The Mystery of Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross

"And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And some of the bystanders hearing it said, “Behold, he is calling Elijah.”" [00:00:39]

"A symbol of Christianity, principally, is not a fish or a hammer or a carpenter’s chisel, but a cross, an instrument of torture and pain, of civil execution and death. We are here in a dark place. We are listening to words of immense grief and pain, the meaning of which eludes us." [00:02:25]

"The darkness is meant to symbolize several things: the chaos that characterized the world before the creation of light in Genesis 1:2, the disintegration of all things. Or perhaps it is meant to remind us that before the tenth plague came upon Israel during the time of the exodus, the ninth plague, the plague of darkness that lasted for three days, and three hours here." [00:05:20]

"God did this. It was a miracle, in the definition Dr. Sproul gave earlier this morning. God put His hand across the sun and said, ‘you shall not pass’. Some of you got it! God did it. To signal the exodus of the people of God, the slaying of the Passover lambs to mark the doorposts of the houses of the people of God, as the angel of death passed through the land." [00:07:12]

"Christ our Passover is being slain for us, his blood sprinkled as the angel of death now passes over. Alas! and did my Savior bleed? And did my Sovereign die? Would He devote that sacred head for such a worm as I? Well might the sun in darkness hide and shut its glories in, When Christ the mighty Maker died for man the creature’s sin." [00:08:28]

"“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani” “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” Quotation from Psalm 22. It is interesting to ponder what’s going on in the mind of the Lord Jesus – the human mind of the Lord Jesus – who had spent his entire life pondering, learning the Scriptures, living His life in obedience to the Word of God and what Scripture comes to mind now, here, in the darkness of Calvary, but the 22nd Psalm." [00:09:37]

"There is nothing to guide us here as to what these words mean. There’s nothing in our experience that comes remotely close to this. We can’t approach this passage of Scripture and say, ‘what is this saying about me?’ This is entirely about Him. There are levels at which we must try, attempt to ponder, fathom, this morning." [00:10:52]

"From the Father’s point of view, never did He love His Son more than He does now, yet He is the subject of His abandonment. He is forsaken. Calvin puts it this way: If Christ had died only a bodily death, it would have been ineffectual. Unless His soul shared in the punishment, He would have been the Redeemer of bodies alone." [00:18:38]

"God made Him to be sin for us. So here on the cross of Calvary, sin, the sins of God’s people, the sins of God’s elect, have been reckoned imputed to the Lord Jesus who knew no sin, who had never sinned, who had no original sin and had never violated or broken God’s law, but had kept it perfectly and absolutely." [00:20:34]

"The curtain that separated the outer from the inner, the curtain that had separated where the people met and where sacrifice was offered and the holy presence of God in the temple which was kept, as it were, away from the people by this visual, physical symbol of a curtain that now has been torn apart." [00:40:13]

"Mark is the one who is saying, ‘you know there was a hardened Roman soldier centurion who had seen many crucifixions, perhaps hundreds of them, but there was something about this one that was so dark that it moved him. It moved him in his own soul. And I think that Mark is saying something happened in the heart and spirit and soul of the centurion that he came to new life, that there at the foot of the cross, a little symbol of the power that this cross can affect you, he was born again of the Spirit of God, and he cries, “Truly this was the Son of God.”" [00:44:37]

"Oh my dear friends, the Cross is everything. We preach Christ and Him crucified. At the cross we find out justification. At the cross we find our forgiveness. At the cross we find new life. At the cross we find assurance that He loves us. He loves us that much. The Father loves us that much that He gave His only Begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." [00:45:06]