Seven Last Words
By Dr. George Grant - Posted at Florilegium:
He was the Word of God. And by His Word, all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created as He spoke them into existence. By His Word, all things hold together, all things subsist, that in everything He might be preeminent.He was the king of glory, the Morning Star, the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. He was before all things. In Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.
Amazingly, He was born for this moment. It was for this humiliation, it was for this shameful injustice, it was for this torture that He came into the world. He was made incarnate so that His holy brow might be crowned with thorns. He was made in the likeness of a servant so that He might be mocked by the very ones He had come to seek and save. He left His throne in glory so that His back might bear the stripes for our iniquity, so that His hands and feet and side might be pierced for our transgressions.
Though Pilate had acquitted Him three times, He was cruelly, unjustly, ignominiously punished, even to death on the cross. He who had obeyed perfectly, He who bore no sin, He who had only loved, only healed, only reconciled was wounded on our behalf. Though He was very God of very God, begotten not made, of one essence with the Father, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped: He made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant. And, being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. He was crucified for us and for our salvation.
And through the whole ordeal, He who was the Word spoke not a word in His own defense. He stood silent in the face of the cursing, the mocking, the insults, the jeering. He quietly endured the shame of the crowd crying out “Crucify Him,” the brazenness of the Sanhedrin falsely accusing, the Centurions coarsely jesting. Nary a word at the horror of the betrayal, the interrogation, the trial, the scourging, the torture, the condemnation. It was just as Isaiah the prophet had predicted centuries prior: “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep before her shearers is silent, He did not open His mouth” (Isa 53:7).
