Day 90: Crucifixion Part 1

March 31

Today's Connected Passages: 

• Numbers 21:4-9 [John 3:13-18, 8:21-30, 12:20-36] 
• Deut. 21:22-23 [Galatians 3:10-14] 
• Psalm 22; 31:5, 69:21, 109:25  
• Amos 8:9, Zephaniah 1:15
• Isaiah 52:13-53:12 [Matthew 8:14-17; Acts 8:26-40; 1 Peter 2:18-25]

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the Canon Connected, where we read the connections, see the connections, and study the connections of the Bible. Thank you so much for joining us here on day number 90 of the Canon Connected. And today also happens to be the first of three days of connected readings we're going to do on the crucifixion of Jesus. We just came off of Palm Sunday doing two days of readings of that. And then we looked at a series of passages that have of things that happen during Holy Week from Monday to Wednesday. And now we are doing three days of Good Friday, three days of the crucifixion, because there is such an abundance of material in the Old Testament that we're not even going to get to the actual crucifixion stories until Friday. But there is so much that points to it, that alludes to it, that distinctly prophesies about this crucifixion, that it takes two whole days of reading. And I wouldn't even presume to think that we got them all in this reading plan. I would never think that the Bible is too rich and too deep. There's probably a lot of things that I've missed. But even with that knowledge, knowing just all the things we're going to see over the next couple of days that were prophecies written hundreds of years before Jesus Christ was crucified, the things that God inspired people to know and be able to write, the things he put in his law, the things he put in their songbook, it is absolutely just awe-inspiring to see that God completely inspired the Bible the way that he did. And he inspired countless passages about crucifixion. We begin in Numbers chapter 21, which is a very strange story, and it's the kind of story you would never expect to point to Jesus, but it absolutely does. The people are complaining because that's what they always did. We've talked about this before. We did days on reading on fasting, you know, as a response to this sort of thing from the Old Testament people. We're going to see it again at Thanksgiving because we're going to do two days of grumbling and complaining in the Bible in contrast to giving thanks. But here it's a direct connection, a direct prophecy of Jesus because the people are bitten by the poisonous snakes. The people cry out to be healed. And God has Moses fashioned, you know, a bronze snake to put on a pole to lift up so that people can look at it and be healed. And I cannot believe that this very idea is exactly what Jesus is talking about right before he talks about John 3.16. The most famous gospel verse, the heart of the gospel verse that we that we have in the history of the English-speaking world, and I presume even other parts of the world, is directly connected to the bronze serpent being lifted up so people can be healed. Jesus is the bronze serpent, as strange as it sounds. And so that's why I also included in John chapter 8, because he says the Son of Man must be lifted up as the bronze serpent in chapter 3. Well, what is he talking about? He makes it clear in John chapter 8 and John chapter 12. He is going to be lifted up on a cross. He is going to be lifted up in a manner of how he is going to die. That's why I included those, those direct connections, because Jesus repeatedly referred to being lifted up. The cross was supposed to be him being lifted up in shame and scorn, and yet God used it for him to be lifted up for people to find salvation. Is that not the inside out, upside down, countercultural, counterintuitive, completely backwards, 180 degrees from what we think God of Christianity? And then Deuteronomy 21, very similarly, they had a law in Deuteronomy that a person who committed a crime worthy of death is to be executed and be hung on a tree. How awful, okay? And even if you disagree with capital punishment in the modern era, it is absolutely beautiful how God used that because it says they had to take them down that very day because they were cursed for being on a tree. And Paul explains it by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in Galatians as Jesus Christ took the curse of death for us. And it ties in directly to Deuteronomy 21. And I truly think even the fact that Jesus had to be taken down because it was the Sabbath is again a reflection of Deuteronomy 21 as well, which you're going to read on Friday, because they did not want bodies to be up there on the Sabbath. And so just as in Deuteronomy 21, they were taken down, it points to Jesus. But definitely the curse. They were cursed for being hung on a tree. They were cursed for being executed. And that's the exact curse Jesus took for us. The curse of death. But, you know, nearly a millennia, a thousand years before crucifixion, you know, happened to Jesus, and even hundreds of years before it was a thing, Psalm 22 spells it out in detail perfectly. The things you read in Psalm 22 that you're going to see exactly, and you have seen, I'm sure many of you have read these crucifixion stories many times in your life, but you're going to see the exact things that Psalm 22 is talking about in the crucifixion story, and not just the details of crucifixion and not just the mocking and the pain and the actual death part of it, but even Jesus quoting, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Presumably so that people would understand the entire Psalm, not just the first part that he feels abandoned and forsaken, but that he's going to be delivered. He is going to experience resurrection because that's what Psalm 22 says. Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, Genesis 22. A lot of people believe those are the three most crystal clear depictions of Jesus in the entire Old Testament. And that's not where it stops with Psalms. How many Psalms? The psalm book points to Jesus. How many of them? All of it, we've seen the Psalms point to Palm Sunday. We're going to see Psalms point to the resurrection. Psalm 16 clearly does. That's how they preached it in the book of Acts and just about all their sermons in Acts, pointing back to Psalm 16. And now we see Psalm 22, but also other parts of this song book pointing crystal clearly to the crucifixion of Jesus. Psalm 31, 5, into your hands I commit my spirit. Jesus quoted that in Luke 23. Psalm 69, but instead they gave me poison for food. They offer me sour wine or vinegar for my thirst. That's exactly what they did while Jesus was on the cross. Psalm 109 25, I am a joke to people everywhere. When they see me, they shake their heads or wag their heads in scorn. Exactly what Jesus' opponents and enemies did to him when he was on the cross. It's unbelievable how many references to crucifixion there are just in the Psalms. And then a couple of prophecies, in my opinion, of how it was going to go dark from 12 o'clock to 3 o'clock. Amos 9, and by the way, I got this from Brad Ryan, my pastor, here and where I go to church, because he preaches this kind of thing all the time. He preaches the whole counsel of God. He makes these connections and he always has, long before this reading plan was a thing. But he was talking about Matthew 27. He brought up Amos 8:9. In that day says the sovereign Lord, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth while it is still day. Is there any chance that that's not supposed to be a reference to the crucifixion? What time of day did it go dark? Noon. In Zephaniah 1.15, it will be a day when the Lord's anger is poured out. This is a different judgment, of course, but it's still a prophecy. It could be fulfilled two different ways. A day of terrible distress and anguish, a day of ruin and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness. That's exactly what happened when Jesus was crucified. And what about Isaiah 52, 13 through Isaiah 53, 12? Again, no better picture in the Old Testament of Jesus than this. It spells it out so clearly exactly how he was going to die, the experiences he was going to have, the emotions he was going to have. And even likely, I think verse 11, based on the Dead Sea Scrolls, is a reference to resurrection. We've talked about that. But it's specifically the predominant thought is atonement because of the death of Jesus, okay? Despised and rejected by men, led as a lamb to the slaughter. And you see these connections in the New Testament that aren't even about the crucifixion accounts because Isaiah 53 is again just so beautiful and it's just so magnificent it can't even be contained in regards to Jesus to the actual crucifixion stories. It is used as again him healing people in Matthew 8, okay, when Jesus arrived at Peter's house. Peter's mother-in-law was sick and he healed her. By his stripes we are healed. Acts 8, it actually tells the salvation story. Again, the man, the Ethiopian eunuch, was saved by the story. It says, so beginning with this same scripture, Isaiah 53, Philip told him the good news about Jesus. He preached the gospel from Isaiah 53. And he got saved because of Jesus' suffering death and his resurrection. And then 1 Peter 2, how about this? The crucifixion of Jesus, his death, the way that he died. Okay, the Isaiah 53 version of it is not just about our salvation, but as I've said many times, it's about our sanctification as well, our becoming more like Jesus. Because he uses uh the Isaiah 53 and 1 Peter 2 to tell us how to live in response to unfair treatment by people in authority. We live like Jesus lived. And yes, this is a good Friday teaching because Jesus died in a certain way, like a lamb led to the slaughter, saying, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing. And that is our attitude to people who oppose us, generally speaking. But there are exceptions to that, of course, we'll talk about later in different readings. But how rich, how deep, how wide, how amazing are these Old Testament passages that point to crucifixion. It is truly mind-boggling to think that people who lived hundreds of years, possibly even up to a thousand years, you know, and even going back to Deuteronomy 15 to 1400 years before Jesus wrote these things, and then Jesus came and fulfilled them so perfectly. Cursed is he who hangs on a tree. That's Jesus! If you can't read Deuteronomy 21 and not think of Jesus, you're missing it. That's just half of them. Because tomorrow we're gonna look at even more Old Testament prophecies with New Testament fulfillments outside of the crucifixion accounts. We're saving those for Friday. The four in the gospels, and then two very, very brief two two verse um uh um commentaries on them from Paul and from the author of Hebrews. But there's so much more, and it's again just like freaking from a fire hydrant. I love this stuff, and I hope that again, seeing these connections makes Good Friday, you know, the best experience that you've had so far. And so please come back and be with us again tomorrow as we continue to on the crucifixion and Good Friday. Read the connections, see the connections, stay the connections. Thank you.