Written for all mankind: 'Here He is'

(new article tomorrow)

Mark 15:33: [33] And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

“From 9 o’clock ‘til noon Jesus Christ is being mocked and persecuted by men for speaking and doing the will of His Father,” explains Richard Jordan. “From noon to three o’clock darkness falls over the land and that’s the period when sin is being judged by God in order to accomplish eternal redemption. So there’s a division in those six hours.

I John 1:5: [5] This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
[6] If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:

“When you have darkness you have an absence of God. It’s as though God drew a curtain over the sun and withdrew Himself from the scene. Darkness represents the judgment of God and Christ suffers on the Cross, under that darkness, for those three hours. That’s when the judgment of sin is taking place in the soul and body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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"There’s only one time the term Calvary appears in Scripture and it’s in Luke 23:33: And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

“We sing that song that goes, ‘Years I spent in vanity and pride, caring not my Lord was crucified at Calvary.’ That’s a term that in Christian parlance is the essence of the gospel.

“Do you know that term’s not found in any of the new Bibles? It’s completely taken out of all the English Bibles after 1881. They say, ‘Well, it’s a bad translation because it should say the skull.’ Well, notice John 19:17: ‘And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha.’

“Golgotha is the Hebrew term that means the skull. Calvary is a Latin term that means the same thing. It’s a perfectly good translation, and the fact that you can translate it and it be legitimate, John 19 tells you that.

“Over and over Luke crafts his gospel to point to Christ, not simply as Israel’s Messiah, but Israel’s Messiah through whom all the nations of the earth are going to blessed. So it’s not surprising that Luke would have a term that would focus on the Latin.

“Why that gets to be important is in the next two verses: ‘Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.

[19] And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS.’

“All three languages have ‘This is Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews.’ It’s written over His head so that everybody can see it. It’s written for all of mankind to see: ‘Here He is.’

“God is the God who invented languages. He never confined His Word to only one. He designed it to be available in the language of the nations and this is an illustration of that."