Chapter XV: Section 2: Was Crucified

Prophecy in the sense of prediction is a very interesting and important branch of Christian evidence. Old Testament prophets foretold minute events in the history of the Lord Jesus Christ, such as His lineal descent, the place and time of His birth, its miraculous character, His death, His burial, His three days' sojourn in the sepulchre, the casting of lots for His raiment, the piercing of His hands and feet, His last exclamation, His resurrection and ascension. Whatever view may be taken as to the dates of the various books of Scripture, it must be admitted that the whole body of the Old Testament was in circulation among the Jews hundreds of years before the birth of Christ. There can be no doubt that these prophecies were separated by great distance in time from the events predicted. Even the Septuagint Version, which is a Greek translation from the original Hebrew Scriptures, existed at Alexandria about two hundred years before His advent.

One of the most striking features of Old Testament prediction is its bearing upon the closing scenes of Christ's history. In its types as well as in its prophecies His death was foreshadowed, and the humiliating and ignominious treatment to which He was subjected minutely described. The predictions involved events that appeared contradictory and paradoxical until their fulfilment furnished the key. He Himself told the disciples again and again that He should be crucified. This form of execution was a Roman punishment reserved for slaves and the vilest criminals; and the fact that Jesus was subjected to it depended on a combination of events which no mere human sagacity could have foreseen. It required that, though he should be apprehended, accused, tried, and found guilty by Jews, His death-sentence should be inflicted by Gentiles; that the Roman governor of Judaea should, against his better judgment, surrender to the clamorous cry of a mob who demanded that the prisoner should be crucified. It required that the betrayal and condemnation of Jesus should take place during the Passover week, when it was unlawful for the Jews to put any man to death. The excuse of the Jewish rulers, that they could not inflict death, did not mean that this power had been withdrawn from them, but that it was against their law to exercise it then. Had the season been different, had the Jews themselves carried out the sentence of death, it would have been accomplished not by crucifixion, but by stoning. Such an execution would not have fulfilled prophecy or have been associated with the ignominy that marked the Roman death-penalty. Thus the Scripture was fulfilled in Him, "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree."[097] There is but one explanation that meets these facts, which is that they were directed by the counsel and foreknowledge of God, and that holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

The death of Jesus by crucifixion fulfilled in a wonderful manner the types and figures of the Old Testament. He applied the type of the brazen serpent to His death on the cross on which He was to be lifted up, and from which He was to exercise His healing power on those whom sin had bitten. The surrender of Isaac by Abraham, when he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, prefigured the unspeakable gift by the Father, who spared not His own Son, and the self-surrender of the Son, who gave Himself for us. As Isaac went forth bearing the wood on which he was to be offered, he was a type of Him who went forth from Jerusalem to Calvary bearing His cross. Had His sentence been any other than death by crucifixion, He would not have come under the doom which required that a prisoner should bear his cross. The Paschal Lamb, of which not a bone was to be broken, prefigured the Antitype in His exemption from the treatment to which the two thieves crucified with Him were subjected. In crucifixion He was numbered with the transgressors and associated with accursed criminals, and so prophecy received fulfilment.

It is a standing testimony at once to the reality of Christ's suffering, and to the power which He exercises over men's minds and consciences, that from being associated with shame and scorn, the sign of the cross has been elevated to the highest place of honour and dignity. Through his reverence for Jesus, Constantine the Great, the first Christian Emperor of Rome, abolished crucifixion. It is recognised that through Christ's death upon the cross man obtains all that makes life precious. Instead of being regarded with scorn, a cross is the coveted emblem now of valour and exalted achievement. The instrument wherewith capital punishment was inflicted on abandoned criminals has come to be an ornament of monarchs. Such a change is to be explained only by the fact that it is the sign of Christ's redeeming sacrifice, and that to multitudes who glory in the Cross, He who suffered the painful death on Calvary is the "power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation."