A Rooster Once Crowed: A Commentary on the Greatest Story Ever Told by Cornett Bryant

Author:Cornett, Bryant [Cornett, Bryant]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781940262079
Publisher: Full Porch Press
Published: 2013-12-13T05:00:00+00:00

Before you go on to the next chapter, take a few moments to read one or more of the following:

Matthew Chapters 24 & 25

Mark Chapter 14

Luke Chapters 19 & 20

John Chapter 17

Afterword

Questions from the Front

To round out this book, I will share with you two of the hardest questions I have been asked from those who have heard the story of the porch, shared in my introduction.

Q. Doesn’t the fact that God knows Jesus will return to Him soften the blow of this sacrifice?

This one is a hard one. Jesus modeled service and love for us—and He certainly believed in His own story—but for Jesus, belief is different. It seems less accurate to call His faith in God “belief” and more accurate to call it knowledge. Because of His community with God for all time and His experience with the Father and His presence at creation, Jesus wasn’t given the opportunity to believe. He wholly knew. To us, He brought the opportunity to believe.

Throughout Jesus’ ministry, He is the picture of calm. There is excitement (in His escape from temple elders, the Transfiguration, and Satan’s testing in the wilderness), miracles and drama, but He faces every turn as One Who knew this story and was prepared for it—until Gethsemane.

In Gethsemane, we see the picture of Jesus’ panic—He was fully committed to God’s will, but felt a moment of the flesh in outright rebellion. The detail in Luke, where the angel strengthens Him and Jesus sweat drops of blood, is a picture of duress. This condition, hematidrosis,259 is rare and seen only in cases of extreme stress.

The begging and groveling in Gethsemane belies the argument that Jesus’ sacrifice was lessened by His knowledge of eternity. If Jesus’ knowledge that He would return to an eternity in heaven with God was a comfort, there must have been something else of immense consequence that wiped out this comfort.

Also, note that others died better than this. The account of the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr after Christ, shows one whose belief was great (but certainly less than the knowledge of Jesus) and he died without fear.

Ignatius, in 110 A.D., was sentenced to die in Rome by being thrown to wild beasts. His Christian brethren wanted to plead for clemency, but he begged against it, writing, “May the wild beasts be eager to rush upon me. If they be unwilling, I will compel them. Come crowds of wild beasts; come tearings and manglings; wracking of bones and hacking of limbs; come cruel tortures of the devil; only let me attain unto Christ.”261

At a time when being a Christian was dangerous, Polycarp led publicly in 155 A.D. In front of a Roman judge and facing death, Polycarp was given the option to deny Jesus and save his life. At each threat, he answered for Rome to bring its best. He stood defiant in the face of death, and as he was being led to a burning stake, Polycarp requested that they not bind him there, saying “Leave me as I am, for God will give me the strength to withstand your torments.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.