable. And Jesus said, Are ye also&nbsp;<em>yet</em>&nbsp;without understanding? Do not ye&nbsp;<em>yet</em>&nbsp;understand?... do ye not&nbsp;<em>yet</em>&nbsp;understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand? Perceive ye not&nbsp;<em>yet</em>... having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not?... how is it that ye do not understand?... O faithless generation,&nbsp;<em>how long</em>&nbsp;shall I be with you?&nbsp;<em>how long&nbsp;</em>shall I suffer you? (with reference to the disciples' faithlessness)... the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus answereth (i:e. responded)&nbsp;<em>again</em>, and saith unto them, Children …and they were astonished out of measure... Jesus went before them: and they were amazed... and he took&nbsp;<em>again</em>&nbsp;the twelve, and began to tell them what things should happen... Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask" (<em><a href='B:470 15:17'>Mat 15:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 16:9'>Mat 16:9</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 8:18'>Mar 8:18</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 8:21'>Mar 8:21</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 9:19'>Mar 9:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 10:1'>Mar 10:1</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 10:24-32'>Mar 10:24-32</a></em>). Notice the stress on "how long" and "yet". The Lord clearly was disappointed at the slow rate of development. Their blindness was an agony to Him. Especially does this come out in His attitude to the disciples after His resurrection. The exalted Son of God,&nbsp;<em>the Son of God</em>, poured out His anger on those eleven men. You get the sense of them cowering before the presence of a super-human intellect, beneath a force of personality that could concuss men when turned against them. He&nbsp;<em>upbraided&nbsp;</em>them for their lack of perception, their lack of understanding (<em><a href='B:480 16:14'>Mar 16:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 24:25'>Luk 24:25</a></em>). As I read the record of this, there's part of me that feels so sorry for them. Thoughts of sympathy skate through my mind:&nbsp;<em>they weren't a bad crowd... only ordinary men... just poor little human beings down here on earth... only men... only human beings... limited by their own nature</em>. But this wasn't how the Lord saw it at all. He was angry with them. The picture of the Son of God, the exalted Son of man with eyes as a flame of fire, upbraiding His friends, those he had died for... because they hadn't understood something which he knew and they knew had been within their power to. The picture is awesome:&nbsp;</p><p>The experience of emotion on reflection at the Lord's sufferings can be yet another area where our spirituality isn't genuine. The scene of those 11 grown men mourning and weeping at the loss of their Lord makes me think 'They&nbsp;were a soft hearted lot really, behold how they loved him…'. But then the Lord appears to them and upbraids them for being&nbsp;<em>hard&nbsp;</em>hearted and indifferent to His words (<em><a href='B:480 16:10'>Mar 16:10</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 16:14'>Mar 16:14</a></em>). His upbraiding of them must have really hurt- for they must have been sure that they were anything but hard hearted towards Him.</p><p>The even greater commission to go into all the world with the Gospel followed straight on from Christ upbraiding the eleven "with their unbelief and hardness of heart" (<em><a href='B:480 16:14-15'>Mar 16:14-15</a></em>). That 'upbraiding' must have left them wallowing in their weakness. It would have been quite something. The Son of God upbraiding His friends. But straight on from that: "Go ye... go ye into all the world" (Mt. cp. Mk. shows “go ye” was said twice). And He told them to preach that those who believed not would be damned- after having just told them that they were men who believed not. Mark’s record stresses three times in the lead up to this that they “believed not”; and then, he records how they were told to go and preach condemnation on those who believed not (<em><a href='B:480 16:11'>Mar 16:11</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 16:13-14'>Mar 16:13-14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 16:16'>Mar 16:16</a></em>). They were humbled men who did that. The idea of taking the Gospel world-wide was in fact alluding to <em><a href='B:290 66:17-20'>Isa 66:17-20</a></em>. Here those who are spared the ‘Gehenna’ of the last day judgment will have a sign placed on them, as upon Cain, and they will then be sent “unto the nations…and they shall declare my glory among the gentiles”. The rejection process glorifies God’s righteous Name, and this world-wide exhibition of the rejected will actually bring men “out of all nations” (:20) to God, just as Israel’s condemnation was an “instruction” unto the surrounding nations. The connection shows that in our obedience to the great commission, we go forth as condemned men who in our case, like the disciples, have known the wonder of grace.</p>


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<p>16:15- see on <em><a href='B:480 14:9'>Mar 14:9</a></em>.</p><p><em>And he said to them: You are to go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation</em>- The essential spirit of the great commission was “Go”, following on as it does from the repeated commands to “go” and share the glorious news that Christ had risen. And yet so many congregations of believers seem to stress instead “Come in to us”. And every manner of carrot is dangled before the public to entice them to ‘come in’ to some church event. But the emphasis was clearly, and should still be, upon ‘going’ to people. Our turning of ‘Go’ into ‘Come to us’ is all part of a wider picture, whereby the group of hard core, desperate men who first followed Jesus, the whores, the gamblers, the mentally ill, the marginalized women… have all been diluted into a religion of conformists, a spiritual bubble in which we risk nothing, sacrifice nothing, and comfortably continue in the way of our fathers who were also members of the same church as we are.</p><p>The Lord twice told the disciples: "Go ye... go ye" (<em><a href='B:480 16:15'>Mar 16:15</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:470 28:19'>Mat 28:19</a></em> and contexts). He was encouraging them to do the natural corollary of what they had experienced. We are to preach to “all the world” (16:15)- the&nbsp;<em>kosmos</em>. In the last days, the Gospel will go to “all nations”- every&nbsp;<em>ethnos</em>&nbsp;(<em><a href='B:480 13:10'>Mar 13:10</a></em>). The parallel record in <em><a href='B:470 24:14'>Mat 24:14</a></em> has Jesus saying that it must go to the whole world-&nbsp;<em>oikoumene</em>. What did He actually say? I suggest He used both words, in an emphasis of just how universal the witness would be: ‘The Gospel will be preached in the whole&nbsp;<em>oikoumene</em>, yes, to every&nbsp;<em>ethnos</em>…’. This is all some emphasis- every creature (individual), in the whole world system, every part of society (<em>kosmos</em>), of every nation (<em>ethnos</em>), on the whole planet (<em>oikoumene</em>) was to have the message. And this is our unmistakable mandate. The number of different words used by the Lord was surely intentional.</p><p>As so often with reading the Gospels, it is profitable to imagine the tone of voice in which the Lord spoke the words which are recorded. "Go ye&nbsp;<em>into all the world</em>&nbsp;and preach the gospel to&nbsp;<em>every creature</em>". If only we could sense the intensity of desire, the deepness of spiritual meaning, which His voice would have conveyed. We&nbsp;<em>must</em>&nbsp;have the spiritual ambition to take the Gospel to the whole world- no matter how small our world may be. The world of our street, of our town, nation- and as far as we are able, the whole planet. Paul had this ambition, quite apart from any personal commission he received.<br/>The great commission is framed in language which picks up on the descriptions of the Lord’s own preaching earlier in His ministry. His idea clearly enough is that He will no longer be on earth; therefore His people must be ‘Him’ to the whole earth:</p><table><tr><td></p><p>The great commission to us</td><td>The personal preaching of Jesus</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Make disciples (<em><a href='B:470 28:19'>Mat 28:19</a></em>)</td><td>Made disciples (<em><a href='B:470 4:18-22'>Mat 4:18-22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 1:16-20'>Mar 1:16-20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 5:1-11'>Luk 5:1-11</a></em>)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Preach the Gospel, teach people (<em><a href='B:480 16:15'>Mar 16:15</a></em>)</td><td>Proclaimed the Gospel (<em><a href='B:490 4:18'>Luk 4:18</a></em>), taught people (<em><a href='B:480 6:30'>Mar 6:30</a></em>)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Proclaim repentance (<em><a href='B:490 24:47'>Luk 24:47</a></em>)</td><td>Proclaimed repentance (<em><a href='B:480 1:15'>Mar 1:15</a></em>)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Forgive and retain sins (<em><a href='B:500 20:23'>Joh 20:23</a></em>)</td><td>Forgave sins (<em><a href='B:470 9:1-9'>Mat 9:1-9</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 2:1-12'>Mar 2:1-12</a></em>)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Retained sins (<em><a href='B:500 8:21-24'>Joh 8:21-24</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 9:41'>Joh 9:41</a></em>)</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Witnessed to others in obedience to the great commission (<em><a href='B:510 1:8'>Act 1:8</a></em>)</td><td>Witnessed what he had seen and heard (<em><a href='B:500 3:11'>Joh 3:11</a></em>)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Cast out demons, heal (<em><a href='B:480 16:16'>Mar 16:16</a></em>)</td><td>Cast out demons (<em><a href='B:480 3:15'>Mar 3:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 6:7'>Mar 6:7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 6:13'>Mar 6:13</a></em>), healed (<em><a href='B:480 6:13'>Mar 6:13</a></em>)</td><td></td></tr></table>


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<p>16:16<em>&nbsp;He that believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he that disbelieves shall be condemned</em>-In the very context of the Lord upbraiding them for their slowness to believe the Gospel of His death and resurrection, they were asked to go and teach others that he who didn’t believe this same message would be damned (<em><a href='B:480 16:15-16'>Mar 16:15-16</a></em>). Their witness, as it is recorded in the Gospel records, is therefore shot through with recognition of their own weakness. They record how Peter their leader was described by the Lord as a “satan” (<em><a href='B:480 8:33'>Mar 8:33</a></em>). They were good fishermen- yet their records show that never do they record themselves as catching a fish without their Lord’s help. In this they set a model for our witness; it must be shot through with a full recognition of our weakness, our own struggles to believe that which we invite others to believe. And the more real, the more credible. Not only did the Gospel writers portray their own weakness and slowness to believe; they write in such a way as to minimize their own personalities and presence. They don’t continually harp on about the fact they were really present.</p>


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<p>16:17&nbsp;<em>And these signs shall accompany them that believe- in my name shall they cast out demons, they shall speak with new tongues-</em>&nbsp;All the "they shall" clauses in :17 and :18 were fulfilled in various examples of Divine protection to the early preachers of the Gospel. "If they drink any deadly thing..." is worded in a conditional way, and we have no Biblical example of this happening, although traditions exist of various apostles being unharmed by poison.</p>


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<p>16:18&nbsp;<em>They shall pick up snakes, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no way hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover</em>- See on :17. In Old Testament times, God described His whole people as His anointed one, His Christ: “The Lord is a strength unto his people, and he is the saving strength of his anointed” (<em><a href='B:230 28:8'>Psa 28:8</a></em> RVmg:). The whole people were His anointed King, His Messiah, the anointed one. And so it is for all those today who are “in Christ”. Thus the prophecy about Christ personally that He would tread upon snakes and wild animals (<em><a href='B:230 91:13'>Psa 91:13</a></em>) is quoted as being fulfilled in the disciples, who ‘were’ Christ on their preaching mission (<em><a href='B:490 10:19'>Luk 10:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 16:18'>Mar 16:18</a></em>).</p><p>Not being hurt alludes to the promise of how the restored Israel would be in <em><a href='B:290 43:2'>Isa 43:2</a></em>. Those somewhat confused men and women were now the new Israel.</p>


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<p>16:19&nbsp;<em>So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God</em>- The 'speaking to them' could refer to His general teaching throughout the 40 days. Or we could read the emphasis as therefore on the fact that the great commission was His last word to His people; after He spoke that, He was received into Heaven. We might expect to read that He 'ascended', but Mark's focus is on His being received into heaven. The ceremony of His 'receiving into heaven' is recorded in more detail in Revelation 4, 5. Paul alludes here in saying that the Lord was received up into glory (<em><a href='B:610 3:16'>1Ti 3:16</a></em>). The cloud which "received" Him (<em><a href='B:490 24:51'>Luk 24:51</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 1:9'>Act 1:9</a></em>) was therefore a cloud of glory. It was a sign of His acceptance by God, visible to the watching disciples.</p><p>The Ethiopic text brings out the reality more strongly: "Our Lord, the Lord Jesus" was received up to "his own Father". Our man is now there in Heaven, with His Father. He is God’s right hand man, functioning as God without being God the Father Himself. As noted on <em><a href='B:510 7:56'>Act 7:56</a></em>, the Lord is seated at God’s right hand; but He stands up in passion and intercession for His people on earth. He is not in that sense sedentary, passively sitting.</p>


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<p>16:20&nbsp;<em>And they went and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that followed. Amen</em>- Luke has the disciples returning to Jerusalem and focusing upon praise of their ascended Lord; Mark focuses upon their obedience to the great commission, the Lord's last word to them. That witness was made, as ours should be, in a spirit of homage and praise to the Lord Jesus. And He who was now in Heaven worked with them in their witness. Any obedience to the great commission will result in a definite sense of the Lord's working with us, even if the form of confirmation of our word has changed from miraculous gifts to more subtle forms of Spirit manifestation. The same word for 'working with' is used in <em><a href='B:540 6:1'>2Co 6:1</a></em>, again in the context of evangelism, when Paul remarks that the Lord Jesus is a worker together with "us". The promise of His co-working with us is not therefore limited to the disciples who first heard Him.</p>


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<p><em>Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us</em>- "The things ["matters"]" believed are those of <em><a href='B:510 8:12'>Act 8:12</a></em>, the things about the Lord Jesus and His Kingdom. But the "things" of the gospel are the "things" of the gospel records. The gospels are transcripts of how e.g. Luke preached the gospel. So the gospel message, "the things" of the Gospel, are to be found in the gospels. The gospel is not a theology collected from the whole New Testament.</p><p>Luke saw the whole of the Old Testament as having its fulfilment in the story of Jesus. He introduces his Gospel record as an account “of those matters which have been fulfilled” (<em><a href='B:490 1:1'>Luk 1:1</a></em> RV). And “those matters” he defines in <em><a href='B:490 1:2'>Luk 1:2</a></em> as the things of “the word”. The RV especially shows his stress on the theme of fulfilment (<em><a href='B:490 1:20'>Luk 1:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:23'>Luk 1:23</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:37'>Luk 1:37</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:45'>Luk 1:45</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:54-55'>Luk 1:54-55</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:57'>Luk 1:57</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:70'>Luk 1:70</a></em>). In essence he is introducing his Gospel just as John does. </p>


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<p><em>Even as they delivered them to us, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word</em>- The "many" of :1 who had tried to draw up a narrative of the Lord's life and work had handed their eyewitness accounts to Luke, who was now collating them. Perhaps Luke did this in preparation of evidence for Paul's trials at Caesarea and / or Rome. Luke says that the eyewitness accounts had been handed to "us". He may be using the 'royal we' [i:e. referring only to himself] or to a group for whom he acted as inspired secretary. So Luke’s inspired Gospel was compiled from the testimonies of “those who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and servants of the word” (<em><a href='B:490 1:2-3'>Luk 1:2-3</a></em>). Some of the events he records could only have been told him by women; and so the Spirit accepted their witness, and encouraged them to make it because <em>God</em> accepted their witness. Only women were witnesses of the Lord's burial- yet belief in His burial is listed by Paul as an essential part of the faith. Yet the only reason the early believers had to believe this was the testimony of women. </p>&nbsp;<p>Luke saw the link between the Lord’s death and His whole life when he says that they had been “eyewitnesses" of the Lord’s ministry, using the Greek word for autopsy- Luke saw his record of the Lord’s life as being an autopsy of His death (<em><a href='B:490 1:2'>Luk 1:2</a></em>). Here we find what we shall often note throughout Luke's writings- the usage of medical language.</p>


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<p><em>It seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write to you in order, most excellent Theophilus</em>- Luke's Gospel was written for the purpose of preaching to Theophilus, who had already been 'catechized', taught by rote (:4), one of the Gospels (probably Mark), but who wanted to have a more detailed and factual account. Luke later describes his Gospel as his <em>logos</em>, his 'word' about all Jesus did (<em><a href='B:510 1:1'>Act 1:1</a></em> Gk:). The Lord seems to have foreseen this when He spoke of how "Wherever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, which this woman has done, be told for a memorial of her" (<em><a href='B:470 26:13'>Mat 26:13</a></em>). There is evident connection with the Lord's prophecy of how the Gospel would be preached in all the world (<em><a href='B:470 24:14'>Mat 24:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 16:15'>Mar 16:15</a></em>). He seems to have seen the 'Gospel' that would be preached as a re-telling of His life and incidents in it, such as the woman's anointing of Him. It is significant that her anointing is mentioned in all four Gospel records. In <em><a href='B:480 14:9'>Mar 14:9</a></em> we read that wherever the gospel was to be preached, what she had done would be narrated in memory of her. So ‘preaching the Gospel’ is defined there as a narration of the events and sayings of the Lord Jesus in His ministry. Luke's address to "Most Excellent Theophilus" may be a reference to the Roman-imposed High Priest of Israel between AD 37 and AD 41, Theophilus ben Ananus. </p>


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<p><em>That you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught</em>- The history of Jesus was something in which a new convert was “instructed” or [Gk:] catechized, as if the Gospel record was learnt by repetition. This is understandable given the largely illiterate nature of society at the time. Luke as a serious historian mentions his sources, describing them as "eyewitnesses and ministers of the word". The Greek <em>hyperetes</em> which translates"ministers" is the Greek form of the Hebrew <em>hazzan</em>. The word recurs in <em><a href='B:490 4:20'>Luk 4:20</a></em>, about the "minister of the synagogue". The task of the minister was to look after the scrolls- "the chest with the books was brought in to the synagogue when required from an adjoining room and brought back there afterwards". Luke's idea is that instead of humping a bunch of scrolls around, the 'ministers' were the eyewitnesses who recited what they had heard of Jesus. But because they would die out, there was a need for people like Luke to compose documents which recorded their testimony.</p>


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<p><em>There was in the days of Herod, king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah, and he had a wife of the daughters of Aaron and her name was Elisabeth</em>- Luke is careful throughout to present everything with detailed historical accuracy, and his inspired accounts have held up against the bitterest critics. Any uninspired account would surely have gaping holes in it which the critics would by now have exposed. For writing history of events over a 50 year period in those days would surely reveal errors of history, geography and other fact unless the account was inspired.</p>


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<p><em>And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless</em>- These words are applied to us all in <em><a href='B:570 2:15'>Phi 2:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:590 3:13'>1Th 3:13</a></em>. We are to have the serene spirituality, all down the years, of Zacharias and Elizabeth. Zacharias was "blameless" in God’s sight, even though in this very period of his life he was in some ways lacking faith that his prayers would be answered. Paul talks of being "righteous before God" in Romans, perhaps also borrowing this language; and he argues that we have this status only by faith in imputed righteousness. For of ourselves, none can be right before God. Nor of course can any man apart from the Lord Jesus claim to walk in the Father's laws "blameless". In God’s sight / presence no man is justified (<em><a href='B:230 143:2'>Psa 143:2</a></em>). It could be that this status was applied to them through their faith in forgiveness, in the implications of the promises to David and Abraham, which Zechariah so well understood according to his song of praise at the end of this chapter. </p>


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<p><em>And they had no child, because Elisabeth was barren and they both were now well stricken in years</em>- The record is deconstructing the common idea that the fruit of the womb would be given to the righteous, and withheld from the unrighteous. They walked blameless, as Job apparently did (<em><a href='B:220 1:1'>Job 1:1</a></em>), but still "trouble came".</p>


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<p><em>Now it came to pass, while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his division</em>- The very process of service and obedience leads to greater faith in practice. It was <em>whilst</em> Zacharias went about his service to the Lord that we was given the news that he would finally have a son. And we all find this true. As we enter more deeply and more passionately into the things of the Lord, so He leads us further into new understandings and fresh areas of endeavour. According to the AV of <em><a href='B:10 24:27'>Gen 24:27</a></em>, it was whilst Abraham's servant was "in the way" of going God’s path, that he was led by God to find the fulfilment of his mission in getting a wife for Isaac: "I being in the way, the LORD led me to the house of my master's brethren". There is a similar idea in <em><a href='B:510 13:2'>Act 13:2</a></em>: "And as they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said: Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work unto which I have called them". </p>


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<p><em>According to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to enter into the temple of the Lord and burn incense</em>- This honour was chosen by lot, and it fell upon Zacharias. And surely we have here an example of how the drawing of lots is at times overruled by God (<em><a href='B:240 16:33'>Pro 16:33</a></em>). It was a tradition that no priest ever did this twice (<em>T. Bab. Yoma</em>, fol. 26. 1), and there were apparently 20,000 priests at this time. So Zacharias had waited all his life for this honour, and he was surely being nudged to see that he could also receive something he had waited all his life for, a child. This burning of incense had its reflection in the heavenly tabernacle (<em><a href='B:730 8:3'>Rev 8:3</a></em>); or rather, the earthly tabernacle was a reflection of the heavenly. Hence <em>elohim</em> is used in the OT for both priests and Angels; the priests were to act as a copy of the Angelic system in the heavenly throne room. This is a common idea in Revelation, the comfort being that situations on earth are acted out in heaven, and through the operation of the vast Angelic system above us, man is not alone in this world. The incense represented prayer, not only of the people but of the offering priest personally; and Zacharias was being again nudged towards believing that his lifetime of prayer was actually getting through to God. But his disbelief of the answer indicates that he failed to perceive these things as intended.</p>


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<p><em>And the whole crowd of the people were praying outside in the hour of incense</em>- There is a triple emphasis on Israel praying to God in the lead up to the Lord's birth (<em><a href='B:490 1:10'>Luk 1:10</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:13'>Luk 1:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 2:37'>Luk 2:37</a></em>). <em><a href='B:360 2:17'>Joe 2:17</a></em> and many other passages suggest that the faithful remnant will likewise devote themselves to prayer in the last days; for the events at the Lord's first coming are typical of those at His second coming. The prayer of the crowd was represented by the cloud of incense. But Zacharias failed to perceive as he might have done that the incense also represented his own personal prayers; he was too focused upon the external service, and the general concept of prayer, that he overlooked this. </p>


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<p><em>And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense</em>- Here we see the priest's offering of incense paralleled with the prayer of the people, and in reply to these prayers and those of Zacharias an Angel comes and stands at the right hand of the altar of incense to announce the granting of the peoples' request (for forgiveness), and Zacharias' request for a child, in the form of the birth of John and his ministry of reconciliation with God. The incense altar represented the offering of prayer- the Angel coming to stand at the right side of the altar indicates answered prayer. The command from the altar (of incense?) in <em><a href='B:730 9:14'>Rev 9:14</a></em> to the sixth Angel telling Him to loose other Angels was maybe from this same Angel of answered prayer. All these suggestions need very careful development, especially guarding against making the&nbsp;Angels rather than Jesus our mediator. There is only one mediator (<em><a href='B:610 2:5'>1Ti 2:5</a></em>). </p>


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<p><em>Zacharias was disturbed when he saw him, and fear fell upon him</em>- The contrast is with Mary, who after her initial surprise, rejoiced that an Angel had come to answer her prayers for the Messianic child. His fear was related to a sense of sin that had not been dealt with; even though as noted on :6, God counted him righteous. This is comfort indeed; that we may feel guilty for sin, fear before God in a wrong sense, when in fact we are counted righteous by Him. We can take false guilt [as opposed to the true guilt we at times need to feel]:&nbsp; </p>


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<p><em>But the angel said to him: Fear not, Zacharias, because your prayer is heard; your wife Elisabeth shall carry a son and you shall call his name John</em>- "Fear not" is said so often when Angels appear to men, and we will likely need to hear those words when the Angels are sent forth to gather us to judgment. Divine presence convicts of sin, and yet we are of course just as much in that presence constantly.</p><p>Because God responds to our spirit, our overall situation, sometimes He does things which seem to be an answer of prayers which were not properly believed in by the person who prayed. Examples include: <em><a href='B:10 30:16-17'>Gen 30:16-17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:20 14:10-11'>Exo 14:10-11</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:160 9:9'>Neh 9:9</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 31:22'>Psa 31:22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:13'>Luk 1:13</a></em>. Belief and unbelief can quite comfortably co-exist in a man (<em><a href='B:480 9:24'>Mar 9:24</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 12:39-43'>Joh 12:39-43</a></em>). These prayers were answered because God saw the overall situation, He read the spirit of those who prayed and responded appropriately, even if their faith in their specific, vocalized prayers was weak. Perhaps in similar vein, <em><a href='B:660 4:6'>Jas 4:6</a></em> appears to teach that God will hear the prayers of the humble man when a proud man is praying at the same time; faith is not mentioned here. In the light of this we notice how all the prayers of Zacharias are called in the singular "your prayer". </p>


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<p><em>And you shall have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth</em>- The Angel hoped that "many" would perceive in John's birth the good news of Messiah's soon appearing; for the rejoicing was to be because of his significance in God’s plan (:15). But did "many" rejoice in this sense? Perhaps as with many such predictions, it is stating a potential rather than an actual truth. "Joy and gladness" is a term only used elsewhere about all of us as we look forward to the Lord's coming (<em><a href='B:670 1:8'>1Pe 1:8</a></em>). Zacharias and Elisabeth are therefore set up as every believer. See on :16.</p>


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<p><em>For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord. And he shall drink no wine nor strong drink, and he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb</em>- Paul seems to have admired the humility John the Baptist manifested in his preaching. He knew he had been chosen from the womb for his mission, as John had been (<em><a href='B:550 1:15'>Gal 1:15</a></em> =&nbsp; <em><a href='B:490 1:15'>Luk 1:15</a></em>). Paul was keen for others to copy John the Baptist, to find in him the inspiration which he too had found. So he encourages his Ephesians not to drink wine but instead be filled with the Spirit (<em><a href='B:560 5:18'>Eph 5:18</a></em>)- the very language of John (<em><a href='B:490 1:15'>Luk 1:15</a></em>). In other words, 'Be like that Spirit-filled zealot John rather than enjoying the sloppy pleasures of this life!'.</p><p>"John did no miracle" (<em><a href='B:500 10:41'>Joh 10:41</a></em>) and yet he was filled with the Spirit. The promises of our likewise being filled with the Spirit are often discounted because we do not have the miraculous gifts of the Spirit. But being filled with the Spirit is not the same as having the ability to do miracles. John was filled with the Spirit from the womb; so the filling of the Spirit is not solely in response to our own efforts. The idea here is that God had a plan for John, and John chose to follow it and walk in step with the Spirit (<em><a href='B:550 5:25'>Gal 5:25</a></em>). This is why Paul can lament that in one sense the Corinthians had been filled with the Spirit, but were "not spiritual" (<em><a href='B:530 3:1'>1Co 3:1</a></em>), they were not living according to the potential made possible by the gift of the Spirit which is purely on God’s initiative. The same term "filled with the Spirit" is used of both John's parents (:41,67). This was a little family open to being filled with the Spirit, and so they were filled. The appeal to allow ourselves to be "filled with the Spirit" (<em><a href='B:560 5:18'>Eph 5:18</a></em>) shows we are to live open to and receptive of such filling.</p>


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<p><em>And many of the children of Israel shall be turned to the Lord their God</em>- “Many” – relatively- would be converted to the true ways of God by the work of John the Baptist, whilst numerically the majority of those who heard John’s message eventually turned away from it, culminating in their crucifixion of the Messiah. See on <em><a href='B:470 20:16'>Mat 20:16</a></em>. Or it could mean that many potentially could have been converted. Or many wereconverted- but fell away. This is the sense in which "many" is used in :14. "Many" were to rejoice at John's birth and significance before God. But how many did? "Many" potentially could have done. </p><p>The idea of hearts being turned to the Lord alludes to the intended work of the historical Elijah (<em><a href='B:110 18:37'>1Ki 18:37</a></em>) which was to be achieved by the Elijah prophet who heralded Messiah (<em><a href='B:460 4:6'>Mal 4:6</a></em>). This was only potentially true; Elijah only converted a minority. John the Baptist is prophesied as achieving this with "many"; but again, this did not happen. And so the prophecy is rescheduled for fulfilment in the work of the latter day Elijah prophet. As we go out into this world and meet apparent disinterest, we need to remember that potentially, people can respond. They are actually actively resisting what is potentially possible for them. </p><p>We note too that this passage and <em><a href='B:110 18:37'>1Ki 18:37</a></em> speak of the Elijah prophet turning hearts to the Lord their God, whereas <em><a href='B:460 4:6'>Mal 4:6</a></em> speaks of hearts being turned in reconciliation within families, the fathers to the children and vice versa. This is the two-dimensional approach taken in the New Testament, especially in John's letters; reconciliation to God involves reconciliation with our brethren, and the two cannot be divorced from each other. </p>


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<p><em>And he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord</em>- As noted on :16, if hearts turn to God then they turn to their own brethren. We cannot turn to God without turning to our brethren; baptism is into the body of Christ and not simply into a totally individual relationship with the Father and Son. Latter day Israel will <em>turn</em> to the Lord their God, and part-and-parcel of this process will be the <em>turning</em> of the hearts of the fathers to the children (<em><a href='B:490 1:16-17'>Luk 1:16-17</a></em>). When Israel earlier played traitor to their brethren, by doing so they broke their marriage covenant with God (<em><a href='B:460 2:10'>Mal 2:10</a></em>); their attitude to their brethren was essentially their attitude to their Heavenly Father. Our God and our brethren simply can't be separated. Asa’s broken relationship with God resulted in him ‘crushing’ the people at the same time (<em><a href='B:140 16:10'>2Ch 16:10</a></em> AVmg:). See on <em><a href='B:500 8:42'>Joh 8:42</a></em>. </p><p>gives the Spirit's commentary upon Elijah's achievement. The "spirit and power" of Elijah had been to turn "the disobedient to the wisdom of the just" and to "make ready a people prepared for the Lord". And yet Elijah felt his ministry had been a failure; that nobody had responded. And yet his achievement with a minority is used as a prototype for the later achievement of both John the Baptist and the latter-day Elijah prophet. There's a great encouragement for us here. We may feel our witness, our ministry, even our life's work- be it in formal preaching, in raising children, in seeking to be the salt of the earth- has been without fruit. But actually, according to the pattern of Elijah, we may achieve far more ultimately than we realize, even if the fruits are seen after our death. What's important, as it was in Elijah's life, is the spirit and power we personally develop and set as an example; even if concretely and materially we don't achieve what we aim to in the lives of others. It was in this sense that God used Elijah, and uses us. Elijah's own "spirit" was imperfect- elitist, judgmental, angry etc. But his more essential spirit was focused upon by a loving, positive Father. This comforts us in our immaturities, and encourages us to view positively our brethren who seem stuck within the parameters of their natural personality and cannot, it seems, overcome all weaknesses of their spirit.</p><p>John's ministry failed, in that he did not prepare much of a people for the Lord Jesus. They crucified Him. But it was potentially possible. "Prepared" in Greek carries the idea of to create or build; there is introduced here the idea of a new creation of persons who would have their existence in the new order predicated upon their faith in Jesus.</p>


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<p>- see on <em><a href='B:490 22:45'>Luk 22:45</a></em>.</p><p><em>And Zacharias said to the angel: How shall I know this? For I am an old man and my wife well stricken in years</em>- Mary likewise had this question as to "how shall this be", but the same words were spoken with a different attitude. She believed, but was naturally curious to know the mechanical side of how a virgin was going to conceive. Zacharias asked the same question but from a motive of unbelief. The same words may be found on different lips, but are judged differently by God. This shows how we should not judge others' words not least because we cannot judge, we cannot see to the heart which is behind the external words and actions. In this case, like us so often, Zacharias listed all the human barriers to the fulfilment of God’s word, and considered them more powerful than the word of God.</p><p>It seems Zacharias probably said far more than "How shall I know this?" when Gabriel told him he would soon have a son. It would seem the conversation went on for so long that the people outside wondered why he was staying so long. Presumably he remonstrated with the Angel with other, graciously unrecorded words, and thereby earnt the punishment of dumbness. At the shores of the Red Sea, it seems Moses' faith wavered, and he prayed something at best inappropriate. All we read is God’s response: "Why do you cry to me? Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward" (<em><a href='B:20 14:15'>Exo 14:15</a></em>). It seems again that Moses' "cry" isn't recorded- by grace. </p>


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<p>- see on <em><a href='B:710 1:11'>3Jn 1:11</a></em>. </p><p><em>And the angel answering said to him: I am Gabriel who stands in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you these good tidings</em>- Answers to prayer are uttered in the heavenly throne room, in the presence of God and the Angels. Zacharias had been demonstrating this by offering the incense which passed into the holiest place, visually teaching that prayer really does get through to the presence of God. But he failed to grasp the reality that <em>his</em> prayers actually were like this. And an Angel had been sent from that Heavenly presence to a man on earth with good news of an answer which had already been decided- and the man failed to believe it. This is the case with how the "good tidings" of the Gospel have likewise been issued and taken to men- and they disbelieve. </p>


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<p><em>And you shall be dumb and not able to speak until the day that these things shall come to pass, because you did not believe my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season</em>- Again, the case of Zacharias is compared unfavourably with that of Mary who believed, and who opened her mouth in joyful praise after accepting the good news. His unbelief must have been stubborn and pronounced; as noted on :18, his words of disbelief must have been extended enough for the people to wonder why he delayed so long in the temple. The words of Zacharias were to be limited because he had not believed God’s words. Therefore when his mouth was opened, he spoke God’s prophetic words; his words wereGod’s words. </p>


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<p><em>And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple</em>- As noted on :18, the delay was long because he had apparently argued back with the Angel in denial that his prayers of his youth really could be answered now. It took half an hour to burn the incense (<em><a href='B:730 8:1-3'>Rev 8:1-3</a></em>); the long delay means that he may have argued back with the Angel for at least another half an hour. </p>


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<p><em>And when he came out, he could not speak to them; and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple, and he continued making signs to them and remained dumb</em>- He was unable to utter the blessing of <em><a href='B:40 6:23-27'>Num 6:23-27</a></em>. His lack of faith therefore resulted in a lack of blessing for the people he served. The lack of blessing was surely a hint that something was wrong with Israel; they needed repentance and radical reformation. </p>


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<p><em>And it came to pass, when his time of service was ended, he went to his home</em>- This could suggest that he retired from the priesthood. The raising of John the Baptist and preparation for Messiah were perceived by him as more important than continuing the Mosaic rituals. "Ended" is the same word used for how Zacharias and Elisabeth were "filled" with the Spirit (:41,67). We surely have here a hint at the passing over from the ministry of the law to that of the Spirit.</p>


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<p><em>And after these days Elisabeth his wife conceived; and she hid herself five months, saying</em>- To sleep with her on returning home was surely an act of faith. Perhaps this was why he went straight to his home (:23) rather than remaining in the temple. She "hid herself", perhaps by simply not going out of the house, in order to focus upon her relationship with the Father, and to avoid being caught up in all the inevitable gossip and conspiracy theories which would have arisen. The idea is that she hid herself because the Lord had done things to her.</p>


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<p><em>Thus has the Lord done to me in the days wherein he looked upon me, to take away my reproach among men</em>- She felt the Lord was looking upon her during her pregnancy; but she was blameless "before God", in His eyes / presence (:6). Yet the wonder of her status in His eyes was unappreciated as it might have been. We have the same problem. Her joy was that her "reproach among men" had been taken away, quoting the words of unspiritual Rachel in <em><a href='B:10 30:23'>Gen 30:23</a></em>; we would think that she might instead have focused upon the huge significance of John in God’s salvation purpose. But for all these human weaknesses, she and her husband were accepted before God. </p>


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<p><em>Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee, named Nazareth</em>- The "sixth month" was presumably of Elisabeth's pregnancy. She concealed her pregnancy for five months (:24) and then announced it. Mary would have heard this, and been given the potential encouragement that with God, pregnancy was possible. And having been thus prepared for her challenge of faith, the angel comes and gives it to her. We too are prepared for our challenges to faith, often by meeting or hearing of others who have likewise endured. God chose a poor village girl who dreamt of being Messiah's mother, not one of the Jerusalem elite. The word "Nazareth" may mean nothing to us in our age, but in first century Israel it was a term of contempt, for nothing good ever came out of that town (<em><a href='B:500 1:46'>Joh 1:46</a></em>). To that dumb mountain village, to an illiterate teenager, there came an Angel with the amazing news that she had been chosen to bear God’s Son.</p>


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<p><em>To a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary</em>- As she was a betrothed virgin, we can assume she was still a teenager; as most girls were married by 20. She was "of the house of David" and therefore her child would have in any case been the legitimate Davidic king of Israel. Over 90% of Luke’s Greek is taken from the Septuagint. All the time he is consciously and unconsciously alluding to the Old Testament as having its fulfilment in the things of Jesus. As an example of unconscious allusion, consider <em><a href='B:490 1:27'>Luk 1:27</a></em>: “A virgin betrothed to a man”. This is right out of <em><a href='B:50 22:23'>Deu 22:23</a></em> LXX “If there be a virgin betrothed to a man…”. The context is quite different, but the wording is the same. And in many other cases, Luke picks up phraseology from the LXX apparently without attention to the context. </p>


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<p><em>And he came in to her and said: Greetings, you that are highly favoured, the Lord is with you!</em></p><p>- See on :38. Mary is set up as the representative and epitome of all Israel / the people of God should have been. She was the seed of David, the daughter of Zion from whom Messiah came. The “highly favoured… blessed” woman is the daughter of Zion of <em><a href='B:360 2:21-27'>Joe 2:21-27</a></em>; <em><a href='B:430 3:14-17'>Zep 3:14-17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:450 9:9'>Zec 9:9</a></em>. She “rejoiced” as the daughter of Zion was to rejoice at the coming of her king. She was the “servant Israel”, the “handmaiden” (the female form of “servant”) who was now “holpen” by God (<em><a href='B:490 1:54'>Luk 1:54</a></em>). “Blessed be the fruit (LXX offspring) of your womb” (<em><a href='B:50 28:1'>Deu 28:1</a></em>; <em><a href='B:50 28:4'>Deu 28:4</a></em>) was the promise made to Israel- and these words are applied to Mary in <em><a href='B:490 1:42'>Luk 1:42</a></em>. See on <em><a href='B:730 12:5'>Rev 12:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 5:6'>Mat 5:6</a></em>.</p><p>Mary was “highly favoured”; yet the only other place the word occurs is in <em><a href='B:560 1:6'>Eph 1:6</a></em>, where we are told that “He has made <em>us</em> accepted [highly favoured] in Christ”. Thus in the thinking of Paul and the Spirit, Mary is to represent all of us. &nbsp; </p><p>Hannah’s song was clearly a major influence in the mind of Mary. But there are some background similarities as well as the verbal ones. The LXX of <em><a href='B:90 1:18'>1Sa 1:18</a></em> [not the Hebrew text] speaks of Elkanah and Hannah staying in a <em>katalyma</em> on their journey to Shiloh- the very word used of the “inn” in whose stable Mary had to stay. If we ask <em>why</em> Mary based her song so heavily on that of Hannah, we find a clue in considering how she was greeted by the Angel as “favoured” (<em><a href='B:490 1:28'>Luk 1:28</a></em>). The Greek <em>kecharitomene</em> virtually translates the Hebrew name ‘Hannah’. The record is written in Greek, but Mary was a Jewess and spoke Aramaic and Hebrew; and probably the Angel spoke to her in those languages. So the link would have been all the stronger- ‘Hail, Hannah-like one’. And this set the mind of Mary thinking about Hannah, and in the days between hearing these words and meeting Elisabeth, Mary had perceived the similarities between her position and that of Hannah. She allowed the spirit of Hannah to genuinely become hers, in perceptive obedience to the Angel’s bidding. She came to share God’s perception of her as a woman like Hannah. ‘Hannah’ comes from the Hebrew root <em>hnn </em>– favour. Mary is told that she has been favoured / ‘Hannah-ed’ by God (<em><a href='B:490 1:30'>Luk 1:30</a></em>)- as if to lead her to see the similarities between her and Hannah. And she responds magnificently, by alluding to Hannah’s song so closely. Tragically as we shall see, she later came to be more influenced by the world’s perception of both herself and her Son. The theme of joy is very great in her song- again, because she was obedient to the greeting “Hail!”, literally, ‘rejoice!’. The points of connection between the songs of Hannah and Mary's Magnificat are really quite detailed:&nbsp; </p><p>1 Samuel&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Luke / Magnificat<br/><em><a href='B:90 1:3'>1Sa 1:3</a></em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em><a href='B:490 1:7'>Luk 1:7</a></em><br/><em><a href='B:90 1:18'>1Sa 1:18</a></em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em><a href='B:490 1:38'>Luk 1:38</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:30'>Luk 1:30</a></em><br/><em><a href='B:90 2:1'>1Sa 2:1</a></em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em><a href='B:490 1:46'>Luk 1:46</a></em><br/><em><a href='B:90 1:11'>1Sa 1:11</a></em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em><a href='B:490 1:48'>Luk 1:48</a></em><br/><em><a href='B:90 2:2'>1Sa 2:2</a></em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em><a href='B:490 1:49'>Luk 1:49</a></em><br/><em><a href='B:90 2:4'>1Sa 2:4</a></em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em><a href='B:490 1:51'>Luk 1:51</a></em><br/><em><a href='B:90 2:3'>1Sa 2:3</a></em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em><a href='B:490 1:51'>Luk 1:51</a></em><br/><em><a href='B:90 2:4'>1Sa 2:4</a></em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em><a href='B:490 1:52'>Luk 1:52</a></em><br/><em><a href='B:90 2:8'>1Sa 2:8</a></em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em><a href='B:490 1:52'>Luk 1:52</a></em><br/><em><a href='B:90 2:5'>1Sa 2:5</a></em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em><a href='B:490 1:53'>Luk 1:53</a></em><br/><em><a href='B:90 2:10'>1Sa 2:10</a></em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em><a href='B:490 1:69'>Luk 1:69</a></em><br/><em><a href='B:90 2:26'>1Sa 2:26</a></em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <em><a href='B:490 2:52'>Luk 2:52</a></em><br/><em><a href='B:90 2:10'>1Sa 2:10</a></em> anointed LXX “His Christ”- the first occurrence of ‘Messiah’ And there are plenty of allusions in the Magnificat to other parts of Scripture and well known Apocryphal writings, especially the Psalms, which Mary evidently had committed to memory:&nbsp; </p><p><em>My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit has found gladness in God my Saviour;</em> <em><a href='B:230 35:9'>Psa 35:9</a></em> Then my soul will find gladness in the Lord; It will take pleasure in His salvation. <em><a href='B:90 2:1-2'>1Sa 2:1-2</a></em> (Hannah’s hymn): My heart is strengthened in the Lord; My horn is exalted in my God…I delight in your salvation:&nbsp; </p><p><em><a href='B:420 3:18'>Hab 3:18</a></em> (Habakkuk’s hymn): I shall find gladness in the Lord; I shall rejoice in God my Saviour.</p><p><em>Because He has regarded the low estate of His handmaid-</em> </p><p><em><a href='B:90 1:11'>1Sa 1:11</a></em> (Hannah praying for a child): O Lord of Hosts, if you will look on the low estate of your handmaid,</p><p><em><a href='B:10 29:32'>Gen 29:32</a></em> (Leah after childbirth): Because the Lord has regarded my low estate.</p><p>4Ezra 9:45 (Zion speaking as a barren woman): God heard your handmaid and regarded my low estate, And considered my distress and gave me a son.</p><p><em>For behold, henceforth all generations will call me fortunate-</em> </p><p><em><a href='B:10 30:13'>Gen 30:13</a></em> (Leah after childbirth): Fortunate am I, for all women call me fortunate.</p><p><em>Because He who is mighty has done great things for me.</em> </p><p><em><a href='B:50 10:21'>Deu 10:21</a></em> (Moses to Israel): He is your God who has done great things in you.</p><p><em><a href='B:430 3:17'>Zep 3:17</a></em>: The Lord your God is in you, A Mighty One will save you.</p><p><em>And holy is His Name,</em> </p><p><em><a href='B:230 111:9'>Psa 111:9</a></em>: Holy and awesome is His name.</p><p><em>And His mercy is from generation to generation on those who fear Him.</em> </p><p><em><a href='B:230 103:17'>Psa 103:17</a></em>:</p><p>But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear Him.</p><p>Psalms of Solomon <em><a href='B:490 13:11'>Luk 13:11</a></em>: His mercy upon those who fear Him.</p><p><em>He has shown His strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones</em> </p><p><em>and has exalted those of low degree. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.</em> </p><p><em><a href='B:90 2:7-8'>1Sa 2:7-8</a></em> (Hannah’s hymn): The Lord makes poor and makes rich: He reduces to lowliness and he lifts up. He lifts the needy from the earth, and from the dung heap He raises up the poor to seat them with the mighty, making them inherit a throne of glory.</p><p><em><a href='B:230 89:11'>Psa 89:11</a></em>(10- a hymn praising God’s action for the Davidic king): You have reduced the proud to lowliness like a wounded thing: And by your powerful arm you have scattered your enemies.</p><p><em>Sir_10:14</em>: He has put down the thrones of princes and has seated the humble before them.</p><p><em><a href='B:220 12:19'>Job 12:19</a></em>: He has overthrown the mighty.</p><p>1QM xiv 10-11: You have raised the fallen by your strength, and have cut down the high and mighty.</p><p><em><a href='B:330 21:31'>Eze 21:31</a></em> LXX (26 Heb:): Having reduced the proud to lowliness, and having exalted the man of low degree.</p><p><em><a href='B:230 107:9'>Psa 107:9</a></em>: He has filled the soul of the hungry with good things.</p><p><em>He has helped His servant Israel in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke unto our fathers, to Abraham and his posterity forever.</em> </p><p><em><a href='B:290 41:8-9'>Isa 41:8-9</a></em>: You, O Israel, My servant Jacob whom I chose, seed of Abraham whom I loved, whom I have helped from the ends of the earth.</p><p><em><a href='B:230 98:3'>Psa 98:3</a></em>: He has remembered His mercy to Jacob and His goodness to the House of Israel.</p><p>Psalms of Solomon <em><a href='B:490 10:4'>Luk 10:4</a></em>: And the Lord will remember His servants in mercy.</p><p><em><a href='B:400 7:20'>Mic 7:20</a></em>: You will give truth to Jacob and mercy to Israel, as you have sworn to our fathers from days of old.</p><p><em><a href='B:100 22:51'>2Sa 22:51</a></em> (David’s hymn at the end of his life) Showing mercy to His anointed one, to David and his posterity forever.</p><p>And a few more:&nbsp; &nbsp; </p><p><em><a href='B:490 1:47'>Luk 1:47</a></em> </p><p>= <em><a href='B:10 21:6'>Gen 21:6</a></em></p><p><em><a href='B:490 1:48'>Luk 1:48</a></em> </p><p>= <em><a href='B:230 138:6'>Psa 138:6</a></em> LXX; <em><a href='B:10 30:13'>Gen 30:13</a></em></p><p><em><a href='B:490 1:49'>Luk 1:49</a></em> </p><p>= <em><a href='B:230 126:2-3'>Psa 126:2-3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 111:9'>Psa 111:9</a></em></p><p><em><a href='B:490 1:50'>Luk 1:50</a></em> </p><p>= <em><a href='B:10 17:7'>Gen 17:7</a></em></p><p><em><a href='B:490 1:51'>Luk 1:51</a></em> </p><p>= <em><a href='B:230 118:14-15'>Psa 118:14-15</a></em>.</p><p><em><a href='B:490 1:29'>Luk 1:29</a></em> </p><p><em>But she was greatly disturbed at the saying, and cast in her mind what manner of greeting this might be</em>- She has a natural reaction of shock to the news, but unlike Zacharias, she gets over it and joyfully believes her ambitious prayers have been answered. "Cast in her mind" translates a word often used inLuke about people struggling within their minds to process the challenge of Christ, and coming down on the side of unbelief. Mary alone comes down on the side of belief (<em><a href='B:490 3:15'>Luk 3:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 5:21-22'>Luk 5:21-22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 12:17'>Luk 12:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 20:14'>Luk 20:14</a></em>). We all have these struggles, in which our faith and our unbelief struggle together. She wondered whether in fact the news was bad or good. And she came down to the obvious truth- that the Gospel of Christ is good news. Why should we wonder whether such positive greeting, "highly favoured... blessed" should in fact be a bad kind of greeting? We also have such language applied to us. The message of Christ is either the sickest trick- or what it claims to be, good news. Many refuse to believe it because we are wired to not believe good news, pure grace. But she is set up as an example to us all. </p><p><em>And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary. For you have found favour with God</em>- The emphasis is that she <em>had </em>found favour with God, and she need not doubt the truth of those words of grace; see on :29. </p><p>When the LXX and Hebrew readings are combined, it becomes evident that the Angel is inviting Mary to see herself as the “daughter of Zion”:&nbsp; </p><table><tr><td></p><p>Zephaniah 3 </td><td><em><a href='B:490 1:28-31'>Luk 1:28-31</a></em> </td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Rejoice [LXX <em>chaire</em>], daughter of Zion (Zephaniah 3) </td><td>&nbsp;Rejoice [<em>chaire</em>]…[Mary]Notice how <em>chaire</em> is also addressed to the Daughter of Zion in <em><a href='B:450 9:9'>Zec 9:9</a></em>, a passage also applied to Jesus in <em><a href='B:470 21:5'>Mat 21:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 12:14-15'>Joh 12:14-15</a></em>.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>The King of Israel, the Lord, is in the midst of you [<em>en meso sou</em>] (Zephaniah 3) </td><td>&nbsp;The Lord is with you [<em>meta sou</em>]. “The king of Israel” was a well known Messianic title. He was in the midst of Mary in the sense that He was now in her womb. </td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Do not be afraid, Zion (Zephaniah 3) </td><td>Do not be afraid, Mary</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>The Lord your God is with / in you (Zephaniah 3)- the Hebrew can imply ‘in your interior parts’, cp. the womb </td><td>You have found favour with God:&nbsp; We can perceive a double meaning now in Zephaniah’s words- the Lord God was with Mary, but was also within her manifest in His Son.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>The mighty one will save you (Zephaniah 3) </td><td>&nbsp;“God my Saviour”- as if Mary picked up the allusions and responded to them. </td><td></td></tr></table>&nbsp;<p>is alluded to in <em><a href='B:650 4:16'>Heb 4:16</a></em>. When you ask for forgiveness, be like Mary in her spiritual ambition in asking to be the mother of Messiah. </p>


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<p><em>And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary. For you have found favour with God</em>- The emphasis is that she <em>had </em>found favour with God, and she need not doubt the truth of those words of grace; see on :29. </p><p>When the LXX and Hebrew readings are combined, it becomes evident that the Angel is inviting Mary to see herself as the “daughter of Zion”:&nbsp; </p><table><tr><td></p><p>Zephaniah 3 </td><td><em><a href='B:490 1:28-31'>Luk 1:28-31</a></em> </td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Rejoice [LXX <em>chaire</em>], daughter of Zion (Zephaniah 3) </td><td>&nbsp;Rejoice [<em>chaire</em>]…[Mary]Notice how <em>chaire</em> is also addressed to the Daughter of Zion in <em><a href='B:450 9:9'>Zec 9:9</a></em>, a passage also applied to Jesus in <em><a href='B:470 21:5'>Mat 21:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 12:14-15'>Joh 12:14-15</a></em>.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>The King of Israel, the Lord, is in the midst of you [<em>en meso sou</em>] (Zephaniah 3) </td><td>&nbsp;The Lord is with you [<em>meta sou</em>]. “The king of Israel” was a well known Messianic title. He was in the midst of Mary in the sense that He was now in her womb. </td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Do not be afraid, Zion (Zephaniah 3) </td><td>Do not be afraid, Mary</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>The Lord your God is with / in you (Zephaniah 3)- the Hebrew can imply ‘in your interior parts’, cp. the womb </td><td>You have found favour with God:&nbsp; We can perceive a double meaning now in Zephaniah’s words- the Lord God was with Mary, but was also within her manifest in His Son.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>The mighty one will save you (Zephaniah 3) </td><td>&nbsp;“God my Saviour”- as if Mary picked up the allusions and responded to them. </td><td></td></tr></table>&nbsp;


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<p><em>And you shall conceive in your womb and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus</em>- "You shall" may have the emphasis upon "shall"; her prayers for these things would indeed be answered. The whole language of conception, bringing forth, and the future tenses all combine to preclude the theory of any physical pre-existence of the Lord Jesus. He began, as a cell, dividing and subdividing until it became a foetus. And that was His personal beginning.</p>


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<p><em>He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God shall give to him the throne of his ancestor David</em>- Again we note the future tenses, precluding any personal pre-existence of the Lord. "He shall be great" is what Zacharias had just been told in :15. The response of Mary and Zacharias is clearly compared and contrasted; and the illiterate teenage girl comes out presented as a far stronger believer than the legally obedient Zacharias. Mary's Biblical mind [for she alludes to Scripture with such felicity] would have figured that God had to be the Father of the Davidic seed; and a woman in David’s line, just like herself, hadto be the mother. But how that was to come about was of course a challenge to her faith.</p>


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<p><em>And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end</em>- The Lord Jesus will have a Kingdom, the house of Jacob, which shall have no end. According to Isaiah, "of the <em>increase</em>" of His Kingdom there will be no end; surely meaning that the Lord's domination of the believers' minds will grow and grow; our relationship with Him will grow progressively deeper. The Lord's kingship over Jacob would be eternal, uninterrupted. It has not therefore fully begun. "His kingdom" and "the house of Jacob" are paralleled. His domain, over which He is King, is therefore essentially a group of persons:&nbsp; </p>


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<p><em>And Mary said to the angel: How shall this be, seeing I do not know a man?</em>- So great is the depth of Mary’s perception that I am led to make the suggestion that she may have actually comprehended that <em><a href='B:290 7:14'>Isa 7:14</a></em> required a virgin to be made pregnant by God, and she was anticipating this happening. I am led to this possibility by musing upon her question here. She had been told that she was to bear the Son of God, Messiah, but initially she is not told that this would be due to the Holy Spirit coming upon her. Her response is to ask how this will be possible, seeing she doesn’t know a man. Yet she was engaged to a man, and engagements in Galilee rarely lasted longer than a year. The obvious deduction for her would have been to think that when her and Joseph married, their child would be Messiah. So why does she ask how it can be, seeing she doesn’t know a man sexually? Is there not here the implication that she had picked up on the Angel’s allusion to <em><a href='B:290 7:14'>Isa 7:14</a></em> and realized that it required a virgin to conceive in order to make the Messiah both Son of God and son of David through a woman? And so she asks how actually this is going to come about; as if to say ‘OK I understand it requires a virgin conception, but how physically is it going to work out?’. Most marriages were arranged marriages; she had been betrothed to Joseph, but was earnestly praying to be mother of Messiah, and yet she realized that it required a virgin conception. And yet soon, she would be married. She must have feared that her life was going to become just like that of any other woman. But now with ecstatic joy she realized that God had heard her, and intervened. She was to have a virgin conception before she got married to Joseph! It must have all seemed too wonderful to be true, and yet she believed. One can only be impressed at the speed and depth of her response to the Angel. The Lord’s same ability was surely at least partly inherited from His mother. </p>


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<p><em>And the angel answered and said to her: The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you. Therefore also the holy thing which is begotten within you shall be called the Son of God</em>- The Holy Spirit came upon her, and so <em>Mary’s</em> spirit was full of gladness (:35,47). She walked in step with the spirit (<em><a href='B:550 5:25'>Gal 5:25</a></em>). Because she believed that really the child she would bear would be “holy”, she can extol God as “holy” (<em><a href='B:490 1:35'>Luk 1:35</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:49'>Luk 1:49</a></em>). She says that God “<em>Has</em> done to me great things”- she believed that what was promised would actually happen, to the point she felt it had already happened. Now this surely is the essence of faith.</p><p>The Angel’s description of Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary&nbsp;could have sent her mind back to how the Spirit-Cherubim and the cloud of Spirit glory overshadowed the ark (<em><a href='B:20 25:20'>Exo 25:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:130 28:18'>1Ch 28:18</a></em>). The LXX uses the word for “overshadow” about the cloud of glory overshadowing the ark in the wilderness (<em><a href='B:20 40:35'>Exo 40:35</a></em>; <em><a href='B:40 9:18'>Num 9:18</a></em>; <em><a href='B:40 9:22'>Num 9:22</a></em>). If Mary’s mind had been alerted to this possibility, she would have seen the relevance of Elizabeth’s words: “Who am I, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (<em><a href='B:490 1:43'>Luk 1:43</a></em>). For they are remarkably similar to the LXX of <em><a href='B:100 6:9'>2Sa 6:9</a></em>, where David asks “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?”. As a result of this question of David’s, the ark remained three months in the house of Obed-Edom (<em><a href='B:100 6:11'>2Sa 6:11</a></em>). And was this why Mary, seeing herself as the ark, remained for three months in the house of Elisabeth straight after hearing this same question asked (<em><a href='B:490 1:56'>Luk 1:56</a></em>)? There are further links, between the gladness of <em><a href='B:490 1:44'>Luk 1:44</a></em> and the joy of <em><a href='B:100 6:12'>2Sa 6:12</a></em>; and the loud cry of <em><a href='B:490 1:42'>Luk 1:42</a></em> and that of <em><a href='B:100 6:15'>2Sa 6:15</a></em>. If one combines <em><a href='B:490 1:31'>Luk 1:31</a></em> and <em><a href='B:500 1:14'>Joh 1:14</a></em> we have the word of God becoming flesh and “tabernacling” among us in the womb and faith of Mary. If these connections are valid, then Mary would have felt that within her was He who would be the covenant of the Lord, the stones of the word of God made flesh in a little boy. This was perception indeed.</p>


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<p><em>And Elisabeth your kinswoman, she who was called barren, has in her old age alsoconceived a son; and this is the sixth month of her pregnancy</em>- Elisabeth only announced her pregnancy at the end of five months. So this may have been a second encouragement to Mary, that non-standard pregnancies are no problem to God. Or perhaps it was the first Mary had heard of it. The lesson is that meetings with others, or news about them, are providentially brought into our lives in order to encourage us in situations which are about to come upon us.</p>


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<p><em>For no word from God shall be void of power</em>- The various possibilities in translation offer various possible interpretations. The idea could be that Mary was not to worry about the mechanics of how God’s prophetic words about the virgin birth and the birth of the Messianic forerunner would come about; there was and is power within the prophetic word to bring about its own fulfilment. This principle has wide relevance. Not least, we need not worry how all shall be fulfilled in the last days, nor seek to force fulfilment of prophecy; for the power of fulfilment is lodged within the prophetic word itself. But "void of power" can also simply mean "impossible". The only other time the Greek word occurs is in <em><a href='B:470 17:20'>Mat 17:20</a></em>: "If you have faith... nothing shall be impossible unto you". The 'possibility' of the fulfilment depends partially upon our faith. And this would have been so appropriate to Mary, who had prayed in faith to be the mother of Messiah. The prophetic word is "possible", but it is made actual by our faith. When Mary says "Be it unto me according to your word" (:38) she is as it were enabling the fulfilment of that word. See on :45. This is not to say that God does not have sovereign possibility of Himself; but clearly His preference is to work within the parameters of human faith. </p>


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<p><em>And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord! Be it unto me according to your word! And the angel departed from her</em>- Mary had probably said and later sung to the Lord Jesus: “Be it unto me according to your word”. In <em><a href='B:470 15:28'>Mat 15:28</a></em> we have the Lord addressing the Canaanite woman: “Woman…:be it unto you even as you wish”. The Lord had called His mother “Woman…” in Cana. That woman re-stimulated memories of His dear mother:&nbsp; We see here a window into His humanity, using language in reflection of how His mother had spoken to Him in childhood; and we see too Mary's abiding influence upon Him.</p><p>Not only did Mary see herself as representative of Israel [see on :28]; she also felt a strong connection between herself and her Messiah Son. Any woman would feel this connection and identity with her child; but in Mary’s case, her child was the Son of God, Messiah of Israel. And she had the spiritual ambition to see herself in some way, thereby, as Messiah. Consider the evidence:&nbsp; </p><p>- <em><a href='B:490 1:38'>Luk 1:38</a></em> “the handmaid of the Lord” uses the Greek female form for “servant of the Lord”, a clear title of Messiah.</p><p>-&nbsp;She appropriates words spoken in the spirit of Christ to herself: “You have reduced the proud to lowliness like a wounded thing: and by your powerful arm you have scattered your enemies” (<em><a href='B:230 89:10'>Psa 89:10</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:490 1:51-53'>Luk 1:51-53</a></em>). </p><p>- She refers to herself in saying that God has helped His servant Israel in remembrance of His mercy; yet His Servant was Messiah, according to Isaiah’s servant songs (<em><a href='B:490 1:54-55'>Luk 1:54-55</a></em>).</p><p>- <em><a href='B:490 1:28'>Luk 1:28</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:42'>Luk 1:42</a></em> “blessed among women” alludes to <em><a href='B:70 5:24'>Jdg 5:24</a></em>, as if Mary was already as Jael who had killed Sisera, an incident typical of the Lord's destruction of sin with the hammer of God’s word. Mary is tied up with her son's victory- for He was part of her. There is a parallel between Mary and the "fruit of your womb”, they were both to be blessed together (:42), as if God recognized this link between the mother and Son. The fact He ‘allowed’ this, rather than just using a cold ‘channel’ for His purpose, is simply surpassing in its wonder.</p><p>-&nbsp;Her words of <em><a href='B:490 1:47'>Luk 1:47</a></em> “my spirit shall rejoice in God” allude to <em><a href='B:230 63:11'>Psa 63:11</a></em>: “But <em>the king </em>shall rejoice in God; every one that swears by him shall glory: but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped”:&nbsp;Mary parallels herself with “the King”, seeing herself as connected with Messiah. </p><p>-&nbsp;“The servant of the Lord" would rejoice in God: “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God" (<em><a href='B:290 61:10'>Isa 61:10</a></em>), and yet Mary as the female "servant of the Lord" also rejoices, sharing the joy of her Son. </p><p>-&nbsp; <em><a href='B:490 1:48'>Luk 1:48</a></em> has Mary rejoicing: “All generations shall call me blessed”, alluding to how in <em><a href='B:230 72:17'>Psa 72:17</a></em> “all nations shall call <em>him</em> [Messiah] blessed”. Mary is equated with her son, Messiah, and she recognized this. He was part of her. </p><p>-&nbsp;Mary understood that through her conception, God had put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted <em>them</em> of low degree (<em><a href='B:490 1:52'>Luk 1:52</a></em>). This clearly alludes to <em><a href='B:330 21:26'>Eze 21:26</a></em>, where the princes are to be put down and <em>him</em> that is low is to be exalted, i:e. Messiah. But Mary felt that she had been exalted; thus she shared Messiah’s exaltation because He was in her and she in Him. We too are in Him, and we should feel something of the pride and joy, along with the suffering, that comes from that identification. She parallels <em>her</em> low estate with <em>them</em> of low degree (<em><a href='B:490 1:48'>Luk 1:48</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:52'>Luk 1:52</a></em>)- perhaps referring to her and Jesus? </p><p>-&nbsp;She appropriated the promises to Abraham’s seed [which according to <em><a href='B:550 3:16'>Gal 3:16</a></em> is one man, Jesus] to her personally (<em><a href='B:490 1:55'>Luk 1:55</a></em>):&nbsp; </p>


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<p>- see on <em><a href='B:490 2:19'>Luk 2:19</a></em>.</p><p><em>And Mary arose in these days and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Judah</em>- One is hard pushed to find women-only scenes in contemporary literature written during Biblical times. The women are presented in terms of the men with whom they inter-relate. Yet Elizabeth and Mary are recorded as having a conversation with no male present (<em><a href='B:490 1:39-45'>Luk 1:39-45</a></em>); and there are other such passages in Scripture (<em><a href='B:10 19:32'>Gen 19:32</a></em>; <em><a href='B:10 19:34'>Gen 19:34</a></em>; <em><a href='B:10 30:14-15'>Gen 30:14-15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:20 2:1-10'>Exo 2:1-10</a></em>; <em><a href='B:70 5:28-30'>Jdg 5:28-30</a></em>; <em><a href='B:80 1:6'>Rth 1:6</a></em> to <em><a href='B:80 2:2'>Rth 2:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:80 3:16-18'>Rth 3:16-18</a></em>; <em><a href='B:80 4:14-17'>Rth 4:14-17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:120 5:2-3'>2Ki 5:2-3</a></em>). The narrative of the women at the tomb and the resurrection is another example (<em><a href='B:490 23:55'>Luk 23:55</a></em> to <em><a href='B:490 24:4'>Luk 24:4</a></em>). In all these passages, the reader is invited to share the woman’s perspective.</p><p>Mary took the nudge from the Angel, to find encouragement at this time in the company of another believer who was going through a broadly similar experience. She would presumably have left Joseph at this time; and we see again his willing sacrifice in still marrying her despite this. To the worldly eye, it would look for all the world as if she had got pregnant whilst away in Judah, or had run off there after falling pregnant in Nazareth. But she was prepared for all that misjudgement of her, wanting to follow the Lord's leading in finding spiritual strength from a believer going through the same things, whose faith had also been amazingly rewarded.</p>


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<p><em>And entered into the house of Zacharias and greeted Elisabeth</em>- The usual girlie teenage thing would have been to go talk to her contemporaries about it. But not Mary. She went on probably the longest journey she had ever made, and probably alone, to see Elisabeth. She describes herself as the lowly, the hungry, who had been exalted and fed… whereas the proud and haughty had been disregarded. These words, and the evident allusions she makes back to Hannah’s song, could be read as reflecting what had actually been wrought in Mary’s own person and experience by some kind of persecution in her childhood. And it drove her within herself. It seems that she had been deeply humbled in order for her to be highly exalted. One wonders if she had been sexually abused. If Joseph was indeed much older than her, then we can understand how it happened that this girl, mature as she was beyond her years, got attracted to an older and spiritual man. Her spirituality and intelligence [for her allusions to Scripture indicate a fine appreciation of so much] would have been enough to spark plenty of village jealousy. <em><a href='B:500 2:11-12'>Joh 2:11-12</a></em> speak of three groups- the disciples, who believed, the brothers of Jesus who didn’t&nbsp;(<em><a href='B:500 7:5'>Joh 7:5</a></em>), and Mary, whose level of faith isn’t commented upon. She stands alone. Recognizing this tendency to isolationism within her, the Father seems to have encouraged Mary to open herself up to Elisabeth, encouraging her that her relative was in a somewhat similar position, having been barren for a lifetime and now expecting a child. Although Elisabeth was somewhat distant from Mary, Mary immediately goes to see her, following the prompting of the Lord. The record is styled to show the experiences of the two pregnancies as parallel:</p><p>-&nbsp;“The virgin’s name was Mary” (<em><a href='B:490 1:27'>Luk 1:27</a></em>) = “her name was Elisabeth” (<em><a href='B:490 1:5'>Luk 1:5</a></em>).</p><p>- Both were startled at the Angelic appearances (<em><a href='B:490 1:12'>Luk 1:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:29'>Luk 1:29</a></em>), and were comforted not to be afraid.</p><p>- “You will call his name John… you will call his name Jesus”.</p><p>- “He will be great… he will be great”.</p><p>- “How am I to know this?”, and the Angel responded; “How shall this be?”, and likewise the Angel responded.</p><p>- Both were given signs- the dumbness of Zacharias, and the pregnancy of Elisabeth.</p><p>- Both John and Jesus are described as growing up and becoming strong (<em><a href='B:490 1:80'>Luk 1:80</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 2:40'>Luk 2:40</a></em>). &nbsp; </p><p>This is not the only time when we see circumstances repeating between Bible characters. The similarities were to direct them back to former and contemporary examples, to find strength. And this is one of the basic reasons for Christian fellowship amongst believers. Yet it would seem that as time went on, Mary became more introverted, she stored up “all these things” in her heart and couldn’t share them with others. Whilst due to her unique path this is understandable, it may be related to the loss of spiritual perception and activity which it seems set in after she gave birth to Jesus:&nbsp; </p>


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<p><em>And it came to pass, when Elisabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the baby jumped within her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit</em>- The usual kicking within the womb [s:w. <em><a href='B:10 25:22'>Gen 25:22</a></em> LXX] was triggered by her being filled with the Spirit, just as the unborn child was filled with the Spirit within her womb (:15)- a good Biblical argument for the pro-life movement.</p>


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<p>- see on <em><a href='B:490 1:28'>Luk 1:28</a></em>.</p><p><em>And she lifted up her voice with a loud cry and said: Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!</em>- Elisabeth is repeating the words and ideas of the Angel in :28. Mary would have realized that the Angel was indeed from God, and the same Spirit was speaking through Elisabeth as through the Angel. We see the Father's gentle grace in providing her with confirmation after confirmation of the strange and lonely path she was being led along. </p>


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<p><em>But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?</em>- Elisabeth found mutual encouragement from Mary, although Mary had gone to her for encouragement. This is the mutual nature of true Christian fellowship. Clearly Elisabeth perceived that her son was to be the Elijah prophet, and Mary's was to be Messiah whom her son would herald. There was however no jealousy at all, as at times happens between pregnant women who believe they are bearing significant offspring, but rather just a sense of gratitude for the grace of it all. </p>


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<p><em>For when the voice of your greeting came into my ears, the baby jumped in my womb for joy</em>- Elisabeth would have been greeted by Mary with the traditional "Shalom!", a wish of peace to her. And her sensitive mind perceived that that peace was the Messianic peace with God which would save Israel and the world. </p>


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<p><em>And blessed is she that believed; for there shall be a fulfilment of the things which have been spoken to her from the Lord</em></p><p>- See on :53. Mary at this point was an inspiration to Paul in his trial (<em><a href='B:490 1:45'>Luk 1:45</a></em> = <em><a href='B:510 27:25'>Act 27:25</a></em>). Mary was blessed for believing, because therefore and thereby there would be a fulfilment of the things spoken to her (<em><a href='B:490 1:45'>Luk 1:45</a></em> RV). Without her faith, would those things have been fulfilled? She had to do her bit. And this is why she was called blessed. She made possible the prophetic word; see on :37. The Lord basically told the disciples to go into the world and preach in order that the prophesies of repentance being preached among all nations would come true (<em><a href='B:490 24:48'>Luk 24:48</a></em>). Paul’s preaching to the whole world was likewise driven by a desire to fulfil the prophecy that Christ would be a light to the Gentiles (<em><a href='B:510 13:47'>Act 13:47</a></em>). &nbsp;</p>&nbsp;<p>In <em><a href='B:500 20:29'>Joh 20:29</a></em>, Jesus unconsciously alludes to His mother's blessedness even after His glorification. Mary must have many times recounted the story of Elisabeth to Jesus, and His memory of it influenced His sentence construction even after His glorification. This gives a window into the extent to which we will be still who we are now in the Kingdom. Divine nature won't totally change who we are nor the influence of our parents upon us. This is a great encouragement to parents- who they influence their children to be, will be what they eternally will be. For Jesus alluded to the memory of His mother even in Divine nature. &nbsp; </p>


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<p><em>And Mary said: My soul does magnify the Lord</em></p><p>- See on :38 for the allusions to Hannah's song. This is alluded to by Paul, when he uses the same Greek word in <em><a href='B:570 1:2'>Phi 1:2</a></em>: “Christ shall be <em>magnified </em>in <em>my body / soul</em>”. If this is a valid allusion, then "the Lord" is a reference to Jesus. In <em><a href='B:490 1:43'>Luk 1:43</a></em> Elisabeth had just described Jesus as "my Lord". And then Mary here parallels "the Lord" with "God my saviour / my Jesus". She understood how God was to be manifest in Jesus, as she parallels “my soul" with "my spirit"(:47). It's amazing that an illiterate teenager should have risen to such heights of understanding, probably without learning much at all from the local synagogue. </p>


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<p><em>And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour</em></p><p>- See on :38 for the allusions to Hannah's song. This rang in Paul’s mind (<em><a href='B:610 1:1'>1Ti 1:1</a></em>; <em><a href='B:610 2:3'>1Ti 2:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:630 1:3'>Tit 1:3</a></em>). Mary’s words “my spirit has rejoiced” are alluded to by Jesus unconsciously in <em><a href='B:490 10:21'>Luk 10:21</a></em> [the only time the Greek phrase "spirit... rejoices” is used]. “In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit" and thanked God that the humble not the wise had been chosen- showing exactly the spirit of Mary's words of <em><a href='B:490 1:52-53'>Luk 1:52-53</a></em>, the words she had probably sung to Him around the house as a child. Unconsciously [?], the Lord Jesus was alluding to Mary His mother's attitude. Such was the Jesus-Mary relationship. Luke brings this out in his record in the connections he makes. Mary had an influence even on the Son of God- quite some encouragement to all parents and those who spend time with children as to the influence they have. &nbsp;</p>


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<p><em>Because He has looked upon the low estate of His handmaid</em></p><p>- See on :38 for the allusions to Hannah's song. Mary’s quotations and allusions to the OT are nearly all from the LXX, and it is almost certain that she would have been familiar with some of the Apocryphal books bound up with the LXX at that time. Consider the words of 4Ezra 9:45, where Zion speaks as a barren woman: “God heard your handmaid and regarded my low estate, and considered my distress and gave me a son”. Clearly she saw herself as the representative of Zion. Moses told Israel that God “has done great things in you” [in her womb?] (<em><a href='B:50 10:21'>Deu 10:21</a></em>). She felt that God had helped her as “His servant Israel”- alluding to <em><a href='B:230 98:3'>Psa 98:3</a></em> LXX “He has remembered His mercy to Jacob”. Unto <em>us</em>, Israel, a son was to be given (<em><a href='B:290 9:6'>Isa 9:6</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:490 2:11'>Luk 2:11</a></em>), but it was actually given to Mary:&nbsp;See on <em><a href='B:490 1:28'>Luk 1:28</a></em>.</p><p>God recognized her “low estate” [humility] and exalted her above all women, just as He would His Son among men. He did not choose some well heeled Jerusalem girl, but a poor, barefoot teenager in despised Nazareth. The same Greek word is used in <em><a href='B:510 8:33'>Act 8:33</a></em>: “In his humiliation [‘low estate’] his judgment was taken away”. It occurs too in&nbsp; <em><a href='B:570 2:8'>Phi 2:8</a></em>: “He <em>humbled himself</em>”. In the cross, indeed throughout the seven stage self-humiliation of the Lord which Philippians 2 speaks of, He was living out the spirit of His mother. She taught Him the life and the way of the cross. Hence the way she insisted on being there at the end, and the comfort she would have given Him, and the love He showed by asking for the only one who really understood Him to be taken away, for her sake as well as His own. The Lord directly alluded to His mother’s pattern of humiliation and exaltation by using the same word again in <em><a href='B:470 23:12'>Mat 23:12</a></em>: “Whosever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself [s:w. be abased- we must either humble ourselves or be humbled, it’s such a powerful logic] shall be exalted”. Thus the Lord Jesus alludes to His mother's words in order to set her up as our pattern [“whosoever”]. And yet He Himself showed the ultimate obedience to her pattern in the death of the cross. For this and many other reasons, the Lord’s mind was upon His mother in His time of dying. And according to the Messianic Psalms, He even asks God to have mercy upon Him <em>for Mary’s sake</em> (<em><a href='B:230 86:16'>Psa 86:16</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 116:16'>Psa 116:16</a></em>).</p><p><em>For from this time forward all generations shall call me blessed</em>- When Mary spoke of all generations calling her blessed, her mind was in&nbsp; <em><a href='B:10 30:13'>Gen 30:13</a></em>: "The daughters [i:e. future generations of them] shall call me blessed", and yet at the same time on Zilpah the servant maid [cp. Mary the handmaiden] bearing Asher [happy]. These women were seen by Mary as representatives of herself. She was so humble to compare herself with the servant girl. Yet she also had in mind <em><a href='B:240 31:28'>Pro 31:28</a></em>, where the virtuous woman is blessed by all. She saw herself as the virtuous woman who excelled all- yet she was so humble. She was the most highly favoured woman, but was so humble. It’s hard to know your true value without being proud about it. It seems to me that we must learn to value ourselves far more, to love our neighbour <em>as </em>we do really love / respect ourselves, without being proud. The ability to see your own worth and value in God’s purpose is crucial;&nbsp;we tend to be either proud, or too negative about ourselves. Mary was so spiritually ambitious to want to be the mother of Messiah, understanding He would be God manifest. &nbsp; </p><p>Mary realized that her great honour was being given in response to her humility- God had regarded her “low estate", her humility. She was humble enough to know God had noticed her humility- and still not be proud about it. She had enough self-knowledge to perceive this. It’s as if she is saying ‘'Thank you for taking note of my humility'. This is really a deep essay in humility-&nbsp; to recognize she was humble without being proud about it. And to be able to say it sincerely. Mary’s humility was programmatic for Jesus on the cross; for there He humbled Himself that He might be exalted. This was the theme that, according to Philippians 2, was ever in His mind:&nbsp; </p><p>Later Scripture seems to allude to Mary’s words of praise in Luke 1 and set her up as a representative of us all. She speaks in <em><a href='B:490 1:49'>Luk 1:49</a></em> of her “low estate”, alluding to&nbsp; <em><a href='B:230 136:23'>Psa 136:23</a></em>, which describes us all in this way.</p>


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<p><em>For He that is mighty has done to me great things, and holy is His name</em>- The Magnificat shows that Mary had a fair appreciation of God’s Names, in that she refers to Him as “He that is mighty”, interpreting for us the Old Testament idea of El Shaddai, the God of fruitfulness [Heb. <em>shad</em> = ‘breast’]. Note how neither Mary nor the NT writers transfer the OT Hebrew titles of God, e.g. ‘Yahweh’, rather they interpret them. She sees her conception of the Son of God as an example of how “holy is His Name” (<em><a href='B:490 1:49'>Luk 1:49</a></em>). The Lord Himself understood that “Hallowed be Your Name” is to be paralleled with the Father’s will being done. The Name of God speaks of His actions; because He is whoHe is, He will articulate this in how He acts. This is why all His actions are understandable and broadly predictable in terms of the basic characteristics that comprise His Name. The Name is not just a word, a lexical item. And Mary perceived all this- that the Holy Name of Jehovah was to be manifested ultimately and supremely in the Son she would bear. For this is the climax of God manifestation. Because “Holy is His Name”, she would bear a “holy thing” that manifested that Name. There is in Hebrew an ‘intensive plural’, whereby the plural form is used to reflect the greatness of a singular thing. Thus ‘Jehovah Elohim’, Jehovah who will be mighty ones, can be read as a specific prophecy of His definitive revelation in the ‘mighty one’ of His Son. And could it be that Mary grasped all this? I for one think she did. &nbsp;</p>


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<p><em>And His mercy is to generations and generations on them that fear Him</em>- The subsequent generations who would bless her would do so because through her Son, "mercy" was experienced. She perceived that Messiah would bring mercy to sinners, indeed to all; rather than just the re-establishment of Israel's political Kingdom.</p>


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<p><em>He has shown strength with His arm, He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their heart</em></p><p>- See on :38 for the allusions to Hannah's song. Through the Lord, God "scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts" (<em><a href='B:490 1:51'>Luk 1:51</a></em>). This is quoting from <em><a href='B:10 6:5'>Gen 6:5</a></em> LXX concerning the wicked imagination of man's heart at the flood. This is even more evidence that we can read the events of the flood as typical of two things; our salvation from the judgment upon sin, and also of the events of the last days, when that salvation will be physically manifested. We are in Noah's position; we can see clearly the judgments which must come upon sin.</p><p>Such a Bible minded woman inevitably had faith. For faith comes by hearing the word of God. Mary believed the Angel’s words fully- hence her rejoicing. The aorist tenses of <em><a href='B:490 1:51-53'>Luk 1:51-53</a></em> seem the equivalent of prophetic perfect tenses in Hebrew- Mary firmly believes that what is still future is as good as happened. She had the faith that considers what has been promised to have actually happened. At that moment it was as if God <em>had</em> scattered the proud, the rulers and the princes- even though this would only be achieved by the Lord’s life, death and glorification (<em><a href='B:510 2:33'>Act 2:33</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 4:24-27'>Act 4:24-27</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 5:31'>Act 5:31</a></em>).</p>


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<p><em>He has put down princes from their thrones and has exalted them of low station in life</em></p><p>- See on :38 for the allusions to Hannah's song. Despite all the undoubted spiritual perception in the Magnificat, she didn’t have totally pure understanding. It seems from her allusion here to <em><a href='B:330 21:26'>Eze 21:26</a></em> [the mighty being put down from their thrones and the humble one exalted] that she thought that Ezekiel’s prophesy about Messiah’s restoration of the Kingdom had already been fulfilled in her conception of Jesus. It could be that she was so sure that her child would one day do this that she saw the time of the coming of “Him whose right it is” as being right there and then; and yet we know that it is in fact still future. Likewise “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” <em>may</em> imply [although not necessarily] that she hadn’t grasped the implications that Messiah must be the result of a virgin birth, as per <em><a href='B:290 7:14'>Isa 7:14</a></em>. Yet for all this, she still had acceptability before God, and the required spiritual ambition to be Messiah’s mother:&nbsp;</p><p>Mary perceived the importance of humility. Her song of rejoicing is a consciously arranged poem by her. It is in two strophes, each climaxing with the themes of lowliness / exaltation. She saw humility as the true exaltation, and the structure of her little song reflects this. She perhaps prepared the song in her mind as she walked down from Nazareth to the Judean hills to meet Elisabeth; there is a rhyme established by the last&nbsp;words of the four lines in <em><a href='B:490 1:52-53'>Luk 1:52-53</a></em>: <em>thronon</em> with <em>agathon</em>, and <em>tapeinous</em> with <em>kenous</em>. In all this she reached a new paradigm for humility was a concept foreign to the first century mind. Strength, wealth and ability were to be demonstrated; to show strength by being humble was just unheard of. Only those who were forced into humble submission by the stronger were ‘humble’. To clean the toilets when nobody else notices, and the host of other such opportunities for service in ecclesial life... this is the true humility, the real strength and exaltation before God:&nbsp;</p>


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<p><em>The hungry He has filled with good things and the rich He has sent away empty</em></p><p>- See on :38 for the allusions to Hannah's song. Not only was the Lord Himself influenced by His mother. Paul and Peter allude to Mary and her words in their writings. The hymn to Jesus which Paul wrote in Philippians 2 is full of themes taken from Mary’s song- the same themes of God’s manifestation in His Son, humiliation and exaltation, occur there. There are several connections between the accounts of the early preaching of the Gospel in Acts, and Mary’s song of praise. Her words came to influence the brethren who stood up there and preached. Perhaps Mary, who was meeting with them (<em><a href='B:510 1:14'>Act 1:14</a></em>), sung the words to them and they all memorized it. Raymond Brown claims there are 18 words or items shared by the preaching of Peter (<em><a href='B:510 3:12-26'>Act 3:12-26</a></em>) and the Magnificat [Mary’s song of praise] (<em>The Birth Of The Messiah</em>, New York: Doubleday, 1993 p. 354). Mary had quoted <em><a href='B:230 107:9'>Psa 107:9</a></em> about how she had been filled with good things; but Zacharias quoted the next verse, <em><a href='B:230 107:10'>Psa 107:10</a></em>, shortly afterwards (<em><a href='B:490 1:79'>Luk 1:79</a></em>). Surely Mary had gotten him thinking in the same paths as she did. And she should likewise influence us.</p><p>Mary felt that through her being granted the honour of bearing Jesus, the hungry had been filled. The Lord in <em><a href='B:490 6:21'>Luk 6:21</a></em> alludes to all this. He speaks of how blessed [=Mary] are the hungry who will be filled, using the same three words as in Luke 1 - <em>blessed </em>was Mary, the <em>hungry</em>, who was <em>filled </em>in her stomach:&nbsp; He states that there is a blessedness upon all of us who believe (<em><a href='B:500 20:29'>Joh 20:29</a></em>)- just as His mother was proclaimed blessed for her belief (<em><a href='B:490 1:45'>Luk 1:45</a></em>). &nbsp;Mary had felt that God had “Filled the hungry [i:e. their stomach, cp. the womb of Mary] with the good thing [Gk:]”- Jesus (<em><a href='B:490 1:53'>Luk 1:53</a></em>). He calls Himself this good thing, using the very same Greek word in <em><a href='B:470 20:15'>Mat 20:15</a></em>: "I am the good one"; <em><a href='B:500 1:46'>Joh 1:46</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 7:12'>Joh 7:12</a></em> [where the "good thing" is Messiah]. Her perception of Him became his. And so with us; if we perceive our children as future brethren, so, hopefully and prayerfully, they will be. Jesus could have sinned; He could have failed. But Mary right from His babyhood believed that He wouldn’t. She believed in Him and in His successful completion of His destiny from when she first conceived Him. And surely this is a pattern for Christian mothers too.</p>


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<p><em>He has given help to Israel His servant, that He might remember mercy</em></p><p>- See on :38 for the allusions to Hannah's song. As noted on :28, she saw herself as the "Servant" Israel. "Mercy" is a real theme with her; she saw Messiah as enabling mercy for multiple generations (see on :50). The fulfilment of the prophecies in Messiah she saw as a mercy, a grace, even though it was her faith which enabled them to work out as they did. "Given help" is literally to take hold of, and she is alluding to <em><a href='B:290 41:8-9'>Isa 41:8-9</a></em> LXX, where God helps or takes by the hand His servant Israel; but this was only going to be possible through Messiah, her son, because she realized that Israel of themselves had refused Yahweh's outstretched arm towards them. She was very far from the nationalism which was tied up with Messianic expectation at the time. She saw Messiah as the channel for the grace and mercy upon Israel which their sinfulness required.</p>


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<p><em>(As He spoke to our fathers) toward Abraham and his seed for ever</em></p><p>- See on :38 for the allusions to Hannah's song. </p><p>She speaks in <em><a href='B:490 1:55'>Luk 1:55</a></em> Gk. of “<em>the</em> seed of him”- she understood the seed of Abraham to be Messiah, her son, and makes many references and allusions to the promises to Abraham. She had clearly reflected upon the way that the things of the Gospel were all promised to Abraham (<em><a href='B:550 3:8'>Gal 3:8</a></em>). &nbsp;</p>


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<p><em>And Mary stayed with her about three months and then returned home</em>-&nbsp;As noted earlier, she took lessons from Elisabeth's example. She too therefore hid herself during the early part of her pregnancy. She must have returned home just before Elisabeth gave birth (cp. :36), seeking to avoid the public eye by being present at the birth of John. It was presumably at her return that she was "found with child" (<em><a href='B:470 1:18'>Mat 1:18</a></em>), as the end of the first trimester of pregnancy would have given her certain evidence that she was really pregnant. </p>


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<p><em>Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she gave birth to a son</em>- "The time came" alludes to how the prophetic words "shall be fulfilled in their time" (:20). </p>


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<p><em>And her neighbours and her kinsfolk heard that the Lord had magnified His mercy towards her; and they rejoiced with her</em>- The idea of magnifying mercy is that we live by God’s mercy, but in this open answer to prayer, that mercy was magnified, made the more visible before all. We can logically deduce from this that God’s mercy is there even when prayer is apparently not answered; it is just that answered prayer magnifies that pre-existing and ever present mercy. We note the emphasis upon Elizabeth here- the time came for <em>her</em> to give birth, and the neighbours heard of God’s mercy towards <em>her</em>, and they rejoiced <em>with her</em>. This is typical of Luke's inspired emphasis upon the importance of women; a secular account of those times would have focused upon how the famous priest Zacharias was now having a son etc. To claim the Bible is somehow against women is facile; it was far ahead of its time in being careful to honour both genders.</p>


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<p><em>And it came to pass on the eighth day, that they came to circumcise the child, and they would have called him Zacharias, after the name of the father</em>- 'John' means 'Yahweh's grace / favour'; "Zacharias" means 'Yahweh has remembered'. God did indeed remember the prayers of Zacharias; and 'remembering' when used about God is a Hebrew idiom used about God answering prayer. But Zacharias had not lived up to his name. Instead the prayer was heard by grace, and righteousness was imputed to Zacharias, as noted on :6. It was therefore appropriate that there should be a break with tradition, and the child named 'John' rather than 'Zacharias'. </p>


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<p><em>But his mother answered and said: No, he shall be called John</em>- One of Luke's themes is the equality and dignity of women before God. For a woman to stand up against her male relatives and take the decision about the naming of a child, in defiance of tradition whereby a male firstborn child must have the name of his father, was quite something. Mary took encouragement from this by naming her child 'Jesus' rather than some form of 'Joseph'. </p>


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<p><em>And they said to her: There are none of your kindred that are called by this name</em>- This break with tradition was to reflect how God was beginning a new creation, in which family ties and names were of no significance. This was radical stuff for a kinship oriented society. We too, in our own times and over our contemporary issues, are asked to radically step out from societal expectations.</p>


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<p><em>And they made signs to his father, what he wanted him called</em>- The family, as noted on :60, were shocked that a woman could assert such dominance in this matter of naming the child. They refused to let her get away with it without at least some semblance of male agreement.</p>


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<p><em>And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, saying: His name is John. And they all marvelled</em>- Perhaps he had used the same tablet in explaining to his wife what had happened in the temple, and the need to name the child 'John'.</p>


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<p><em>And his mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue loosed and he spoke, blessing God</em>- This recalls the opening of Ezekiel's mouth so that he too could speak prophetic words. The context was similar- of a sinful Judah facing judgment unless they urgently repented and accepted God’s prophetic word. The idea of the tongue being loosed is another example of wrong medical ideas being used to express healing; and the same is done with the idea of demons. The immediacy of healing demonstrated that the naming of the child was hard for Zacharias, who would have been tempted to want his own name continued in his only son. But he overcame that struggle in faith and obedience to the Father's revealed word.</p>


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<p><em>And fear came on all their neighbours. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea</em>- We might rather have expected 'joy'. But their secular joy turned to fear when they realized how close God was in all these things. And this in essence is why people struggle to believe the good news of the Gospel. The intellectual search is one thing, but coming face to face with 'John', Yahweh's grace, is quite another. And it is at that point that many turn away.</p>


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<p><em>And all that heard them laid them up in their heart, saying: What then shall this child be? For the hand of the Lord was with him</em>- Mary and Elisabeth are likewise described by Luke as laying these things up in their hearts. There was clearly a psychological expectation amongst the people that John was going to be significant. Somehow they perceived that God’s hand was with the child and was going to use him; they were being prepared to be potentially open to the message he would preach. The "hand of the Lord" being "with" people is the language of the exodus (<em><a href='B:50 6:21'>Deu 6:21</a></em>; <em><a href='B:50 7:8'>Deu 7:8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:50 9:26'>Deu 9:26</a></em> and often). There was a sense that deliverance from bondage was at hand through this man's ministry. But of course they failed to perceive that the bondage in view was to sin rather than to Rome; and the freedom was not immediate political freedom, but the priceless gift of freedom from sin and death.</p>


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<p><em>And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying</em>- Just as Ezekiel's dumbness was ended by "the hand of the Lord" (<em><a href='B:330 33:22'>Eze 33:22</a></em>) and he was able to immediately prophesy; it was the same hand of the Lord that was operating here (:66):&nbsp; </p>


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<p><em>Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people</em>- Zacharias' song of praise was largely about the salvation to be achieved in the Lord Jesus, whom his son John was to herald. Zacharias therefore assumed that the work of John was going to be ultimately successful and thereby enable the Lord Jesus to appear and bring salvation. "He has visited His people" is a quotation from <em><a href='B:80 1:6'>Rth 1:6</a></em>. The same miraculous creation of a family that happened to Ruth and the elderly Boaz was happening to the family of Zacharias. Zacharias understood the Divine visitation of Israel to be through the dawning of the Messianic sun of righteousness (:78; <em><a href='B:490 7:16'>Luk 7:16</a></em>). He doesn't glory in his own son, but rather in Mary's son. This is an essay in how Christ-centeredness will displace our natural tendency to be self-centred. Mary would have taken great encouragement from this song; she would have recognized it was a Divinely inspired (:67) statement that John's birth guaranteed the birth of her son. The stress of the journey to Bethlehem, the lack of accommodation there etc. would have all been assuaged by meditating upon these Divine statements that the birth of John guaranteed, as it were, that of her son.</p>


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<p><em>And has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David</em>- This again is a reference to the Lord Jesus and not to John; for John was a Levite whereas the Lord was from Judah via David. Zacharias was focused not upon his own son and his natural joy, but upon the far greater spiritual things portended by it. We need to likewise not focus solely upon our own immediate family experiences but to see the far greater picture in the perspective of the Lord Jesus:&nbsp;The horn of David was Yahweh's anointed or Christ, which would sprout fruit (<em><a href='B:230 132:17'>Psa 132:17</a></em>). For David, Yahweh was the horn of his salvation (<em><a href='B:100 22:3'>2Sa 22:3</a></em>); the idea is that this Divine salvation would appear as a horn arising within the family of David. This is the kind of human and Divine fusion which was implied in the great promises to David about his seed; this seed would be God’s son and also David’s son. The only way that could be achieved was through the virgin birth. Zacharias would have reflected on these things, recalling that Mary was in the line of David. His own son John is not in view at all, for he was a Levite. The focus of Zacharias was so completely upon the Lord Jesus, Mary's son, rather than his own son. And he seems to have passed on to his son John this focus upon the Christ. </p>


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<p><em>(As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets that have been since the world began)</em>- The promised Messianic seed was the message of all the prophets, and Luke concludes his Gospel with the Lord explaining these things from all the prophets to the two on the way to Emmaus. This is one of many points of contact between the opening and closing of the Gospel. The beginning of the world was seen as the time when the prophets began, presumably referring to Adam. The world and its beginning as presented in the Bible began then. All angst about the ultimate origins of the earth, previous creations, the process of creation etc. is all misplaced. We are asked to see the time when God’s prophetic word began to be spoken as the beginning of the world. </p><p>The words could also be read as meaning that all the prophets somehow pre-existed at the beginning. This language of pre-existence is therefore not to be read literally, but in terms of them being within the Father's prophetic plan from the beginning. And this empowers us to better understand the language of the Lord's 'pre-existence'- not literally, but within the purpose of God.</p>


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<p><em>Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us</em></p><p>- See on <em><a href='B:490 7:19'>Luk 7:19</a></em>. Clearly he understood Messiah as the One who would bring immediate relief from the Roman occupation. He'd misread, as many Jews do today, the Old Testament prophecies and types which involve two comings of Messiah, and the need for Him to firstly die the death of rejection. But all the same, we find no hint of condemnation, but rather of commendation, for this Godly man. </p>


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<p><em>To show mercy towards our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant</em>- This cannot mean that mercy was now given to the fathers, but that the fulfilment of the promised mercy to them had now come. This is why "mercy and truth" is a phrase used about the fulfilment of the promises to the fathers- the promised mercy had in truth been fulfilled, now in the utter "truth" which was and is Jesus Christ (<em><a href='B:10 24:27'>Gen 24:27</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 98:3'>Psa 98:3</a></em> and often in the Psalms; <em><a href='B:290 16:5'>Isa 16:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:400 7:20'>Mic 7:20</a></em>). The fulfilment of the promises was in the Christ and not in John the Baptist; but the focus of Zacharias is totally upon the Lord whom his son would testify to.</p>


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<p><em>The oath which He spoke to Abraham our father</em>- The path to Abraham was understood as "mercy" (:72). Peter likewise interprets the promises to Abraham as being ultimately about the turning away of his seed from sin, and personal salvation (<em><a href='B:510 3:25-26'>Act 3:25-26</a></em>).</p>


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<p><em>To grant to us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, should serve Him without fear</em>- The promises were "to us". “Salvation is of the Jews” (<em><a href='B:500 4:22'>Joh 4:22</a></em>) in the sense that the promises concerning salvation were made only to Abraham and his seed. We can only have those promises made to us if we become <em>in </em>the seed, by being baptised <em>into</em> Christ (<em><a href='B:550 3:22-29'>Gal 3:22-29</a></em>). Then, all that is true of the Lord Jesus becomes true of us. Thus Zacharias quoted prophecies about the seed of Abraham and David as applying to all believers (<em><a href='B:490 1:69'>Luk 1:69</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:73-74'>Luk 1:73-74</a></em>). As noted on :72 and :73, the essential salvation promised in Christ was of mercy towards our sins. These are our enemies, from which we are to be delivered in Christ; we can serve Him now "without fear"- the fear of ultimate failure, of condemnation. The same word is used in <em><a href='B:690 4:18'>1Jn 4:18</a></em> of how we can now live without fear, secure in his love and salvation by grace. This is the good news of the Gospel. The idea of serving <em>without</em> fear is in conscious contrast to the repeated Old Testament commands for those under the law to serve God <em>with </em>fear (<em><a href='B:50 6:13'>Deu 6:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:50 10:20'>Deu 10:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:60 24:14'>Jos 24:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 2:11'>Psa 2:11</a></em> and often). It would have been a strange, novel and challenging idea; and yet it was in fact implicit in the promises to Abraham. This is the good news.</p>


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<p><em>In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days</em>- We read in :6 that Zacharias and Elisabeth <em>"</em>were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless". But that holiness is now possible for all Israel, not just the Levites and dedicated religionists like that pious couple. And this holy walk in daily life and thought is motivated by the fact we are freed from fear of condemnation, the fear of ultimate spiritual failure; for we are saved by grace. This is a far stronger motivation than striving for obedience to any legal code, in the hope that we shall somehow one day be possibly saved by our obedience.</p>


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<p><em>Yes, and you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High- </em>We can imagine Zacharias now turning his eyes to his own newborn child. If he had received no more information than what is recorded, then he had done well to perceive that this child was the Elijah prophet, and therefore Mary's child was to be Messiah. </p><p><em>For you shall go before the presence of the Lord to make ready His ways</em>- John the Baptist was to “prepare” the way for the Lord’s coming- evidently a process- in reflection of how God had been working a long time to“prepare” [same Greek word] the way for His Son’s coming (<em><a href='B:490 1:76'>Luk 1:76</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 2:31'>Luk 2:31</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 3:4'>Luk 3:4</a></em>). We likewise, in our preaching work in these last days, are working in tandem and in step with God. The idea of God 'preparing' implies that there is therefore a gap between the plan being made, and it being executed- hence “The Lord has both planned and done what He spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon” (<em><a href='B:300 51:12'>Jer 51:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:300 4:28'>Jer 4:28</a></em>; <em><a href='B:310 2:17'>Lam 2:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 22:11'>Isa 22:11</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 37:26'>Isa 37:26</a></em>; <em><a href='B:450 1:6'>Zec 1:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:450 8:14'>Zec 8:14</a></em>). See on <em><a href='B:470 20:23'>Mat 20:23</a></em>. </p>


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<p><em>To give knowledge of salvation to His people in the remission of their sins</em></p><p>- See on <em><a href='B:470 3:11'>Mat 3:11</a></em>. The experience of forgiveness is a foretaste of salvation; as John's gospel puts it, we have eternal life now. Not in that we shall not die, but in so far as we live in the experience of sin forgiven, without fear of condemnation should the Lord return right now... for this is "salvation", the present experience of the great salvation to be brought to us at the Lord's second coming. And we can share this knowledge of salvation with others; Paul alludes to these words, showing that he was to bring others to the light just as John had (<em><a href='B:490 1:77'>Luk 1:77</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:79'>Luk 1:79</a></em> =&nbsp; <em><a href='B:510 13:47'>Act 13:47</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 26:18'>Act 26:18</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 26:23'>Act 26:23</a></em>). Luke is the only evangelist to continue the quotation of Isaiah 40 to include the words “all mankind will see God’s salvation”. And he focuses especially upon the wonder of forgiveness (<em><a href='B:490 1:77'>Luk 1:77</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 7:48'>Luk 7:48</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 13:38'>Act 13:38</a></em>). Only he records the parable of the prodigal (<em><a href='B:490 15:11-32'>Luk 15:11-32</a></em>), and only he describes the great preaching commission as relating to “repentance and remission of sins” (<em><a href='B:490 24:47'>Luk 24:47</a></em>).</p><p>The principles God will use in the final judgment are manifested now, and have been reflected in His previous judgments of men. In our very personal lives, there are foretastes of that future judgment. When we receive forgiveness we experience the essence of the future salvation (<em><a href='B:490 1:77'>Luk 1:77</a></em>). Indeed, whenever man meets with God, whenever His ways have contact with those of men (which so often happens in the life of the believer) there is a judgment experience; His holiness, His demands, the imperatives which lay within His very being, reveal quite naturally our failures. The Hebrew word used to describe God’s ‘meeting’ with men is also used in the senses of ‘summoning’ or gathering to a trial (<em><a href='B:20 30:6'>Exo 30:6</a></em>). And positively, the <em>degree to which </em>we have responded to Him will be revealed by our meeting with Him.</p>


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<p><em>Because of the tender mercy of our God- </em>The fact that God has a “heart of mercy”- a lovely phrase- is His glory. It leads Him to glory in overlooking sin. And on this basis John appealed to people to repent and claim that forgiveness, thus allowing God to glory. In the light of all this, one wonders in what tone of voice John spoke. The cold printed words in our Bibles can lead us to imagine him speaking in a gruff, austere manner.</p><p><em>When the sunrise shall dawn upon us</em>- "The sunrising (AVmg:) from on high hath visited us" through the Lord's mission, fulfilling the prophecy of <em><a href='B:460 4:2'>Mal 4:2</a></em> about Him as the sun of righteousness in the first century, although it clearly has reference also to the greater dawning yet to come:&nbsp; </p><p>Many of the incidents in the first coming of the Lord Jesus are intended to point us forward to events which will happen at the his second coming. There is clear indication in the records of Luke 1, 2 that there were a faithful remnant in Jerusalem at the time of our Lord's birth, whose attitude points forward to that of the latter-day remnant at the time of His second coming:&nbsp;Whilst only Zacharias, Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna are mentioned, we can be sure that there were others in this group - Anna "spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem" (<em><a href='B:490 2:38'>Luk 2:38</a></em>);&nbsp;"many" rejoiced even at the birth of John, on the understanding that he was Christ's forerunner (<em><a href='B:490 1:14'>Luk 1:14</a></em>). It is possible that the shepherds, too, were in this group, which would confirm the impression that the 'remnant' were in the lower ranks of society - Zacharias a superannuated priest, Anna a servant of the temple (<em><a href='B:490 2:37'>Luk 2:37</a></em>) - the equivalent of a modern office cleaner. This connects with the 'remnant' left in the land by Nebuchadnezzar being the poorest of the poor (<em><a href='B:120 24:15'>2Ki 24:15</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:120 25:11-12'>2Ki 25:11-12</a></em>), and suggests a working-class Jewish 'remnant' in the last days. </p><p>There is much language used concerning he birth of Jesus which is easily applicable to His second coming:&nbsp;This in itself encourages us to see the record of those awaiting His first coming as typical of the last days. The birth of John and Jesus is described as God 'visiting and redeeming his people' (<em><a href='B:490 1:68'>Luk 1:68</a></em>); what better way of describing God’s latter-day intervention? "The sunrising from on high hath visited us" (<em><a href='B:490 1:78'>Luk 1:78</a></em> A:V. mg:) was Zacharias' comment upon God’s purpose in John and Jesus, making an unmistakeable allusion to <em><a href='B:460 4:2'>Mal 4:2</a></em> concerning Christ's second coming being like the rising sun. Note how this sun rising is upon the righteous remnant of the last days (<em><a href='B:460 4:1-2'>Mal 4:1-2</a></em>) - identifying Zacharias with them. The Angels rejoiced that through Christ's birth there was "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men" (<em><a href='B:490 2:14'>Luk 2:14</a></em>), although this will only be fully done in the Kingdom. Simeon spoke of the baby Jesus as "a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel" (<em><a href='B:490 2:32'>Luk 2:32</a></em>), although this will only be fully true after the second coming (<em><a href='B:290 42:6'>Isa 42:6</a></em>;&nbsp; <em><a href='B:290 49:6'>Isa 49:6</a></em>):&nbsp;The remnant "looked for redemption (to appear) in Jerusalem" (<em><a href='B:490 2:38'>Luk 2:38</a></em>);&nbsp;they could only have figured this out from realizing that the Old Testament 'kingdom' prophecies concerning Jerusalem, which we normally associate with the second coming, had a primary fulfilment in the birth of Christ.</p><p>John the Baptist commented that he preached repentance and baptized in Israel, <em>so that</em> the Messiah might be manifest to Israel (<em><a href='B:500 1:31'>Joh 1:31</a></em>). His work was a pattern for the Elijah ministry of the last days. It could be argued that Messiah was only manifest in the first century because of the success of John's work- for large numbers were baptized of him. Could it be that the timing of the final revelation of Messiah likewise depends upon the success of the Elijah ministry in leading Israel to repentance? And what implications are there in this, if actually <em>we</em> are the voice of that ministry...</p><p>We can now scan the record for more detailed latter-day typology:-</p><p>-&nbsp; The remnant were in or around Jerusalem - as it seems the latter-day faithful will also be:&nbsp;&nbsp; They looked for Messiah to appear in Jerusalem (<em><a href='B:490 2:38'>Luk 2:38</a></em>):&nbsp;&nbsp; If latter-day Jewry are persecuted to the extent that the only Jews left alive in the land are in Jerusalem (see previous studies, especially Chapter 8), then they, too, will expect Messiah to come to them in that same city. Note that the woman whose intense pleadings represent the prayers of the latter day remnant (<em><a href='B:490 18:2-8'>Luk 18:2-8</a></em>) "was in a city" - Jerusalem? </p><p>-&nbsp; They eagerly looked for the Lord's birth as a fulfilment of the Abrahamic promises, that through his seed "we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve (God) without fear" (<em><a href='B:490 1:74'>Luk 1:74</a></em>):&nbsp;&nbsp; Likewise the latter-day remnant will meditate how the Abrahamic promises concerning freedom from their (Arab) enemies are so relevant to them - perhaps due to the Elijah ministry turning their hearts to the Jewish "fathers", a phrase often used about the patriarchs who received the promises (<em><a href='B:460 4:6'>Mal 4:6</a></em>).</p><p>-&nbsp; Israel in the first century were under the domination of Rome, the fourth beast of <em><a href='B:340 7:23'>Dan 7:23</a></em>:&nbsp;&nbsp; In the latter-day application of this, necessitated by the image upon which the beasts are based standing complete in the last days, the fourth beast with its horns corresponds to the Arab coalition which will then dominate Israel.</p><p>-&nbsp; Some of the remnant had the Spirit gift of prophecy (<em><a href='B:490 1:41'>Luk 1:41</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:67'>Luk 1:67</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 2:26'>Luk 2:26</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 2:36'>Luk 2:36</a></em>):&nbsp;&nbsp; The latter-day remnant may also experience this - their old men (cp. Zacharias and Simeon) and young people (cp. Mary), may have the gift of prophecy around the time of the Lord's return - "before the great and terrible day of the Lord come" (<em><a href='B:360 2:28-31'>Joe 2:28-31</a></em>).</p><p>-&nbsp; The shepherds watching at night while the Lord was born (<em><a href='B:490 2:8'>Luk 2:8</a></em>) echoes the Passover:&nbsp;&nbsp; There is good reason to think that the second coming may be associated with Passover time:&nbsp;&nbsp; The vision of Angels which they saw may correspond to the remnant in Jerusalem seeing a literal "sign of the (coming of the) son of man in (literal) heaven" (<em><a href='B:470 24:30'>Mat 24:30</a></em>), composed of the Angel-cherubim:&nbsp;&nbsp; This "sign of the son of man in heaven" must be alluding back to the literal portent which the shepherds saw in the sky, pointing to the Lord's first coming. Thus there will be no need to say "See here; or see there", because the Lord's return will be so evidently public (<em><a href='B:490 17:23'>Luk 17:23</a></em>). </p><p>-&nbsp; Zacharias and Elisabeth "were both righteous before God" (<em><a href='B:490 1:6'>Luk 1:6</a></em>) amidst a corrupt Jewish world that refused to prepare itself for God’s manifestation in Christ, despite the availability to them of God’s Word, which clearly prophesied it:&nbsp;&nbsp; This recalls the description of Noah as being "righteous before God" (<em><a href='B:10 7:1'>Gen 7:1</a></em>) in the context of the flood coming upon the world:&nbsp;&nbsp; We have earlier shown this to be full of reference to the last days.</p><p>-&nbsp; There is a triple emphasis on Israel praying to God in the lead up to Christ's birth (<em><a href='B:490 1:10'>Luk 1:10</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:13'>Luk 1:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 2:37'>Luk 2:37</a></em>):&nbsp;We know from <em><a href='B:360 2:17'>Joe 2:17</a></em> and many other passages that the remnant will likewise devote themselves to prayer in the last days, as will spiritual Israel.</p><p>-&nbsp; The appearance of Angels before Christ's birth (<em><a href='B:490 1:12'>Luk 1:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:26'>Luk 1:26</a></em>) is similar to their visiting Israel under persecution during the times of the Judges, bringing the news of deliverance from their Arab enemies through a 'saviour' ('Jesus').</p><p>-&nbsp; The conception of John (the Elijah prophet of the first century) preceded that of Christ - he was Christ's forerunner - there is therefore a necessity for this type to be fulfilled in the literal coming of the latter-day Elijah as a prelude to Christ's manifestation to Israel.</p><p>-&nbsp; The "joy and gladness" (<em><a href='B:490 1:14'>Luk 1:14</a></em>) of the remnant at Christ's birth will be but a dim foretaste of the ecstasy which the embattled remnant of the last days will experience at their Lord's return.</p>


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<p><em>To shine upon them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death; to guide our feet into the way of peace</em>- Without Messiah, Israel under the law were in darkness and under the shadow of death. This would have been hard for proud Judaism to swallow. The allusion is clearly to the Messianic prophecy of <em><a href='B:290 9:2'>Isa 9:2</a></em>, but sitting in "the shadow of death" means to live in the prospect of imminent death. And that is in fact where all humanity are situated- if only they would perceive it. For we are all terminally ill, on borrowed time, with an urgency to get out from under that shadow. The result of the Messianic sun would be to guide feet into the way of peace with God, living before Him without fear of death and condemnation because they are assured of their salvation in Him (see on :74,77). It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps into that way of peace; it is the Lord's work to guide human feet into that way. That guidance is by His Spirit, by grace:&nbsp; </p>


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<p><em>And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and was in the desert until the day he appeared publicly to Israel</em>- The reference to "spirit" could be to the work of the Spirit, active in the formation of his character from his mother's womb (:15). God’s Spirit and John's spirit are clearly connected here; and this is how the Holy Spirit works in our spirit / lives too, through a collaboration, a conspiracy of the willing. Presumably at some point in his youth, John left his parents, or perhaps they died, and went to live "in the desert". He may have encountered the Essenes there, or even lived with them, for there are undoubted points of contact and allusion between his teaching and theirs. </p>


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<p><em>Now it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered</em>- Clearly the term "all the world" doesn't refer to the globe. Many errors of exposition have arisen from failing to perceive that such global language is not to be taken literally, but is relative to the context in which it is used. Perhaps we are to see in the Lord's birth the reckoning of all the world. </p>


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<p><em>This census first took place when Quirinius was governor of Syria</em>- Maybe Mary grasped the relevance of <em><a href='B:230 87:6'>Psa 87:6</a></em> LXX to the fact she gave birth to Messiah during a census: “In the census of the peoples, this one [Messiah] will be born there”. The relevance of this verse to the Lord’s birth may explain why Luke says that the census of Quirinius was part of a census of the whole world, which wasn’t strictly true. But as all historians do, he presents the facts within the framework of his wider intentions and themes.</p>


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<p><em>And all went to register themselves, everyone to his own city</em>- As noted on :1, we have global language used here, within the framework of the general thematic impression which the inspired historian wishes to give (see on :2). Not "everyone" in the Roman empire, let alone a poor backwater like Palestine, would have gone to their birth place to be registered. It is also unclear why everyone had to physically go to their birth place for registration. Surely the tax registration census was of people where they were then living and working. Old people and children were surely not required to journey to their birth place just to be counted. But the impression is given that everyone went to their birth place, and then the Lord was born. There is no such thing as pure, factual history. Every record of events reflects the agenda of the historian; and this is true of the inspired historian Luke. The idea is that everyone has a birth place; and so did the Lord Jesus. His humanity is thereby emphasized. </p>


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<p><em>And Joseph also went from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and family of David)</em>- As noted on :3, it is unlikely that everyone literally went to their birth place for this tax registration. Perhaps Joseph had enough income to require this; although there is every indication of poverty in the family. Perhaps he wished to be carefully obedient to every human law as far as he could; and this meant that Mary went with him and therefore gave birth in Bethlehem, David’s city. </p>


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<p><em>To enroll himself with Mary, who was engaged to him, being great with child</em>- It could be that this is recorded as a fulfilment of how <em><a href='B:290 53:12'>Isa 53:12</a></em> had predicted that Jesus would be “numbered with the transgressors”. He was numbered amongst humanity, and was born where both Mary and Joseph were, in Bethlehem. "With Mary" could suggest that she too had been born there; otherwise we are left to assume that only the males had to register, and so Mary tagged along with him. If indeed Mary had also been born in Bethlehem, as is here implied, then this would reinforce the idea that the Lord was truly David’s seed, and should have been the legitimate king of Israel by descent.</p><p>We are left asking why Joseph took his pregnant bride such a long way, from Nazareth in the north to Bethlehem in the south, when clearly it was a major journey and she was about to give birth. The person making the declaration, whom we are told was Joseph, had to make a full declaration about their relationships and children. But these declarations were usually only done by the wealthy, who were concerned about proving their child was the rightful inheritor of their estate. "Privileged families were concerned to get their boys registered", because otherwise their Roman citizenship could not later be proved. But Joseph wasn't surely a Roman citizen, and the birth in the cattle shed speaks of his poverty. He believed that the child was special. In a case like Joseph's, there was an official scrutiny or judicial hearing "at which the deponents could be questioned on discrepancies, and the truth of allegations regarding births and deaths could be checked", and therefore any children had to be brought in person. "The great detail of surviving depositions shows that their makers we afraid of discrepancies coming to light". Nazareth was under the jurisdiction of Antipas, and Bethlehem was in a different registration district. We enquire again, why did Joseph take Mary with him, knowing she would give birth in Bethlehem? Putting all the strands together, I suggest that Joseph although poor, believed that the child was special- so special, he wanted the child's birth registered. He acted as if the child was his and Mary was already his wife. He kindly took full legal responsibility and had the Lord Jesus registered as his child. His faith in Mary and in God's word to her was truly remarkable. The trauma of the journey for a teenager would have greatly increased the chances of her losing the baby or giving birth prematurely on the journey. Everything about the Lord's birth was miraculous.</p>


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<p><em>And it came to pass, while they were there, the time came that she should give birth</em>- "While they were there" heightens the connection with the fact the Lord was born in Bethlehem, the birth place of His mother and adoptive father (see on :5). The time which came was that precise moment so carefully prepared and calculated by the Father; <em><a href='B:550 4:4'>Gal 4:4</a></em> surely alludes here in saying that "when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman". </p>


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<p><em>And she brought forth her firstborn son; and she wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn</em>- <em><a href='B:300 14:8'>Jer 14:8</a></em> was addressed to the Lord and Saviour of Israel, Jesus-Messiah: “Why are you like an alien in the land, like a traveller who stays in <em>lodgings</em>?”. If Mary had made all these connections, the hurt of being told there was no room in the lodging, and having to give birth in a stable, laying her dear child in a cattle manger… would have been far less felt by her. These things would have thrilled and rejoiced her heart rather than hurt her, just as we can joyfully perceive how present sufferings are working out so analogous to a Biblical verse or character:&nbsp;</p><p>The whimpering, vulnerable <em>Son of God</em> was laid down in a cattle stall (Luke, the doctor who appreciated the need for hygiene, so emphasizes this: <em><a href='B:490 2:7'>Luk 2:7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 2:12'>Luk 2:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 2:16'>Luk 2:16</a></em>), because the other guests in that cheap hotel couldn't make space for a heavily pregnant woman (again, Luke the doctor would've sensed the shame of it):&nbsp;<em>"</em>No room for them in the inn<em>" </em>can also be translated "The inn was not the place for them" (Lucien Deiss, <em>Joseph, Mary, Jesus</em> (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996) p. 28). It had to be this way- the way of rejection, of poverty. God’s children ultimately know no other way in this world. Did Mary see the link between her giving birth in a stable and laying Jesus down in a “manger” (Gk. <em>phatne</em>), perhaps with oxen and donkeys onlooking, and <em><a href='B:290 1:3'>Isa 1:3</a></em> LXX: “The ox knows its owner, and the donkey knows the <em>phatne</em> (“manger’) of its Lord (<em>kyrios</em> as in <em><a href='B:490 2:11'>Luk 2:11</a></em>), but Israel has not known me”.</p><p>The serene paintings of the scene do no justice to it. The whole setting would have been dirty, noisy and inappropriate for a birth place. The Lord was born into rejection, poverty and desperation; with Mary in a strange place, far from home and her relatives, having her first child so humanly alone. And the Father continues His same style of working to this day, through the things which man despises.</p>


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<p><em>And there were shepherds in the same region staying in the field and keeping watch at night over their flock</em>- It has been observed that the choice to reveal the good news of Christ to the shepherds first of all was surprising; for these too were the poorest of the poor, deprived [along with tax collectors] of Jewish rights. They belonged to the "most despised" of all social groups. See Joachim Jeremias, <em>Jerusalem In The Time Of Jesus </em>(London: S:C:M:, 1969) p. 304; Richard Horsley, <em>The Liberation Of Christmas: The Infancy Narratives In Social Context</em> (New York: Crossroad, 1989) pp. 102-106. </p><p>The fact they were in the fields with their flocks shows clearly enough that the Lord's birth was not in December- for then the flocks would have been kept under cover and not in the fields.</p>


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<p><em>And an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them; and they were terrified</em>- As noted on :8, shepherds were at the bottom of the social ladder; and there is a purposeful juxtaposition between them and the glory of God which shone about them. The picture is of them identified with the Angel which stood with them, so that the impression was given to an observer of a halo of glory shining about the despised shepherds. God’s glory was identified with weak men, at the very bottom end of the social ladder; just as His Son was born in a stable amongst animals, and laid in a manger- the birth style of the lowest of the low:&nbsp; </p><p><em>But he that denies me- </em>The whole purpose of the true church is to be a light to the world- “the only cooperative society in the world that exists for the benefit of its non-members”, as William Temple put it. The Lord will tell some in the last day that He never knew them, He will deny them; and yet He will deny those who never confessed Him before men (<em><a href='B:470 8:23'>Mat 8:23</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 10:32-33'>Mat 10:32-33</a></em>). These people will have prophesied in His Name [i:e. preached to the ecclesia], and done “mighty works” for Him; but the fact they didn’t confess Him before men is seen as not knowing Him; for to know Him is to perceive that we are intended to confess Him before men. This, perhaps, is our greatest danger. The presence and witness of God is no longer in a tent in the Sinai, nor in a Jerusalem temple. God reveals Himself through the group of ordinary, mixed up folks who comprise the ecclesias. For the watching world, we present proof that Christ is indeed alive; we provide the visible shape of what God and Jesus are really like. This is how vital is the matter of witness. It is utterly fundamental to the whole purpose behind our having been called. If we deny Christ, we deny that Jesus is the Christ (<em><a href='B:690 2:22'>1Jn 2:22</a></em>); and yet we deny Christ if we don’t preach Him (<em><a href='B:470 10:33'>Mat 10:33</a></em>). It follows that if we really believe that Jesus was not just Jesus of Nazareth but the Christ of God, therefore we won’t deny Him but will preach Him. This is why there is connection between confessing Jesus as Christ and preaching Him (<em><a href='B:500 9:22'>Joh 9:22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 18:5'>Act 18:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:570 2:11'>Phi 2:11</a></em>). A grasp of who the Lord Jesus really is and the height of His present exaltation will naturally result in a confession of Him to the world, as well as a deep personal obedience to His word and will (<em><a href='B:650 2:1'>Heb 2:1</a></em>).</p><p>There are at least three Biblical examples of people denying Jesus- the same Greek word is used- and yet repenting. Peter denied the Lord “before all” (<em><a href='B:470 26:70'>Mat 26:70</a></em>), and yet was restored. The entire crowd around Jesus, including the healed woman, initially ‘denied’ they had touched Jesus (<em><a href='B:490 8:45'>Luk 8:45</a></em>); but the woman then came out into the open and confessed Christ before all. The Jews ‘denied’ Christ (<em><a href='B:510 3:13-14'>Act 3:13-14</a></em>) but then repented and were baptized publicly. The point is, that in the moments when we deny Him, He denies us; but we can change the situation.</p><p>It’s tempting to wonder whether all this talk of confession and denial is only really relevant to those standing trial for their Christian faith, with the threat of death before them and the possibility of saving their life if they make some symbolic denial of Christ. But the words for confessing and denying occur together in <em><a href='B:630 1:16'>Tit 1:16</a></em> about those within the ecclesia who “Profess [s:w. ‘confess’] that they know God, but in works<em> deny</em>&nbsp;Him”. We can make the profession of faith before men, and in the public confession of baptism- whilst effectively denying the faith in our lives. There were some within the ecclesias of the first century who ‘denied’ the Lord (<em><a href='B:680 2:1'>2Pe 2:1</a></em>). External membership can appear as ‘confession’, but the point is that it isn’t necessarily. It can actually be a front for denial of Him…</p><p><em>In the presence of men shall be denied in the presence of the angels of God</em>- The Lord Jesus in the last day will confess, or witness to in a legal sense, for His people "before the angels of God" (<em><a href='B:490 12:8-9'>Luk 12:8-9</a></em>); and yet He uses the same language to describe how right now, He confesses us in Heaven in the presence of His Father (<em><a href='B:470 10:32'>Mat 10:32</a></em>). Thus when we witness- or don't witness- to our relationship with Him, the Lord Jesus either confesses or denies knowledge of us before His Father. Right now. And this, therefore, is a foretaste of the final judgment. And we face these foretastes day by day in human life, as we encounter the choices of confessing or denying our Lord.</p><p>There is a direct correlation between our attitudes to witnessing before men now, and the attitude of the Lord Jesus about us in Heaven “before”, or ‘before the face of’, the Father. Witnessing is essentially personal, each of us individually “before men”. As modern life progresses in reducing relationships to online abstractions, we must remember this. An individual may press the right keys on their keyboard, send money online to a preaching organization- and yet never be making any witness about Christ before the faces of men. Indeed, those with whom the person does have face to face relationships may well be totally unaware he is a Christian. It’s this kind of thing which the Lord is addressing in such demanding terms- our witness&nbsp;<em>before men</em>, not in some anonymous world of avatars, is related to how we witnesses about us&nbsp;<em>before the face of God in Heaven</em>:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>So whoever denies the Lord before men will be denied before the Angels. Two words are used here, the first weaker than the second. If we deny Jesus, He will utterly deny us before the Angels- what we do now on earth is even more strongly reflected in Heaven and at judgment day. The Heavenly response to our words and actions is out of proportion to our words. This surely inspires us in our daily words and decisions.</p>


text:
<p><em>And the angel said to them: Be not afraid. For I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people</em>- Their fear was because of their own sense of unworthiness in the presence of the Lord's glory. But Luke has already begun the theme that the grace to be revealed in the Lord Jesus takes away our fear and sense of unworthiness (see on <em><a href='B:490 1:74'>Luk 1:74</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:77'>Luk 1:77</a></em>). And it continues with this assurance to the shepherds, that the good tidings of the Gospel are that "all people" [implying the Gentiles too] could serve God without fear. It is this which is the greatest joy, and which is good news indeed; that we need not fear God’s condemnation because we are identified with His Son. Anything less than this would make the "Gospel" not so much good news, but rather just a worrying and burdensome weight of responsibility before God.</p>


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<p><em>For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord</em>- They were not to "fear" (:10), because a Saviour had been born. The salvation in view was therefore from sin and the fear which arises from it. This was a great theme in the song of Zacharias (see on <em><a href='B:490 1:74'>Luk 1:74</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:77'>Luk 1:77</a></em>). Salvation from the Romans was what everyone wanted, but the spiritual reality was far greater. "Christ the Lord" is an unusual phrase; the idea is that because of this great salvation, Messiah was to become the personal "Lord" and master of those shepherds. The implication is surely that those shepherds, famed for their dishonesty, petty crime and disobedience to the Law, actually came to believe in the Lord Jesus. </p>


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<p>- see on <em><a href='B:470 18:4'>Mat 18:4</a></em>.</p><p><em>And this will be a sign to you: You shall find a baby wrapped in birth clothes and lying in a manger</em>- The "sign" that this great salvation was for real was in the very absurdity of a Divine saviour being born in the very lowliest of human situations, placed in a manger from where animals ate, born amidst the smell and sound and dirt of animal excrement. The whole thing had the hallmark of the Divine. </p>


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<p><em>And suddenly there was with the angel a crowd of the heavenly host praising God, and saying</em>- It's important to realize that praise isn't just singing or using musical instruments. In Hebrew the same word means both 'worship' and 'service' (<em>abodah</em>). The supposition that praise = music is deeply ingrained in many minds. Thus there is the common assumption that the Angels sang to the shepherds; but in fact they <em>spoke</em> their praise.</p>


text:
<p><em>Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those in whom He is well pleased</em>- The peace in view was peace with God, resulting in a lack of fear ofcondemnation before Him (see on :10,11 and <em><a href='B:490 1:74'>Luk 1:74</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:77'>Luk 1:77</a></em>). This peace with God vertically also has a horizontal dimension. A major result of the existence of the Lord's work was unity amongst God’s people. If we are not at peace amongst ourselves, then God is not well pleased. The One in whom the Father was well pleased was His Son (<em><a href='B:470 3:17'>Mat 3:17</a></em>). Those who are "in Christ" are described therefore with the same language as He is described with. It is by being in Him that we find peace with God, and the grateful recognition and acceptance of this gives glory to Him.</p>


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<p>- see on <em><a href='B:510 8:4'>Act 8:4</a></em>.</p><p><em>And it came to pass, when the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to each other: Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us</em>- We assume they left their sheep in the field, willing to sacrifice their careers and livelihood for the sake of obedience to the word about the Lord Jesus. The Lord surely had them in mind when He later taught that He was like the shepherd who left His sheep unattended in order to go to the one all important sheep. He reasons as if He identifies with them and they with Him. It could be that these shepherds were keeping flocks which would later be taken to Jerusalem and sold as sacrifices; in which case we wonder about how far they connected Messiah with the Passover lamb. They went to see the thing which they considered "has some to pass"; they absolutely believed the word spoken.</p>


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<p><em>And they went with haste, and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in the manger</em>- The baby was asleep and not feeding; the "sign" had been that they would find the baby in a manger, and this is what happened as they opened the door of the shed. Their response to the word "with haste" fits in with a major Bible theme- that the faithful respond to God’s word and the Divine calling immediately and with haste. </p>


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<p><em>And when they saw it, they told people about the saying which was spoken to them about this child</em>- "The saying" was that about "the sign" (:12). It was indeed remarkable; that the Son of God, Israel's Messiah, should be born in the lowest way, in a strange place, to an unmarried teenager, without any human father present, with no money... and the baby was laid down to sleep in a cattle manger in a shed. And this great Messianic secret was revealed not to intellectually rigorous theologians or pious priests, but to a bunch of secular despised shepherds sitting one night on a hillside, interrupted from their lowlife gossip and chatter by a vision of Angels who told them of this great sign. This is absolutely God’s way. </p>


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<p><em>And all that heard it wondered at the things which were spoken to them by the shepherds</em>- As noted in :17, "shepherds" were not the most credible of witnesses, and so people "wondered at" rather than "believed" the message. We notice how at the end of Luke, the chosen witnesses include women, who were not allowed to bear credible legal witness, and men who had just been disgraced by their public disloyalty to the Messiah they testified about. And this is why the likes of you and me have likewise been chosen as witnesses.</p>


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<p><em>And Mary treasured up all these sayings, pondering them in her heart</em>- When the shepherds came to worship, Mary pondered within herself what it all meant, as if she was now rather lacking in comprehension. Luke describes his Gospel as a compilation of eyewitness accounts. Where did he get the material from about Mary pondering things in her heart [<em><a href='B:490 2:19'>Luk 2:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 2:51'>Luk 2:51</a></em>]? Was it from interviewing her himself? Or was her inward meditation and frozenness evident to others who on this basis told Luke?</p><p>We read that Mary “kept” God’s words in her, yet the Lord in one of His allusions to His dear mother says in <em><a href='B:490 5:38'>Luk 5:38</a></em> that we must preserve or “keep” [s:w:] the new wine of the Gospel in us. The Lord saw His mother as a pattern for us all. When He heard the comment “Blessed are the breasts which you sucked!”, His comment is to draw attention rather to the spiritual side of Mary: “Blessed are they [like My dear mother] who hear the word of God and keep it”. Thus He held her up as an example to them all; she shouldn’t be marvelled at just because of the fact she carried the Son of God (Catholics take note) but rather because of her reflective and tenacious attitude to the word of God. Mary’s song has so many Biblical allusions in it:&nbsp;Mary’s Bible minded-ness was really quite something. The Greek word translated “ponder” (<em><a href='B:490 2:19'>Luk 2:19</a></em>) comes from syn, “with”, and <em>ballein</em>, “to throw”, as if she combined Scripture with her experience of life, seeking to find her place in the mass of OT allusion and teaching which she was being presented with. Her every phrase has multiple allusions to Scripture, which in itself indicates a fair level of intelligence to think on so many levels simultaneously. </p><p>The descriptions of Mary as keeping things in her heart (<em><a href='B:490 2:19'>Luk 2:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 2:52'>Luk 2:52</a></em>), and the way it seems she didn’t tell Joseph about the Angel’s visit, but instead immediately went down to Elisabeth for three months… all these are indications that Mary, like many sensitive people, was a very closed woman. Only when Mary was “found” pregnant by Joseph (<em><a href='B:470 1:18'>Mat 1:18</a></em> - s:w. to see, perceive, be obvious) was the situation explained to him by an Angel. It seems His move to divorce her was based on his noticing she was pregnant, and she hadn’t given any explanation to him. She “arose” after perhaps being face down on the ground as the Angel spoke with her, and went immediately off to Elisabeth. And then, after three months she returns evidently pregnant (<em><a href='B:490 1:39'>Luk 1:39</a></em>). Mary is portrayed as somehow separate from the other ministering women. It would have been psychologically impossible, or at best very hard, for the mother of the Lord to hang around with them. The group dynamics would have been impossible. Likewise in Act 114 we have “the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus”, as if she is separate from them. She followed Him to Cana, uninvited, and also to Capernaum. Next she is at the cross risking her life, but she isn't among the women who went to the grave. Why not? It was surely natural that she would go there, and that the other women would go with her to comfort her. But she was a loner; either she went alone, as I think I would have tried to, or she just couldn’t face contact with the others and simply hid away. And could it be that Jesus, in recognition of her unique perception of Him, appeared to her first privately, in a rightfully unrecorded meeting? But by <em><a href='B:510 1:14'>Act 1:14</a></em>, she was in the upper room, as if His death led her to be more reconciled to her brethren, to seek to get along with them... although by nature, in her heart and soul, she was a loner, maybe almost reclusive. A struggler to understand. A meditator, a reflector, who just wanted to be alone, one of those who take their energy from themselves rather than from other people. &nbsp;</p>


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<p><em>And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, just as it had been spoken to them</em>- Again we see a connection between the beginning and ending of Luke's Gospel; for he concludes with the disciples praising God in the temple. These shepherds are presented as believers, as converts. They rejoiced in the fulfilment of what had been prophetically told them; and likewise the disciples at the end rejoiced when they perceived how the Old Testament prophetic word had been so accurately fulfilled in the things that happened to the Lord. The "things heard and seen", the "things" preached by the shepherds (:18), the "thing" told by the Angels (:15), all clearly look forward to the "things" concerning the Kingdom and name of Jesus which Luke later says were the basis of the apostolic preaching (<em><a href='B:510 8:5'>Act 8:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 8:12'>Act 8:12</a></em>). The shepherds are being set up as examples of preachers, telling forth the "things" of the Gospel which they had personally experienced- even when they appeared so strange to secular ears, and were testified by those apparently least qualified to be witnesses.</p>


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<p><em>And after eight days, when he was circumcised, his name was called Jesus, which name was given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb</em>- The obedient naming of John as John rather than Zacharias no doubt encouraged Mary to be likewise obedient. For her son too had been given a name by an Angel before His birth. Our acts of obedience are likewise encouraged by our fellowship with other believers in similar situations who have likewise been obedient and responsive to God’s word. We note the chronology; Mary's conception came<em> after</em> the Angel appeared to her. Presumably the conception only began after she had demonstrated her belief and desire to partner with God in this profound plan:&nbsp; <em>&nbsp;</em></p>


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<p><em>And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought him up to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord</em>- There was no Mosaic requirement to take a newborn child to Jerusalem, but despite their poverty, Mary and Joseph clearly tried to do the most they could for the Lord Jesus. Joseph's willing cooperation in all this is to be noted; for it was after all not his child. We can only conclude that he accepted the Lord's virgin birth and willingly went along with it- at least at that time. The Lord was perfect, without any barrier between Himself and the Father; "holy, harmless and separate from sinners" (<em><a href='B:650 7:26'>Heb 7:26</a></em>). The purification ritual was not therefore to remove any sin from Him; it is no sin to be human, to be alive, and this must affect our view of what 'human nature' really Is. For all we posit about it we posit about the Lord Jesus, who fully had our nature. The Greek translated "purification" here means literally a washing, and is used many times of how the Lord cleansed lepers and also sinners from their sins. The Lord did so knowing that He Himself had been likewise cleansed.</p>


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<p><em>(As it is written in the law of the Lord: Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord)</em>- Again we note the medical language of the day; for the womb is not literally opened by the birth of a firstborn child. The quotation from <em><a href='B:20 13:2'>Exo 13:2</a></em> concerns how the dedication of the firstborn was to be a reminder of how the slain lamb had saved the firstborn from death at the time of the exodus. The dedication of the firstborn was therefore to effectively say: 'This child ought to have died. It will not die, but will be dedicated to the Lord as a living death, a life lived out for Him and not for self'. And the Lord was therefore the supreme firstborn, to the point that "the firstborn" is a title for Him (<em><a href='B:580 1:18'>Col 1:18</a></em>; <em><a href='B:650 12:23'>Heb 12:23</a></em>). </p>


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<p><em>And to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord: A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons</em>- This was the sacrifice for the poor who could not afford an animal; and we have here a picture of their poverty. It was therefore all the more sacrificial for them to have made the journey to Jerusalem for this dedication, when this was not actually required&nbsp; by the Mosaic law. We must carefully note that the Mosaic legislation in <em><a href='B:30 12:8'>Lev 12:8</a></em> stated that the two birds were for the mother; there is no hint that they were a sacrifice for the cleansing of the human nature of the child born. They were for a sin offering and for a burnt offering. It could be fairly argued that they were not in fact necessary in the Lord's case, but Mary made the offering anyway and thereby the Lord's connection with sinful humanity was emphasized. It was for the same reason that He was baptized by John in a baptism which was "for the remission of sins"; not because He was a sinner, but to portray His unity with sinful humanity. They actually offered the birds, whereas Edersheim claims that at the time, the poor usually just dropped the coins which were the price of two birds into the temple coffers, and it was accepted as if the sacrifice had been offered. But Mary insisted on actually offering the birds. When the Lord paid such special attention to the widow woman casting two small coins into the same collection trumpets, He may well have thought of His mother doing the same at His birth, a coin for each of the two birds. Such restimulation is a profound window onto the total nature of His humanity.</p>


text:
<p><em>And there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Spirit was upon him</em>- Simeon waited for "the consolation (comfort) of Israel", referring to the Kingdom prophecy of <em><a href='B:290 40:1-2'>Isa 40:1-2</a></em> - and saw it have a fulfilment in the first coming of the Lord. "Simeon", the hearing one or 'the one who was heard', had heard God’s word and looked for its fulfilment; and perhaps the idea is also that he had prayed for Messiah's coming, and had been heard. Therefore he was assured that his prayers would be heard, and he would see the Messiah. The consolation of Israel is therefore paralleled with Messiah personally (:26), just as "the hope of Israel" refers to the One for whom Israel hoped, Jesus the Messiah. We should not over emphasize the material aspect of the Gospel; the implicit hope of eternityin God’s Kingdom on earth is in fact secondary to the things about the Lord Jesus. He personally is the hope and consolation of Israel. This tendency is very human, and a reflection of our own deep reservations- to focus upon the material [the things of the material Kingdom on earth] rather than on upon a person, the Lord Jesus, with all the issues involved in a living relationship with that person. Israel at the Lord's time likewise had the emphasis misplaced- upon the material issues of freedom from the Romans, rather than upon the wonder of their King and Messiah coming to save them from their sins through self-sacrifice. The comfort / consolation which we need above all is the comfort that our sins shall not stand between God and us. The Lord refers to Himself as the comforter in John 14-16, promising that the gift of His spirit would mean that His comforting presence remained with His people even after His physical departure.</p>


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<p><em>And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ</em>- The Spirit being "upon" Simeon (:25) did not make him infallible; but there had been a special revelation to him that his prayers for the coming of Israel's consolation, the Messiah, would be heard. And "Simeon" means just that, 'hearing', in the context of prayer being heard. Therefore he was comforted that he would live to see the Messiah.</p>


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<p><em>And he came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, that they might do concerning him after the custom of the law</em>- Mary did not legally have to bring the Lord to the temple; she was poor, as reflected in her inability to offer a lamb but rather two cheap birds. It was a Divinely overruled coincidence that she happened to be in the temple courts at just the time that Simeon entered; Anna likewise (see on :38). This kind of coincidence is simply called being "in the Spirit", and the Spirit is no less active in our encounters and coincidences today. "The parents" is obviously an example of the Biblical record being written from the viewpoint of secular observers; the language of demons is similar. Joseph was not the actual parent, just as demons don't actually exist, but the language of human perception is still used. For language is in a sense a matter of human perception. </p>


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<p><em>Then he took him into his arms and blessed God, and said</em>- It was of "the Spirit" (see on :27) that Simeon recognized that this particular baby, held in the arms of a poor couple offering the poor person's sacrifice, without the fanfare which attended the dedication of babies from more wealthy families, was in fact the Messiah. And in this again we see how God operates, through the lowly and unnoticed by the world:&nbsp; </p>


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<p><em>Lord, now let Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word</em>- "Peace" usually refers to peace with God; we noted on the song of Zacharias that the Lord's birth was understood by the faithful as being essentially about the good news of peace with God through His work and death. Simeon felt he could die at peace with God because of Messiah; he clearly understood that He would atone for his sins. </p><p>This is all the language of Jacob being content to die after seeing Joseph. Joseph is simply one of the clearest types of Christ. There are many echoes of Christ which seem to have no specific purpose apart from to confirm us in our enthusiasm to constantly see the spirit of Christ in this record (e.g. <em><a href='B:10 46:30'>Gen 46:30</a></em> LXX = <em><a href='B:490 2:29-30'>Luk 2:29-30</a></em>).</p>


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<p><em>For my eyes have seen Your salvation</em>- 'Jesus', Yehoshua, is literally 'the salvation of Yah'. The 'seeing' of salvation alludes to how Israel were redeemed from Egypt through the slain lamb (<em><a href='B:20 14:13'>Exo 14:13</a></em>); Simeon understood this to be representative of Messiah's victory against sin and all Israel's enemies. It is the fulfilment of the "mercy and truth" of the promises to the fathers which enables God’s salvation to be seen by all the world (<em><a href='B:230 98:3'>Psa 98:3</a></em>). Simeon's desire for the coming of Messiah was therefore rooted in a deep appreciation of the huge spiritual significance of His work and sacrifice, and not from any passing nationalistic desire to see Israel justified. He surely had <em><a href='B:230 98:3'>Psa 98:3</a></em> in mind, for he goes on to speak in :31 of how all the peoples of the world would 'see' what he was now seeing; he realized that he was typical of all who would later come to 'see' the Son.</p>


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<p><em>Which You have prepared before the presence of all peoples</em>- As noted on :30, Simeon has in mind <em><a href='B:230 98:3'>Psa 98:3</a></em>, understanding himself as representative of all those worldwide in future ages who would 'see' God’s salvation, His 'Jesus'. The translation here is difficult, and the idea is probably that he understood that this child was being prepared for exhibition in the presence of all the Gentile peoples; they in their time would see what he was now seeing. This idea is confirmed in :32.</p>


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<p><em>A light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel</em>- The light of Messiah was to be what Israel gloried in, and they were to share that light to the Gentiles. Here we have another reference to the great commission; the glorious light of Israel was to be revealed by them to the world. Simeon had in mind <em><a href='B:290 60:1-3'>Isa 60:1-3</a></em>, where Israel were to arise and shine just as their Messiah would. As the Lord said, "you are the light of the world", just as He personally was the light of the world. And because of that, the Gentiles would come to that light in Zion, just as Simeon had come into the temple and see the light. He is presented as representative of all future believers, and he himself perceived this.</p>


text:
<p><em>And his father and his mother were marvelling at the things which were spoken concerning him</em>- There must have been certain similarities of personality type between the Lord and His mother. Thus in <em><a href='B:490 2:33'>Luk 2:33</a></em> Mary “marvelled”, and the same word is used about Jesus in <em><a href='B:470 8:10'>Mat 8:10</a></em> and <em><a href='B:480 6:6'>Mar 6:6</a></em>. Again we have here an essay in His humanity. And there is another echo of the Joseph story. "The men marvelled" at Joseph’s discernment. Ditto for the Lord Jesus- it is emphasized (<em><a href='B:470 8:27'>Mat 8:27</a></em>; Mat 98; <em><a href='B:470 9:33'>Mat 9:33</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 21:20'>Mat 21:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 21:42'>Mat 21:42</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 22:22'>Mat 22:22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:14'>Mat 27:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 2:33'>Luk 2:33</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 4:27'>Joh 4:27</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 7:15'>Joh 7:15</a></em>). Mary had perceived that her son was God’s Son, the Messiah; but clearly the extent of the prophetic implications of this were not fully perceived by her. Hence she marvelled at the Biblical allusions made by Simeon.</p>


text:
<p><em>And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother-</em>Addressing himself to the mother rather than the father is another of Luke's emphases upon the high status of women before God. Simeon surely perceived that this was a virgin birth, and Joseph was not the true father- hence he addressed Mary.</p><p><em>Behold, this child is set for the falling and the rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against</em>- Simeon knew that the good news of Messiah's coming was to balanced against the fact that the Old Testament taught that He would be the rock of offence over which many would stumble and be broken (<em><a href='B:290 8:14'>Isa 8:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:520 9:33'>Rom 9:33</a></em>; <em><a href='B:670 2:8'>1Pe 2:8</a></em>). But he knew that many would rise up broken from that encounter into new life, and the "rising again" also therefore has reference to resurrection at the last day. He would be "spoken against", and yet out of that experience of rejecting Him, some would repent and rise again. Indeed, in <em><a href='B:670 2:8'>1Pe 2:8</a></em> Peter seems to assume that all believers will go through this- stumbling in spiritual failure, and yet rising again to new life in Him. Luke will go on in <em><a href='B:490 20:18'>Luk 20:18</a></em> to record the Lord developing this logic- He is a stone, and we either fall upon Him and join the community of the broken, or He shall fall upon us as members of this world, and grind us to powder in condemnation- clearly alluding to the stone of Daniel 2. Luke in Acts likes to use this idea of 'speaking against' for the opposition towards the message of the Lord Jesus and those "in Him", who were likewise spoken against; for all that is true of the Lord personally becomes true for we who are in Him (<em><a href='B:510 13:45'>Act 13:45</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 28:19'>Act 28:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 28:22'>Act 28:22</a></em>). We see in all this how the Lord works through our stumbling; there is hardly a strong believer I know who has not at some time seriously stumbled in their walk.</p>


