Jesus is the pinnacle of God’s interactions with mankind and of his revelation to humanity, and he is superior to all other conduits of God’s will to man. Despite the greatness of Moses, who was the Lord’s vessel to communicate with the Israelites, the writer of Hebrews informs us, “Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.” Hebrews 3:3. Yet the Jews rejected him and he is still being rejected today.
The people of Israel rebelled against Moses after he led them out of Egypt, crossing through the Red Sea on dry land in what must have been an incredibly exhilarating escape that one would think would have left a lasting impression upon them. They grumbled and complained to Moses, “Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” Exodus 14:12.
The Israelites did not trust in the Lord, therefore, many were denied entrance into the promised land because of their unbelief. God said to Moses, “When the Lord heard what you said, he was angry and solemnly swore: ‘No one from this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your ancestors, except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land he set his feet on, because he followed the Lord wholeheartedly. Because of you the Lord became angry with me also and said, ‘You shall not enter it, either. But your assistant Joshua son of Nun, will enter it. Encourage him, because he will lead Israel to inherit it. And the little ones that you said would be taken captive, your children who do not yet know good from bad – they will enter the land. I will give it to them and they will take possession of it.” Deuteronomy 1:34-39. Moses never entered the promised land.
Throughout their history, Israel rebelled against the Lord and put to death the prophets of God until at last he sent his one and only Son to show them the path to God’s kingdom. Sound familiar? Jesus illustrated this tragic pattern of behavior with the parable of the tenants in which he also conveyed the outcome of his own ministry on earth. Mathew wrote, “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.
The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.
But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance. So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” Mathew 21:33-40.
Jesus said in Mathew 23:37-38, “O Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate.”
The Jews took the greatest gift God ever bestowed upon them and cast him out. They rejected the Messiah they longed for because he did not fit the presuppositions they had of a military leader who would defeat the Romans and deliver the people from their current oppression. How short sighted they were. After all Jesus had taught them about investing in treasures in heaven and the temporal nature of this world, they could not grasp the lessons of eternal life.
Even though the prophet Isaiah had clearly foretold the treatment the Messiah would receive, no one could connect the dots. In the 53rd chapter of the Book of Isaiah, we are told of the tragedy of the Christ. “He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgement he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” Isaiah 53: 2-12.
After Jesus was arrested, he was questioned, beaten and flogged before he was crucified (Mathew 27:26-31; Mark 15:15-20; John 19:1-3). A typical Roman flogging was carried out using a flagrum, which was comprised of a leather whip, with leather thongs or cords of varying lengths, in which small iron balls and sheep bone fragments were fixed at intervals. The leather balls would deeply bruise the victim’s flesh while the bone fragments would cut into the skin and subcutaneous tissue. Eventually the underlying muscles would be lacerated and exposed and the victim would experience severe pain and blood loss. The word excruciating is derived from the Latin word excruciare, from cruciare, to crucify. The flagullation itself was called the half death because many victims died shortly after.
Death during crucifixion was usually the result of asphyxiation. Since the victim’s shoulders would dislocate from being hung by the arms, they were unable to breathe properly. When they struggled to inhale, they were forced to push up with their legs from the nails in their feet. Without enough oxygen being inhaled, carbon dioxide would build up in the blood resulting in high levels of carbonic acid. This would in turn cause damage to the capillaries and watery fluid would leak into the surrounding tissues. The repeated pushing up against the wooden cross would aggravate the already exposed back muscles. Once the victim was no longer able to push up to inhale, they would suffocate.
Jesus was barely recognizable when he was crucified. He was covered in blood, battered and swollen. The Jews had shouted, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!” (Mathew 27:25. The greatest of all men was treated as the least. Yet Jesus never lost his compassion for mankind and found the strength to speak while he hung on the cross. “Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.'” Luke 23:34.
Jesus’s sacrifice was once for all. Therefore, anyone who rejects Christ, rejects salvation. Anyone who rejects Jesus also rejects heaven. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” John 3:16-20.
To fully comprehend the magnitude and the gravity of man’s disrespect of Jesus and his immeasurable love and mercy to forgive us when we repent is to surrender completely to the name above all names (Philippians 2:9). Christ is greater than Moses, greater than the prophets, greater than angels and equal with God. He is the author and finisher of our faith. Our Redeemer who has reconciled man to God by his unselfish sacrifice two millennia ago. He rose from the dead three days after he was crucified and lives forever.
He is calling you.
