We pause again at a verse to take in another perspective and hopefully correct or mask any ignorance I may have wrote last time. Using an exert from Pink’s Exposition of the Gospel of John. I pray God uses this that we may see His will, power, and glory.
Extra Credit: We all need encouragement or inspiration on occasion. I don’t usually post fluffy feel good messages or forward any on to 5 other people I know when I get those e-mails but rather delete them instead. That said there is an inspiration I find in the promise He has made and the knowledge that He will guide my feet. Today’s inspiration is from J.C. Ryle which I posted and entitled One great secret of unhappiness
Jhn 10:18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
- Can you find any contradiction to this verse in the Gospel?
The pre-eminence of Christ was fully manifested at the Cross. In birth He was unique, in His life unique, and so in His death. Not yet have we read aright the inspired accounts of His death, if we suppose that on the Cross the Savior was a helpless victim of His enemies. At every point He demonstrated that no man took His life from Him, but rather that He laid it down of Himself. See the very ones sent to arrest Him in the Garden, there prostrate on the ground before Him (John 18:6): how easily could He have walked away unmolested had it so pleased Him! Hear Him before Pilate, as He reminds that Roman officer, "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above" (John 19:11). Behold Him on the Cross itself, so superior to His sufferings that He makes intercession for the transgressors, saves the dying robber, and provides a home for His widowed mother. Listen to Him as He cries with a loud voice (Matthew 27:46, 50)—no exhausted Sufferer was this! Mark how triumphantly He "gave up the ghost" (John 19:30). Verily "no man" took His life from Him. So evident was it that He triumphed in the hour of death itself, the Roman soldier was made to exclaim, "Truly this was the Son of God" (Matthew 27:54). By A.W. Pink
