What is Man?

David Dunlap – Consider the Cross
Week of Meetings 01 – 1995 (MP3 labeled “The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit”)

David Dunlap highlights the work of the Holy Spirit in the Lord’s supper and the importance of the cross to the Godhead and to the believer.

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Quotes and Excerpts

10m:54s More important than anything else the Lord Jesus Christ would reveal to Paul was the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want this to anchor your heart, and anchor your soul. I want this to be the centerpiece of your Christian life and walk. I want the cross to be remembered in the Lord’s supper when we come together week by week. I want the cross to be that ‘radius oracle of the faith, at the forefront of Christian doctrine and teaching.’ The cross should be important to us, and we should know something about the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, I think it’s sad sometimes that there are many Christians that seem to know very little. They know a lot about songs, they know a lot about Christian performers, they know a lot about preachers, but how much do they know about the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ? The Lord came to the apostle and said, ‘This is of first importance.’

19m:46s What have I done to make the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ ever more precious, ever more important to myself? What do I know about the cross of the Lord Jesus?

28m:25s But he also makes special reference to the sufferings which the Lord Jesus Christ bore upon His face. It’s interesting to pause and think about the sufferings of the Lord Jesus receives upon His face. You know, the face is the most vulnerable part of our body, the part of our body which we protect first. And I think it’s significant here that the Father speaks about the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ receives upon His countenance and then the sufferings the Lord Jesus Christ receives upon His body. I think there are five different suffering the Lord Jesus Christ receives upon the face. He was spit upon the face; there was a crown of thorns upon his head. They pulled the beard from His face. They beat Him in the face with their fists, with their open palms, and with rods. And I think it makes us ask, ‘Why? Why is it recorded so frequently about the sufferings the Lord Jesus Christ endured upon His face?’ The Father invites us to consider the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ upon His face, and He says in verse six, ‘I gave my back to the smiters,’ and then He says he gave His cheeks, He presented His face, He says this: ‘I gave My cheeks to them that pluck off the hair, and I hid not My face from the shame and the spitting.’ The Lord Jesus actually presented, He gave his cheeks to those who would pluck off the hair. You know, it’s interesting to me, and you might want to discuss this; there’s no place in the New Testament where it mentions the beard of the Lord Jesus Christ being plucked out. There are places that I think it may have taken place, but there’s not mention of it, no specific mention of where the Lord Jesus Christ had His beard plucked from His face. And I believe that this is one of the most graphic sufferings the Lord Jesus Christ ever endured.

You know there was a movie, you may have seen it, ‘The Passion,’ or if you haven’t seen the film, you may have seen the pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ’s face bloodied and suffering, but all through that movie… they never plucked the beard from His face. The film was said to be ‘too graphic, too bloody, too violent.’ But I would say, if it was realistic, it wasn’t violent enough. It wasn’t brutal enough, of what actually happened to Jesus there on the cross.

Here is says that He presented His cheeks and it says that He hid not His face from the shame and the spitting. Why are there so many mentions of the sufferings that the Lord Jesus Christ received on His face? I think it’s because He’s showing to us the great love and great obedience that He had to the Father. The most vulnerable part of His body, He did not reserve, He did not protect. He gave Himself with abandon. He gave Himself completely.

37m:04s Do you know of any rabbi in the history of the Jewish people who has introduced more people to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ?

Verses

Isaiah 52:13-15 Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, So His visage was marred more than any man, And His form more than the sons of men; So shall He sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; For what had not been told them they shall see, And what they had not heard they shall consider.

2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.

References / Recommended Reading

The Moral Glory of the Lord Jesus (online)
Author: J. G. Bellett

(Here’s a ton of his stuff online.)

The Glory of the Cross (in PDF format)
Author: Samuel Zwamer

Studies in Isaiah (online) or purchase used from Amazon.com
Author: F. C. Jennings