This passage strikingly identifies the Master and the servants--our Lord and His witnesses. They were to suffer as He suffered and where He suffered: one withHim in life and death, in shame and glory; one with Him on the Cross, in the grave, in resurrection, in ascension, and on the throne. “Where also our Lord was crucified.” It is the last reference to the Cross of Christ in the Bible, and corresponds well with that frequent expression in the Revelation, “the Lamb slain”; carrying us back to “the seed of the woman” and “the bruised heel.”
1. It was the place of guilt and condemnation (Mat_27:22; Mat_27:26; Mat_27:28).
2. It was the place of shame (Heb_12:2).
3. It was the place of weakness (2Co_13:4).
4. It was the place of pain (Heb_13:12).
5. The place of the curse (Gal_3:13).
6. The place of rejection (Joh_19:6).
7. The place of hatred (Mat_27:25).
8. The place of death (Mat_20:18-19). (H. Bonar, D. D.)
Good things found in the Cross
This Cross, where so many evil things meet, is the place where all good things are to be found. God gathered all the evil to that spot, that He might utterly make away with it, through Him who took all the evil on Himself, that He might bring out of it only good.
1. It is the place of propitiation (Lev_16:15; Rom_3:25). The altar was there for the burnt-offering. The place without the gate for the sin-offering was there.
2. It is the meeting-place (Exo_29:42). It is the place where we meet with God, and God meets with us in friendship, and love, and joy. It is the place where the Father meets the prodigal and embraces him.
3. It is the place of love. God’s love is there, shining in its full brightness, unhindered and undimmed.
4. It is the place of acceptance. Here we become “accepted in the Beloved.” Here the exchange takes place between the perfect and the imperfect. Believing in the perfect One, we become “complete in Him.” (H. Bonar, D. D.)
What the Cross accomplished
The Cross accomplished such things asthe following:--
1. It removed the wall of partition (Col_2:14).
2. It made peace (Col_1:20).
3. It has secured oneness (Eph_2:15-16).
4. It has brought life (2Co_13:4).
5. It contains power (1Co_1:18; 1Co_1:23).
6. It is the focus or centre of all wisdom (1Co_1:24).
7. It crucifies the world (Gal_6:14).
8. It furnishes a theme for glorying (Gal_6:14).
9. It is the model and test of service (Mar_8:34; Luk_9:23).
10. It is the badge of discipleship (Luk_14:27).
11. It is God’s way of salvation (Act_10:39-43).
12. It is the measure of Christ’s endurance and obedience (Php_2:8).
13. It is the pledge and standard of Divine love (Rom_5:8).
14. It is the revelation of God’s character (1Jn_4:10).
15. It is God’s lamp of light.
16. It is the universal magnet (Joh_12:32).
17. It is the universal balm and medicine.
18. It is man’s estimate of sin.
19. It is God’s verdict against sin, and His estimate of it (Rom_8:3).
20. It is man’s estimate of the Son of God.
21. It is God’s interpretation of law and its penalties.
