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in tandem. Number (1) will have its time and great importance in the future (having
failed at Christ's first advent). Number (2) is a witness we have to embrace and enter
into in all its fullness. We do not need to turn away in hopelessness like Pilate saying
"what is Truth?". We know that truth is the full and accurate knowledge about any
subject. Only God Who created us, our minds and all the universe, can supply this
knowledge. He alone knows all sides of a question. He alone knows the incidence of His
spiritual creation on this material creation. He alone knows our thoughts and the
necessary optimum way of bringing creation to its perfect goal. How we should bless
God for the faithful witness of His Son to the Truth. How we should use and be thankful
for this truth presented to us at such a price.
The arrest, trial and crucifixion of our Lord from the world's standpoint appears as a
ministry with an ignoble failure at its close. We know that, by the foreknowledge of God
and despite the work of the enemy, God overruled all the events so that they presented
the precise, complete and righteous transaction that was the prophesied basis of salvation
and redemption for the human race. Note we say basis, for we have to examine Paul's
doctrinal epistle to the Romans to find all the implications of this transaction and to
whom the transaction applies.
With this vital interpretation of Calvary in mind we note that God underlines His
controlling part in these events to counter any talk of failure. The following words were
recorded to emphasize this fact:
"Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it
again. No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it
down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My
Father" (John 10: 17, 18).
The chapter of John we are studying also makes its contribution to this theme:
"As soon then as He had said unto them, I am He, they went backward and fell to the
ground" (18: 6).
When previously in His ministry He was threatened with death, they had no power
over Him--He walked away through the midst of them (see John 8: 59). Here in
chapter 18: He voluntarily lays down His life. At all times we can see how the Bible
specifically records God's control over the world's events and especially over those
which have a doctrinal significance in relation to His eternal purposes. This is seen
particularly in the happenings during the 24 hours of the day of Calvary. Stuart Allen in
his The Unfolding Purpose of God on pages 10 to 13 lists 14 prophecies from the O.T.
written some 1,000 to 500 years before the events occurred and literally fulfilled on that
day. Our next study covers the scene where our Lord takes the cup that the Father had
given Him to drink (18: 11).