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That's connectwithskip.com. Now, let's get into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Mary Magdalene was that notorious sinner. The Bible says out of her was cast how many demons, you remember?
Seven demons. So she had a pretty gnarly background. She's the one probably Jesus referred to when He said, The one that has been forgiven much, the same loves much. There she is at the foot of the cross showing love to Jesus. Now, verse 28, after this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, I thirst. Now a vessel full of wine was sitting there, and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. This is the second time they offer Him wine.
The first time, Matthew 27 tells us, He didn't accept it. Because the first time they were giving Him wine mixed with gall. Gall was an analgesic, a pain reliever. It produced a narcotic effect, disassociating a person from the depth of their pain. Jesus refused the medication.
And why is that? Why wouldn't He say, yeah, give me some painkillers? Because He was taking on Himself our sin, the sin of the world. He was, in biblical parlance, drinking the cup of the wrath of God. And when He was drinking the cup of the wrath of God, He didn't want anything but the full measure of that wrath. He knew that He needed to embrace this and feel it all, because He was our substitute. So He embraced and He drank the cup of the wrath of God, so He felt it all. Now, toward the end of His crucifixion, He's about to dismiss His spirit. He says, I thirst.
Now He cries for it. Because the effects of crucifixion, I don't need to go over them again, creates a burning, raging thirst. And so He said one word in Greek, the shortest statement on the cross, dipso, which is, I thirst.
Dipso. And so they filled some hyssop. Now, hyssop is a weed. It grows everywhere in Jerusalem. It has a long stalk, the fluffy end, and they could dip it in wine, it would soak, and then they could, like a sponge, and then they could lift it up so He could drink. But hyssop, interestingly, if you have a Jewish background, you understand, wait a minute, hyssop was that plant at the Passover that they were told to take hyssop and dip the blood of a lamb in it and put it on the lintels and the doorposts of the homes so the death angel would pass over.
That was hyssop. During the moment Jesus is on the cross, thousands of lambs are being killed in the temple, just down the hill. So it's interesting that out of Exodus 20, this hyssop used for the blood of the lambs at Passover, there on Passover, Jesus was given this sour wine to drink. Now, sour wine was probably the cheap wine of legionnaires.
Think Boone's Farm, you know, not a great brand, just like base stuff, just something that was easy to get a hold of back then. They drank it, they had it. So it was when Jesus received the sour wine, he said, it is finished. And bowing his head, he gave up his spirit. Now please notice the words, it is finished. He's not saying, I'm finished, it's all over, this is the end, goodbye cruel world, I'm done for. He didn't say, I'm finished, he'll be back. He didn't say, we're finished, I've worked hard for this movement for years, but boys, this is it, women, this is it, we're done, it's all over now. He said, it is finished.
It was a cry of victory, not defeat. It's a single word in Greek, the word tetelestai. Now tetelestai, that single word had an interesting set of uses. When a servant would fulfill his master's bidding, whatever it was, master said, do this or do that, and a servant completed that, he would go to his master and say, tetelestai, I've finished what you told me to do. Jesus being the servant of the Father, the ultimate servant, this is so appropriate for him to say, it's finished, because Jesus said, I have come to do the will of my Father, and to finish his work. Now on the cross he could say, as a servant to the master, it is finished. But it was also a word that the priests would use when they would inspect the lamb that you would bring to be sacrificed.
Remember how they would look over and make sure that it's without blemish and without spot? If it had no blemish and no spot, the priest would say, tetelestai, it's without blemish. Again, it's an appropriate statement because Jesus, according to Peter, was the lamb without blemish and without spot. The perfect sacrifice, tetelestai, the perfect lamb. As a priest, but the lamb offering himself, he could say, tetelestai.
Third, it was used by artists. When an artist would make a work of art, like a painting or a statue, when it was all done, he'd look from afar and go, tetelestai, it's completed, it's finished, it's done. And you know, it's appropriate that Jesus said tetelestai in that sense also, because when you read the Old Testament, you don't get a complete picture.
You get a prediction here, a prediction there, you get a little bit of the storyline, but then in the New Testament it all comes together and you step back from the plan of God and it's like, ah, what a work of art. What an intricately woven story it is, tetelestai, it is perfect. And number four, it was used by merchants. When something was paid for, when it was finally paid in full, tetelestai can sometimes be translated paid in full. I paid it all. And so we sing, Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. Sin had left its crimson stain, He washed me white as snow.
Tetelestai, it's paid in full. So on the cross when Jesus said, it is finished, not I am finished, not we are finished, it is finished. Which means it's a completed work. We talk and we've told you about the finished work of Jesus Christ before. You can't add to it, you can't take from it. Which means when you try to add to it, you are insulting God. When you try to say, well, God, I hope you will accept me, I'm going to try to be a really good boy so that you'll love me and accept me and maybe one day I'll go to heaven by being a good person. How many times do you talk to people and you ask them, are you sure you're going to heaven?
Well, I sure hope so, I'm working hard on it. That's an insult to God. That's saying what Jesus did on the cross wasn't enough, wasn't paid in full. Jesus said it is enough, that's what tetelestai is all about.
Paid in full, the picture is complete, the servant has done the bidding of his master, it's all done, He said, tetelestai, paid in full. Therefore, verse 31, because it was the preparation day, that the body should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for the Sabbath was a high day, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, that they might be taken away. Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him, but when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. If crucifixion wasn't bad enough, once somebody died on the cross, and usually a victim lasted two to three days, Jesus, as we mentioned last week and left you hanging, after six hours, by three o'clock in the afternoon, Jesus was dead. But once the victim was on the cross, the Romans would, after a period of time, walk away and let that person stay on that cross for days until they suffocated. Now, the way crucifixion worked is because a person's arms are stretched high above them and their feet are stapled down below them, it puts their lungs in a place where they can't get air or expel air, so they pull up on the spike, push up on the feet to take a breath in, push up again to let it out.
Eventually paralysis sets in the pectoralis major muscles and you die of suffocation. But again, that could last for days. The Romans, once that person died, let the body stay on the cross for days after that. So it could be for a week or two.
So scavenger birds, dogs would come in and tear at the flesh and the stench would be horrible. That's how they did it. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we return to Skip's teaching, misunderstandings about Jesus abound. Some see him as a prophet, others as a moral teacher, and still others as just a myth or mere historical figure. But the Bible tells a different story about who Jesus is. We want to help you know the real Jesus of the Bible by sending you Skip Heitzig's nine-message CD series, Who Is This Jesus? In this eye-opening series, Pastor Skip addresses common misconceptions about Jesus, clarifying both Jesus' humanity and his divinity to equip you to confidently answer questions about who Jesus really is. We'll send you the Who Is This Jesus series, as well as Skip's booklet for new believers titled, Life Change, as thanks for your gift of $50 or more to reach more people with God's love through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copy when you give. Now, let's get back to Skip for more of today's teaching. The problem is it's Passover night. Lambs are being sacrificed, these religious folks want to get home and have the meal with their families. So hypocritical. And that's because of a text in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy chapter 21.
I'll just read it to you. Deuteronomy 21, verse 22 and 23. If a man is committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, for he who is hanged is accursed of God.
Now, that's Jewish law, not Roman law. Romans kept them up there for days, but these Jews wanted to get the bodies down because it was according to their law, and they want to go home, have the body buried, celebrate the Passover, it's over. So they ask, could you break the legs of the prisoners? Which sounds horrible, but if you think about dying on a cross for two or three days to have your legs being broken, now you can't pull up or push up to take in or let out a breath so you die quickly. It's an act of mercy.
Instead of letting that person linger on hour after hour, day after day gets it over quickly. So they would die of suffocation but quicker because they had no leverage to push up on. But when they came to Jesus, verse 33, and they saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers pierced his side with the spear, and immediately blood and water came out, and he who has seen, that's John, has testified. And his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth so that you may believe. For these things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, not one of his bones shall be broken. And again, another Scripture says, they will look on him whom they have pierced. When that sword went on the side of Jesus and blood and water came out, John saw that as unusual, and he wanted to write about it and even say, look, I ain't lying. I'm telling you the truth. I saw this, and I'm saying this so that you would believe. Why would he do that? What does that mean?
A couple of things. Number one, when John was writing his gospel and writing his epistles, there was a group that was emerging in the assemblies of the early church who said Jesus did not have a physical body. They were called Gnostics. You've heard of Gnostics, Gnosticism? So there's a group of Gnostics called Docetic Gnostics, and Docetism or Docetic Gnosticism is a belief that says Jesus was not human. He did not have a real human body.
John goes, false doctrine. I was there at the cross. I saw what happened. He was dead, and blood and water came out. That didn't happen to spirits. That happens to human bodies. The fact that water, though, came out with the blood is interesting because it shows, according to some medical experts, that Jesus died of cardiac failure. It is post-mortem evidence when you have that kind of gushing forth of fluid, serum, pericardial fluid, that the pericardium, that sac that surrounds the heart because of the process of crucifixion, puts such pressure on the heart that Jesus died of heart failure. And what's interesting about this is, morticians call this the broken heart syndrome. They have noted that when a person is under great stress, like they're older and they find out that their husband or wife dies, that they will sometimes die soon thereafter.
And it's of this kind of pressure in the heart, and they call it a broken heart syndrome. I found that interesting because if this is post-mortem evidence that Jesus' heart was crushed by the pericardial fluid, it would not be inaccurate to say Jesus died of a broken heart. I mean, imagine what He has been through, not just physically, but spiritually.
The weight of all of the sins of humanity ever committed, past, present, future, on Him experiencing the full measure of the wrath of Almighty God. It took a toll on Him physically, but also emotionally, spiritually. Separation from the Father, He cried out, My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?
It would be accurate to say He died of a broken heart. After this, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. And so he came and took the body of Jesus. And Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about 100 pounds. Joseph of Arimathea is a believer, a secret believer, but he is mentioned in all four Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all mention Joseph of Arimathea, and they mention him only in the burial of Jesus.
It was his tomb that Jesus will occupy. He is called a just man. He is called a righteous man in the New Testament. Matthew and Luke give him that designation.
Luke says he was waiting for the kingdom of God. Now, people, commentators, pastors, you know, when we give sermons, we sometimes, unfortunately, like to take potshots at people in the biblical text, and I've read and I've heard people say, well, Joseph of Arimathea was afraid of Jesus. He was afraid of testifying. He was a timid, weak, almost inconsequential believer, denying the Lord almost. He was so afraid.
Listen, he's a young believer. The Roman government, I mean, all of the disciples fled. At least Joseph came.
Peter and the rest are locked up in an upper room. At least he came afterwards. Yeah, he was a secret disciple, but give him time to grow.
Let him off the hook. He'll grow up, he'll grow strong, and they say the same thing about Nicodemus. Nicodemus was the man, you remember, who came to Jesus by night, the Pharisee, and how many times have we heard people say, well, he came to Jesus by night because he was so afraid to come to Jesus during the day and be seen that he was looking after Jesus.
Not necessarily. It could be that Nicodemus had a busy schedule. It could be that he wanted alone time away from the crowds and nighttime was better for that. The marvel isn't that he came to Jesus by night. The marvel is he came to Jesus at all. You know, he was a religious leader, but he came. And now Joseph and Jesus come again. At the time that Jesus needs to be buried, they perform this last act of mercy.
Somebody once said, a friend is somebody who comes in when the rest of the world has gone out. Everybody's left Jesus. These two men enter the scene, and they take care of his body. They took, verse 40, the body of Jesus bounded in strips of linen with spices, as was the custom of the Jews to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had been laid. So there they laid Jesus because of the Jews' preparation day for the tomb was nearby. Now do you remember, I think it was last week, I told you that if you stood on the walls of the old city of Jerusalem and you looked out from the Damascus Gate, you could see a hill that looks like a skull. And that is called Gordon's Calvary.
I'll take you there when you go to Jerusalem this next year. Now, Gordon's Calvary, the reason it's called that is in 1842, a British general was standing on the Damascus Gate before the Arabs put that bus station there, looked out, and he saw in the mountain what looked like a skull. And it just fit the biblical description, so they kind of snooped around there, and he bought the land.
Today, that land is still owned by a British corporation called the Garden Tomb Association. So they bought this land, and then they started excavating, and they excavated a cistern. You know what a cistern is?
It's not like the female version of brethren, your brethren and cistern. It's... A cistern is a big hole dug in the rock to hold water. And they found one of the largest cisterns in the entire country of Israel right there next to that skull. And they found a wine press, and so they knew, hmm, this was a garden. It was a garden of a rich person next to this skull hill. They kept digging a little more, and they found a tomb, a tomb attached to the garden right next to the place of crucifixion. The tomb dated 2,000 years ago. So if you go to Israel today, it's beautifully preserved as an ancient garden.
It's quiet for the most part, except the buses when they honk. But you can walk over, and you can see the skull on the hill, and then you can walk over and see the tomb that is empty. And we take communion there. So because of that, many believe that was the tomb where Jesus rose from the dead.
But close on this thought. Jesus was on the cross, and what is he experiencing? Darkness, burning thirst, right? He said, I thirst. There were three hours of darkness. So he's experiencing darkness, burning thirst, and separation from God. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Separation from God, burning thirst, darkness.
What does that sound like? It sounds like hell. In Hebrews 2, the author says Jesus tasted death for every man. In that moment on the cross, in those hours on the cross, Jesus experienced a level of suffering, separation from the Father, darkness around him, a burning, raging thirst so that you would never have to. What we see depicted here is the truth of 2 Corinthians 5, 21. God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. On the cross, Jesus was separated from God so you never would have to be. On the cross, Jesus experienced thirst so that your thirst would be quenched. Jesus paid it all.
It is finished. We're glad you joined us today. Before you go, remember that when you give $50 or more to help reach more people with the gospel through Connect with Skip Heitzig, we'll send you Pastor Skip's series, Who Is This Jesus?, and his booklet, Life Change, to help you better understand both who Jesus is and why you can trust what the Bible says and who you are as a believer in Christ. To request your copy of these resources, call 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash offer. For more from Skip, be sure to check out the many resources available at connectwithskip.com slash store. Come back next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection Make a connection At the foot of the crossing Cast your burdens on His word Make a connection Connection Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
