Forgiveness...the act of forgiving. This is a concept we all know. It is a concept we all know we should practice. Why is it so hard? I’ve struggled with this many times in my life. I struggle with it even today. I’m sure I’ll struggle with it in the future but I’m better at it today than I was ten years ago, five years ago, a year ago, and even better than I was yesterday.
How many times is forgiveness mentioned in the Bible? The word “forgiveness” is mentioned in the NIV bible fourteen times. Once in the Old Testament and thirteen times in the New Testament.
The concept of forgiveness is mentioned more frequently. For example, the word “forgive” appears forty-two times in the Old Testament and thirty-three times in the New Testament. The word “forgiven” appears seventeen times in the Old Testament and twenty-eight times in the New Testament. The word “forgiving” appears six times in the Old Testament and once in the New Testament.
The word “forgiveness” appears in the NIV in the following verses:
- “But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.” (Psalms 130:4)
- “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:28)
- “And so John came, baptising in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (Mark 1:4)
- “to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins,” (Luke 1:77)
- “He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (Luke 3:3)
- “and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” (Luke 24:47)
- “Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’” (Acts 2:38)
- “God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Saviour that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.” (Acts 5:31)
- “All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” (Acts 10:43)
- “Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.” (Acts 13:38)
- “to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” (Acts 26:18)
- “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace” (Ephesians 1:7)
- “in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:14)
- “In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (Hebrews 9:22)
Matthew 6:14-15 reads, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
According to Jesus (these are the “red” words), forgiving someone is essential for our own salvation in God’s eyes. Who are we to question Jesus? We must release the other person from blame, give it up to God, and move on. This does not mean we have to forget. As a matter of fact, that is probably impossible. Just don’t take it back from God. Make it His to keep.
There is nothing quite like the feeling of forgiving someone. It is a feeling of freedom. When we refuse to forgive someone, we are chained to the anger and resentment that will eventually consume us. It truly is like a cancer that eats us from the inside out. Lewis Smedes wrote this about forgiveness in his book Forgive and Forget, “When you release the wrongdoer from the wrong, you cut a malignant tumor out of your inner life. You set a prisoner free, but you discover that the real prisoner was yourself.”
I’ve hopefully given you some things to think about but I want to ask again, what is forgiveness? The Bible points us to Jesus and His desire, if not need, to save us from our sins. Peter said in Acts 10:39-43, “We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen – by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Matthew 18:21-22 records, “Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “‘Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother who sins against me? Up to seven times?’ Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not just seven times but seventy-seven times!’” We must continue to forgive to receive God’s blessing. It is His will.
As we get closer to Easter, we need to remember that Jesus died on the Cross to forgive us of our sins. In the last moments of His life, He called out to God. Do you remember what he said? He said, “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do?” God forgave them and He still forgives us because of that one moment. Can you do the same?
Crucifixion was invented by the Persians between 300-400 B.C. It was “perfected” by the Romans in the first century B.C. Crucifixion is arguably the most painful death ever invented by man and is where we get the term, “excruciating.” It was reserved primarily for the most vicious of criminals.
After His beating, Jesus walked to Golgotha on a path now known as the Via Dolorosa, or the “way of suffering.” The total distance has been estimated at 650 yards. It is a narrow street of stone, probably surrounded by markets in Jesus’ time. He was led through the crowded street, carrying the cross His shoulders. The crossbar alone probably weighed between 80 to 110 pounds. Jesus was surrounded by Roman soldiers. One of them carried a titulus, a sign which announced His crime of being “the King of the Jews” in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. On the way, Jesus was unable to carry the cross. Some theorize that He may have fallen while going down the steps of the Antonio Fortress. His pain from the fall would be immeasurable because of the previous wounds He sustained from the scourging. Simon of Cyrene (North Africa), who was apparently affected by these events, was summoned to help.
Jesus followed Simon to Golgotha, the highest point in Jerusalem, where the crucifixion took place. Once there, as a gesture of “Roman kindness,” the prisoner was offered a mixture of vinegar (gall) and wine as a mild anesthetic. This anesthetic was refused by Jesus so He bore it all for us.
The procedure of crucifixion may be summarized as follows. The cross was put on the ground and the victim laid upon it. Now, I’m assuming that Jesus was not laid gently on the cross but thrown down on the cross. Nails about 7 inches long and with a diameter of 3/8” were driven into His wrists. The points would go into the vicinity of the median nerve, causing shocks of pain to radiate through the arms. It was possible to place the nails between the bones so that no fractures (or broken bones) occurred. Studies have shown that nails were probably driven through the small bones of the wrist, since nails in the palms of the hand would not support the weight of a body. In ancient terminology, the wrist was considered to be part of the hand.
The cross was then lifted into place and the nails were driven into His feet. The positioning of the feet is probably the most critical part of the mechanics of crucifixion. First the knees were flexed about 45 degrees and the feet were flexed bent downward an additional 45 degrees until they were parallel the vertical pole. An iron nail about 7-9 inches long was driven through the feet between the 2nd and 3rd metatarsal bones. In this position the nail would sever the dorsal pedal artery of the foot, but the resultant bleeding would be insufficient to cause death.
The resulting position on the cross sets up a horrific sequence of events which results in a slow, painful death. Having been pinned to the cross, the victim now has an impossible position to maintain. With His knees flexed at about 45 degrees, Jesus must bear his weight with the muscles of the thighs. However, this is an almost impossible task (try to stand with your knees flexed at 45 degrees for 5 minutes). As the strength of His legs gave out, the weight of His body was transferred to His arms and shoulders. The result is that within a few minutes of being placed on the cross, His shoulders became dislocated. Minutes later His elbows and wrists became dislocated. The result of these dislocations is that His arms were likely 6-9 inches longer than normal.
With His arms dislocated at all joints, considerable body weight is transferred to the chest, causing the rib cage to be pulled out and upward in a state of perpetual inhalation. In order to exhale, Jesus must push down on his feet to allow the rib muscles to relax. The problem was that He cannot push very long because His legs were cramping and He was in extreme pain. As time went on, Jesus was less and less able to bear weight on his legs, causing further dislocation of the arms and further raising of the chest wall, making breathing more and more difficult. As you can imagine, every time He pushed up His back scraped along the cross, causing further damage to His wounds from the scourging. This went on for hours.
The result of this process was a series of catastrophic events to Jesus’ body. Because He could not maintain adequate ventilation of the lungs, the blood oxygen level began to decline and the blood CO2 level began to rise. Rising CO2 levels stimulate the heart to beat faster in order to increase the delivery of oxygen.
However, due to the way He was attached to the cross and the physical things that it caused, Jesus could not physically deliver more oxygen and His rising heart rate only increased oxygen demand. This process causes a vicious cycle of increasing oxygen demand (which cannot be met) followed by an ever-increasing heart rate. After several hours, His heart began to fail and His lungs collapsed and filled up with fluid, which further decreased oxygen delivery to the tissues. The blood loss and hyperventilation combined to cause severe dehydration. That’s why Jesus said, “I thirst.”
Over a period of several hours the combination of collapsing lungs, a failing heart, dehydration, and the inability to get adequate oxygen supplies caused His death. Jesus couldn’t breathe properly and slowly suffocated to death. At three o’clock in the afternoon Jesus said, “It is finished.” And then He died…for us.
Philippians 2:5-11
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Mark 15:1-20
A couple of years ago, I researched the physical things that happened to Jesus prior to and during his crucifixion. I’m going to try to describe to you the experiences that He endured. This week I will be covering the scourging of Jesus.
Pilate ordered that Jesus be scourged in an extreme manner in an attempt to appease the mob. The whip used in scourging consisted of three or more leather tails that had small metal balls or sheep bones at the end of each tail. As indicated on the Shroud of Turin, the whip used on Jesus had dumbbell-shaped devices at the end of each tail.
Jesus would have been stripped naked and shackled by His wrists to a low column so that He would be in a bent-over position. One or more soldiers would be assigned to deliver the blows from the whip. Standing beside the victim, he would strike in an arc-like fashion across the exposed back. The weight of the metal or bone objects at the ends of the leather thongs would carry them to the front of the body as well as to the back, shoulders, arms, and legs (down to and including the calves). The bits of metal would dig deep into the flesh, ripping small blood vessels, nerves, muscle, and skin.
The injuries sustained during scourging were extensive. Blows to the upper back and rib area caused rib fractures, severe bruising in the lungs, bleeding into the chest cavity and partial or complete pneumothorax (puncture wound to the lung causing it to collapse). As much as a pint of blood could be lost. The victim would periodically vomit, experience tremors and seizures, and have bouts of fainting. Each excruciating strike would elicit shrieks of pain. The victim would be profusely sweating and exhausted, his flesh mangled and ripped, and he would crave water because of the loss of fluid from bleeding.
Fractured ribs would make breathing painful and the victim would only be able to take short, shallow breaths. The dumbbell-shaped balls at the end of the leather strips would lacerate the liver and maybe the spleen.
Jesus’ condition after scourging was serious. The pain and brutality of the torture put Him in early traumatic or injury shock. He was also in early hypovolemic shock because of hemorrhaging from His wounds, vomiting, and diaphoresis.
After the scourging, the soldiers put a scarlet robe on Him, twisted together a crown of thorns, and set it on His head.
They put a staff in His right hand, knelt in front of Him, and mocked him. They spit on Him and took the staff and struck Him on the head again and again. Jesus was then beaten by the Roman soldiers. In mockery, they dressed Him in what was probably the cloak of a Roman officer, colored dark purple or scarlet. He also wore the crown of thorns. Unlike the traditional crown which is depicted by an open ring, the actual crown of thorns may have covered the entire scalp. The thorns may have been 1 to 2 inches long. The gospels state that the Roman soldiers continued to beat Jesus on the head. The blows would drive the thorns into the scalp (one of the most vascular areas of the body) and forehead, causing severe bleeding.
When the soldiers tired or became bored with this “game,” they ripped the robe off of His back. Now imagine removing the bandage off a wound…the robe would have been stuck to the wounds on his back, shoulders, and arms. It was “ripped” from the wounds. This would not only have been painful; it would also re-open the wounds.
Isaiah 52:14 foreshadows, “Just as there were many who were appalled at him – his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness.” He was beaten so severely that even those who knew Him didn’t recognize Him.
Jesus truly did love us to endure such atrocities. Do we love Him this much?
