The Real Meaning Of Christmas:the Day God Died (Part 2) Series

The real meaning of Christmas:the day God died (Part 2)

Gentle reader, We are in a real war "For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual [hosts] of wickedness in the heavenly [places]." Eph. 6

For this month I will present what the cross means to all who are within the reading of my blog I plan to call it "the day God died"

Jesus paid the price of your sins and mine

Dear family,

I will never get over seeing that sight as Christ hung suspended between heaven and earth. His arms outstretched having said to God the Father, "Forgive them they know not what they do" Were you there when we crucified my Lord?

The second Word of Christ was a Word of Salvation was that of intervention to be found in the Gospel of Luke Chapter 23 verse 43

And an inscription also was written over Him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS. (Luke 23:38-43)

"Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, "If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us." But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, "Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? "And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong." Then he said to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom." And Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise."

See: The request of the dying sinner!

Note: The response of the Divine Savior!

Tradition holds that the thief (called the "good thief) was being put to death for insurrection and that his name was Dysmas.

It was no accident that the Lord of Glory was crucified between thieves. There are no accidents in a world that is governed by God. No, Gentle Reader, nothing left to chance or the caprice of man. Whatever man did that day was simply that which God's hand and counsel "determined to be done"

When Pilate gave the order that the Lord Christ Jesus was to be crucified between to Malefactors, all unknown to him he fulfilled the Scriptures of the Hebrew Prophet Isaiah who 700 hundred years before this Roman officer gave his command, had said "... And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53:12)

Why did God order it that His beloved Son should be crucified between criminals? Certainly God had a reason. Was not our blessed Lord crucified to fully demonstrate the unfathomable depths of shame into which He had to descend? Again was not the Savior numbered with transgressors to show the position He occupied as our substitute? He had taken the place of the Passover Lamb that was our place a place of shame, a place of transgressors, the place of criminals commended to death. Again; was He not deliberately humiliated thus by Pilate to exhibit man's estimate of the worth of God Himself- "despised" as well as rejected "But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed." Isa. 53

"He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

When I was younger, fresh out of Seminary, and working to support my ever growing family I met at work a young Hebrew man by the name of Avron "Ron" Albertson and we struck up a friendship. We would go out for lunch together and since Ron was a member of Mensa (A group of people who comprise the top 2% of intelligence) I was quite pleased that he would even want to talk with me. He told or rather asked "You’re not like other Christians that I have met" You don't tell me that I'm a sinner or that it was the Jews that killed Christ and that sort of thing" Why is that"?

At that was our first of many conversations of kosher lunches.

Ron:" You think that I'm going to believe a book written by men"?

Me: "Your folks wrote it"

Ron: "Why don't you tell me I'm a sinner like other Preachers do?"

Me (with a smile) "Do I have to state the obvious?"

Ron: "I suppose you’re going to tell me that the Jews killed Christ"?

Me (with tears in my eyes) "No, Ron, I did!"

"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still [ enemies] sinners, Christ died for us. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."