“Or do you think that I
cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than
twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26:53)
Over 2000
years ago, three men hung on crosses, side by side, just outside of
Jerusalem. Two of the men were crucified
for crimes they committed, mainly theft (Matthew
27:38), and One was crucified for claiming to be the Son of God
(Matthew
26:63-65; Mark 14:61-64). This man
was Jesus Christ. But because of jealousy,
the Jewish leaders had worked the crowd into a frenzy and demanded the
crucifixion of this innocent man. So
crucify Him they did. And while He was
on the cross, the unbelieving crowd was taunting Him:
“And those passing by were hurling abuse at
Him, wagging their heads and saying, ‘You who are going to destroy the
temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the
cross.’” (Matthew 27:39-40)
Even the
Jewish leaders chimed in:
“In the same way the
chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking Him and
saying:
‘He saved others; He
cannot save Himself. He is the king of
Israel; let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him.’” (Matthew 27:41-42)
But He
didn’t come down from the cross. And
it’s a good thing He didn’t. It was all
in God’s plan. He proved He was the Son
of God by staying on the cross (Psalm
22; Isaiah 53) and later rising from the dead (Matthew 28:5-7). The truth is He needed to stay on Calvary’s
cross so that He would endure the full penalty
for man’s sins (Hebrews 7:24-25). If He
didn’t pay the full price, He would have never risen from the dead, and all mankind
would be lost forever in an eternal lake of fire. Thank God for what He endured!
But let’s
take a look behind the scenes. Matthew
26:53 above tells us that Jesus could have called twelve legions of
angels to stop all this. So, how many
angels would have been sent? We don’t
really know exactly, because a legion doesn’t seem to have been a precise number,
perhaps somewhere between three thousand and six thousand. Anyway, there were certainly thousands and
thousands of angels at the Savior’s disposal.
All He had to do to get out of this predicament was to simply say the
word... and His Father would have stopped this nightmare.
Matthew 18:10 tells us that angels are watching
over the little ones and that these angels continually behold the face of
God. If something is about to happen to
these little ones that’s not in the will of God, He will send an angel… and the
perpetrator is in deep trouble.
Remember
that in the Old Testament a single
angel destroyed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night (2 Kings 19:35). Remember also that two angels utterly
destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and their surrounding areas with
fire and brimstone (Genesis 19:24-25). These
cities are still in ruins today, so much so that we can hardly tell exactly
where they were located.
And once
again, angels were involved when Jesus was on the cross… one word from Him and
the Father would have dispatched an incredible barrage of destruction that the
world had never seen upon these evil men.
Their
destruction would be greater than a nuclear bomb – Jerusalem would not just be
leveled to the ground – it would simply be a smoldering crater left on the
landscape.
No doubt,
these angels were anxiously waiting for a single command from God, the Father,
to take vengeance on these violators.
Perhaps they were perplexed that the Father was even allowing things to
go this far. They knew that Jesus was
absolutely innocent. Why was God not
stopping this? They could hardly bear
watching the Son of God suffer so greatly at the hands of pagan soldiers and
evil religious hypocrites. The angels
were probably saying, “They cannot, they MUST NOT get away with this high
crime!” How could these evil men escape
the wrath of God? Over and over, the
angels were seeing the truth of Jeremiah 17:9 play out in this
scenario:
“The heart is deceitful
above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?” (KJV)
Those evil
men never understood the magnitude of what they were doing. That’s why Jesus said, “…Father, forgive them, for they
do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34). These horrible sinners didn’t fully realize Who
they were attacking and mocking. No
doubt, the angels were saying, “One word from You, Father, and their
destruction will be swift! Send us to
take vengeance, because they fully and perfectly deserve the wrath to come.”
But the
angels waited… and waited… until the Savior of the world was dead. But as hard as it was to comprehend, they
knew that the Father knew exactly what He was doing. He saved the world through this hateful
attack on His Son.
Conclusion
But before
you start thinking, “Those dirty sinners…”, and you criticize them for the
horrible evil they did, know that every
single one of us (past, present and future) was the cause of His suffering that
day. How could I say such a thing? Because we all sin (Romans 3:23) and when we do, we partake
of the guilt of that event. When we sin,
we are giving our approval of what happened on Calvary. We share the blame. WE ALL killed Jesus Christ 2000 years ago,
not just them! We break the law daily and James
2:10 says that breaking only one part of the law means breaking the whole law. Again, we
are just as guilty!
We must
never trivialize sin, any sin. Telling
“little white lies” to get out of trouble is not a trivial offense, because the Bible says that all liars will have their part in the lake of fire (Revelation
21:8). Looking with lust at
someone (who you are not legally married to) is the same as adultery (Matthew
5:27-28) and simply hating your neighbor is akin to murder (Matthew
5:21-22). Breaking the
Commandments of God should not be taken lightly. Jesus said, “No one is good [i.e., morally
excellent] except God alone” (Mark 10:17). That’s why we can only be saved by grace,
through faith – not by our good works (Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:5).
I would
suggest to my Christian friends to find a picture of Jesus on the cross, one
that is quite gory, because crucifixion is indeed a gory event. And carry this picture around with you. So when you are witnessing to an unbeliever
or a lukewarm “Christian” who downplays his sin, just point to the picture and
say, “If your sin is no big deal, then why did THIS have to happen?”
Yes, He
experienced incredible suffering for even our “little” and “insignificant”
sins. Don’t try to say that He was
brutally beaten with a cat-o-nine-tails and mercilessly crucified only for the
sins of people like Adolf Hitler or Saddam Hussein… but not YOURS. Because you…
and I… are part of the sin problem,
too. Don’t justify your sins, or call
them mere “mistakes.” See them for what
they really are. They are a slap in the face
of the Most High God. Your casual sins
are saying, “I don’t really care about what happened on that cross. No big deal.”
May the
Living God and Creator of all grant us repentance for our downplaying of our
sins, and may He let us see the true magnitude and offensiveness of them.
