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Scripture Reading: Col. 1:22; Eph. 2:15-16; Col. 2:9; 1 Tim. 3:16; Acts 20:28; John 8:29; 16:32; 1:29; Heb. 9:26, 28; 1 Cor. 15:3; Heb. 9:12; 2 Cor. 5:14-15; Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20a; Heb. 2:14; John 12:31; Gal. 6:14; Heb. 2:9; Col. 1:20; 2:14-15; John 12:24; 1 Cor. 10:17
I. God having participated in the crucifixion of Christ:
А. The crucifixion being the suffering of Christ in the flesh — Col. 1:22; Eph. 2:15-16.
B. Christ in His body of flesh being the embodiment of the Triune God — Col. 2:9.
C. The manifestation of Christ being God’s manifestation in the flesh — 1 Tim. 3:16.
D. Hence, the crucifixion of Christ being also God’s crucifixion:
1. The blood shed by Christ on the cross being God’s own blood — Acts 20:28.
2. (In one of his hymns Charles Wesley says, “Amazing love! how can it be / That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?” and “’Tis mystery all! The Immortal dies!” — Hymns, #296)
3. God being one with Christ all the time — John 8:29; 16:32.
II. The accomplishments of God in the crucifixion of Christ:
А. Taking away the sin of the world for God’s eternal redemption — 1:29; Heb. 9:26, 28; 1 Cor. 15:3; Heb. 9:12.
B. Dying for all of us — 2 Cor. 5:14-15.
C. Crucifying our old man — Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20a.
D. Destroying the devil, who has the might of death — Heb. 2:14.
E. Judging and crucifying the world — John 12:31; Gal. 6:14.
F. Tasting death on behalf of everything and reconciling all things to God — Heb. 2:9; Col. 1:20.
G. Abolishing the law in ordinances and slaying the enmity between peoples — Eph. 2:15-16; Col. 2:14.
H. Releasing the divine life for the producing of the believers to constitute the Body of Christ — John 12:24; 1 Cor. 10:17.
III. God’s working during Christ’s crucifixion:
А. Wiping out the handwriting in ordinances, which was against us, contrary to us, and nailing it to the cross — Col. 2:14.
B. Stripping off the rulers and the authorities and making a display of them openly, triumphing over them in the cross — v. 15.
In this chapter we come to the third step of God’s move in man. God first moved in man in incarnation. God was born into the womb of a virgin, and after nine months Jesus was born out of that virgin. A key verse concerning God’s incarnation is Matthew 1:20, which says, “That which has been begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit.” Something was not only conceived in the virgin Mary but also born into her. That was the first step that God took to move in man.
The second step of God’s move in man was His human living on earth. People saw Jesus as a man living, walking, working, and ministering on the earth. No one can deny that in history there was such a man named Jesus. But while this man was living, walking, working, and ministering on the earth, another One lived there. In Jesus’ living, God was living. In Jesus’ walking, God was walking. In Jesus’ working, God was working. In Jesus’ ministering and serving, God was there. In the man Jesus was the very God. He was God manifested in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16).
In this chapter we want to see the third major step of the move of God in man, and this step was His move in the crucifixion of Christ. Christ was crucified, but in His crucifixion God was moving. The previous chapters concerning the move of God in man are entitled “In His Incarnation” and “In His Human Living.” But I want us to notice that I did not entitle this chapter “In His Crucifixion” but “In the Crucifixion of Christ.” We have to be careful by saying that God moved in the crucifixion of Christ. It is not safe to say directly “in His crucifixion,” that is, in God’s crucifixion. When we say “in the crucifixion of Christ,” we are very safe. When we fellowship about the crucifixion of Christ, we need to see who Christ is. First, we have to see that Christ is the embodiment of God (Col. 2:9). Since this is the case, He was the very God manifested in the flesh.
At the end of John 10 the opposing Jews confronted the Lord Jesus. Verse 31 says that they were about to stone Him. Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of these works are you stoning Me?” (v. 32). Then the Jews answered Him, “We are not stoning You for a good work, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a man, are making Yourself God” (v. 33). Throughout the centuries there have been great debates over the person of Christ. His person is related to the Divine Trinity because in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. This subject “In the Crucifixion of Christ” implies the Divine Trinity.
We should not say directly and initially that the crucifixion was God’s crucifixion. Instead, we should say that this was Christ’s crucifixion. When we are sharing the truth concerning the crucifixion, we need to take steps like that of a stairway. We should not jump from the top of a building to the ground floor. This is to commit suicide. Instead, we must have a stairway.
Without His Divine Trinity, God could not have moved in the crucifixion. Who can crucify God? Yet Charles Wesley says in one of his hymns, “Amazing love! how can it be / That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?” and “’Tis mystery all! The Immortal dies!” (Hymns, #296). Charles Wesley says that God died for him and that the Immortal died. This means that He who cannot die, died for us. No one could crucify God if He remained in His divinity, but Christ as the manifestation of God in the flesh was crucified. The Divine Trinity was involved there. The crucifixion of Christ was the death in which God moved in man. God moved in another’s crucifixion, but this other One was the embodiment of God. The first One moved in the second One’s death, and the second One was the embodiment of the first One. This is the stairway that we need in order to understand the crucifixion.
God participated in the crucifixion of Christ. The very One by the name of Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross, but God participated in that crucifixion.
The crucifixion was the suffering of Christ in the flesh (Col. 1:22; Eph. 2:15-16). This is the fact in history, and this is also the record in black and white in the Bible. Hallelujah for God’s incarnation, for His human living, and for the crucifixion of Christ! In all these things God was moving in man.
The crucifixion was the crucifixion of Christ in the flesh. Then who was Christ in the flesh? Christ in His body of flesh was the embodiment of the Triune God (Col. 2:9). The Triune God is invisible, mysterious, and spiritual, but He was embodied. The invisible, divine, spiritual God got into a physical, visible body. The crucifixion was the crucifixion of Christ, yet Christ was the very embodiment of God.
First Timothy 3:16 says that the great mystery of godliness is God manifested in the flesh. Christ was God manifested in the flesh. The manifestation of Christ was God’s manifestation in the flesh.
Since the manifestation of Christ was God’s manifestation in the flesh, the crucifixion of Christ was also God’s crucifixion. Since we can say and do say that God was manifested in the flesh, we also can say that God was crucified in the flesh.
Paul says in Acts 20:28 that the blood that Christ shed on the cross was God’s own blood. God bought, purchased, the church with His own blood, so the church is so dear, so beloved, in the feeling of God and in the eyes of God. This was the word spoken by Paul to the elders of Ephesus. He was impressing the elders from Ephesus that they should love the church, considering the church very dear and beloved as God does. The church is so dear and beloved to God in His feeling, so He purchased the church with His own blood. The Bible in Acts 20:28 says that the divine God has human blood.
As we have pointed out, Charles Wesley wrote a very good hymn with a good melody, in which he spoke of the crucifixion of Christ. This is Hymns, #296 in our hymnal. A number of years ago I translated this hymn into Chinese. Charles Wesley had the boldness to say in this hymn that the immortal God died for us. I am so glad that he declared this truth and that it is printed in the hymnal.
The crucifixion of Christ was also God’s crucifixion because God was one with Christ all the time (John 8:29; 16:32). God never left Christ alone. When Christ was incarnated, God was incarnated. They coinhered. When Christ was living on this earth, God was living. When Christ was crucified, God was crucified. This is because They coinhere; that is, They mutually indwell each other. In the Gospels Christ told us repeatedly that the Father was in Him and that He was in the Father (John 10:38; 14:10-11, 20; 17:21). Thus, we may say that God died in Christ, so Christ’s crucifixion became God’s crucifixion. God died in man. God died not in His own death but in another One’s death. God died in the Son’s death.
Now we want to see the accomplishments of God in the crucifixion of Christ.
In the crucifixion of Christ, God took away the sin of the world for His eternal redemption (1:29; Heb. 9:26, 28; 1 Cor. 15:3; Heb. 9:12). Sin implies the singular sin and the plural sins. In John 1:29 sin is a total term, implying both the inward sin in our nature and the outward sins, trespasses, in our conduct.
Christ also died for all of us (2 Cor. 5:14-15). He died not only for our sin but also for us, the persons.
Romans 6:6 says that our old man has been crucified with Christ, and in Galatians 2:20a Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ.” I here refers to the old man. “I,” the old man, have been crucified with Christ.
Hebrews 2:14 tells us clearly that Christ destroyed the devil, who has the might of death.
In John 12:31 we can see the judgment of the world through the death of Christ. Then Galatians 6:14 speaks of the crucifixion of the world.
Hebrews 2:9 says that Christ tasted death on behalf of everything, and Colossians 1:20 says that through His death He reconciled all things to God.
In His crucifixion Christ abolished the law in ordinances and slew the enmity between peoples, especially between the Jews and the Gentiles (Eph. 2:15-16; Col. 2:14). The law comprises the Ten Commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances in the Old Testament. When a statute carries a judgment with it, it becomes an ordinance. Keeping the Sabbath is a statute, but this statute carries a judgment with it, so it is an ordinance. The children of Israel were required to keep the Sabbath. Otherwise, they would be stoned to death (Exo. 31:14-15; Num. 15:32-36). This judgment made keeping the Sabbath an ordinance. When judgment is added to statutes, they become ordinances. When Christ was crucified on the cross, all the ordinances were nailed there (Col. 2:14).
Now we need to consider who died on the cross. Satan was destroyed on the cross. We believers died on the cross. You have to say, “Hallelujah, I died there, and my enemy Satan died there.” The world died there. Our sin died there. Who did not die there? You may say, “God!” But do not say this. In the crucifixion of Christ, God died in man. Satan and the fallen angels died there, God died there, man died there, the world died there, and the entire old creation died there (Heb. 2:9; Col. 1:20).
In the above aspects of Christ’s death, He dealt with all the negative things. On the positive side, He released the divine life through His death for the producing of the believers to constitute the Body of Christ (John 12:24; 1 Cor. 10:17). All these things were accomplished by one death — the death of Christ in His crucifixion. God participated in that death, so God moved in that death in man.
The crucifixion was not only Christ’s work but also God’s move in man, so it is God’s history. God was merely God in eternity. Then one day He came out of eternity and entered into time, and He entered into humanity with His divinity. He was embodied in Christ, who died an all-inclusive death in His crucifixion. Actually, all world history is God’s history. All the world affairs are not only the history of man but also the history of God. It depends on the vision you have. If you have only physical sight, you see the world situation, the human history. If you have the spiritual sight, the spiritual view, you can see Someone working behind the world situation. When we look at human history with the world situation, we must have another view, the biblical view with the spiritual insight.
The crucifixion of Christ was a part of human history. According to human history, Jesus, a Jew and a Nazarene, was nailed on the cross by the Roman soldiers. But behind this visible scene there was an invisible scene. Who was there on the cross? God was there to bear the sin and sins of man. God was there to die for fallen mankind. God was there to crucify the old man, to destroy Satan, the power of death, to judge and crucify the world, and to taste death on behalf of everything. Everything in the old creation is dying. Everything is decaying. Therefore, God tasted death on behalf of everything so that all things could be redeemed and reconciled to God. Also, on the cross the shell of His humanity was broken, and God released the divine life. God was working in the crucifixion of Christ.
Secular historians on earth cannot touch these things. They do not have this view. Even many Christians do not have a view to see that God accomplished seven items on the negative side plus one item on the positive side. In the positive aspect of the cross, God released Himself as the divine life. The cross was God’s move and has become God’s history.
In the crucifixion of Christ, God wiped out the handwriting in ordinances, which was against us, which was contrary to us, and nailed it to the cross (Col. 2:14). While the Roman soldiers were nailing Christ on the cross, God was also nailing something there. Christ suffered the nailing, and God did the nailing. God nailed to the cross the law given through Moses.
At the time that Paul wrote his Epistle to the Colossians, all the Jewish people, all the Judaizers, and all the Colossian believers influenced by the Judaizers respected Moses and the angels to the uttermost because the law was ordained through angels and given through Moses (Gal. 3:19; Acts 7:38, 53). The Colossians even fell into the heresy of worshipping the angels (Col. 2:18). But while the Roman soldiers were nailing Christ on the cross, God was nailing the law on the cross. While the Lord Jesus was crucified on the cross, many women who had followed Him were looking on from a distance (Matt. 27:55-56). They saw only the Roman soldiers’ nailing Him on the cross, but they did not see that God was also nailing the law there. The Bible tells us this.
While God was doing His work to accomplish Christ’s wonderful crucifixion, the evil angelic rulers and authorities in the air were making trouble. They came in to frustrate the crucifixion. But God stripped them off as someone would strip off a garment. God made a public show of them in the sense of an open shame and triumphed over them in the cross (Col. 2:15).
I hope that we can see how much God was doing on the cross. Christ was nailed on the cross for six hours. In these six hours God did two things outside of Christ. First, He nailed the law on the cross. The soldiers were busy nailing Christ on the cross, and God was also busy nailing the law there. Second, He stripped off all the bothering evil angels to clear up the atmosphere around the cross. On the cross God was stripping off all the evil angelic rulers and authorities so that the way and the atmosphere might be cleared for us to enter into the participation in Christ. That was God’s move on the earth. That was God’s move in man in the death of Christ. Thus, Christ’s crucifixion is a part of God’s history in man.
God’s working during Christ’s crucifixion to nail the law on the cross and to strip off the evil angelic rulers and authorities is revealed in Colossians 2 through the apostle Paul. Paul somehow knew these things, and we do not know how he came to know them. Paul did tell us that he had received a great and mysterious revelation (Eph. 3:4; 5:32). In 2 Corinthians 12 Paul says that he was caught away into Paradise and heard unspeakable words, which were not allowed for a man to speak (v. 4).
This universe is not just a universe of the physical history. Behind the physical history there is the spiritual history. Behind the visible scene there is an invisible scene. The people of this world know only the visible, not the invisible scene. But the Bible shows us both. Through the reading of the Bible we can see the visible scene in this universe, and we can also see the invisible scene behind the visible scene. In the invisible scene we see God’s move, God’s history, in man.
