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D A I L Y D E V O T I O N A L
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STUDI ES IN THE NEW TE S TAMENT
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FOR INDIVIDUAL MEDITATION
AND FAMILY WORSHIP
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ByR . A. TORREY
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ing Jesus bore (Ps. 6 9 :20; Matt. 27:46), but He does not ask our pity (Luke 23 :27, 28; Heb. 12:2). The crucifixion .o f Jesus was a part o f God’s eternal purpose o f love and redemption, but that does not in any wise lessen the guilt o f those who crucified Him (Acts 2:23). The crucifixion was an exact fulfillment o f prophecies made hun dreds o f years before (Ps. 22:16; Isa. 53:5; Zech. 12:10). Jesus Lad companions in His shame and suffering, two robbers. Seemingly they were crucified with Him to add to His dishonor, but really one o f th e' greatest consolations o f that hour came from one o f those two malefactors (Luke ¿3: 40-43). It proved a wonderful priv ilege for one o f those who hung there with Jesus and suffered with Him, and it is a wonderful privilege for us today to suf- wer with Him (Rom. 8:17). Saturday, September 2 . John 79 : 23 , 24 . Jesus was not only murdered, they robbed Him while they murdered Him, and today while men crucify Him they would also- rob Him. The Unitarians seek to rob Him o f that adoration and glory that are rightly His. The ambitious ecclesiastic would rob Him o f His headship over the church. The cowardly church member robs Him o f the confession that is His due. Are you rob bing your crucified Lord? What a reve lation it is o f the hardness o f men’s hearts that they could gamble for the garments o f the Son o f God right at the foot o f the cross where He hangs in awful agony. But today we see even professed followers o f Jesus seeking their own petty interests even at the foot o f the cross. All that is recorded here came to pass in exact and minutely lit eral fulfillment o f prophecy (Ps. 22:18). The more one studies Messianic prophecy the more He stands amazed at the way in
Friday, September I. 1 John 19 : 17 - 22 . y
“ They Crucified Him.” What a world of meaning is wrapped up in those words, What a revelation there is on the one hand o f the wickedness o f the human heart and its hatred against God. God sent His own Son to men, the perfect manifes tation o f His own goodness and love, and “ they crucified Him.” How these .awful words lay the pride o f man in the dust. Human nature is just the same today. If the Lord Jesus were to appear on earth today as He appeared before, and live as He lived before, teach as He taught before, make the same demands upon men that He made when He was on earth the first time, and upbraid the greed and oppression and hypocrisy of civil and ecclesiastical powers as He did then, they would crucify Him again. Indeed many are crucifying Him today. The bitterest hatred this world ever showed was not visited upon a bad man, but upon the best man that ever lived on earth, the perfect man, the God man. This shows what man is at heart. It shows how all our boasts about the inherent nobility o f man are false and foolish. But on the other hand, what a revelation there is also in these wofds, ‘They crucified Him,” of the love o f Christ to us. He might have been sitting upon a throne, the throne of the universe, but instead He is hanging upon a cross o f shame and agony and death. Why? Because o f His love to you and me. He leaves the throne and hangs on the cross that we may escape the cross and sit upon the throne (Gal. 3:10, 13; 2 Cor. 5:21; 8 :9 ). The pain that Jesus suf fered as He hung upon that fcross no imag ination can conceive, and He (suffered it all for us (Isa. 53:6). The physical suffering was not by any means the severest suffer
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