The Apostle Paul, in describing his ministry, summed up the root of all Christian ministry and mission when he stated in I Corinthians 2: 1-5 “And I, brothers, when I came to you, did not come with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”

Paul makes it clear to us here that, though being the educated man that he was he could most certainly have done so, his intention was never to impress anyone with his own knowledge. He kept the message simple, straightforward and left the listener or reader with absolutely no doubt as to his intended message: “I am a sinner, having broken God’s perfect Law, and I deserve to go to Hell, but God loves me enough that Jesus died on a cross for my sins, so that when I came to repentance the price of my redemption could be paid with His blood and, by the way, you are also a sinner and, if you will only repent, then His sacrifice was for you to.”

Unfortunately, the modern Church seems to have abandoned and perhaps even forgotten this model of outreach all together. In today’s “church” the message seems to be, “Come join our church, we are the biggest, we are the best, we have the most activities for your kids …”

Many have even gone beyond the message of “we have what you want,” to “we will show you how to get what you want from God.” To these I have to say, “I have what I want from God, ever since I got on my knees and crawled helpless to the feet of the cross of Calvary and let Him lovingly wash me clean with His blood.”

What else could one man want or expect from a righteous God who according to His own Law should have condemned me to death? Nothing, right?

Apparently I am wrong, or at least the majority think so, because the trend in the modern Church is to “give them what they are lacking,” without ever mentioning the Savior and His sacrifice. Speaking of his own disgust over this situation, the late preacher Adrian Rogers once summed this failure to expound sound doctrine and the subsequent implementation of a “fill your needs doctrine,” by saying that the churches in question were guilty of preaching “Cadillacs, cash and Comfort.” I would go one step farther and add that it is long past time for sincere, Bible believing Christians to bring back the teaching of Christ crucified for the common man.

With this topic heavy upon my heart, I am going to spend this chapter expounding various pieces of Scripture surrounding the crucifixion and, I pray, thereby become a vessel to open the eyes of those who, calling themselves Christians, have none the less fallen into Satan’s trap of putting the focus upon the resurrection and completely forgetting that the work of our salvation was done, not at the tomb on the first day of the week, but on the cross on the preparation day.

John 19: 23-34 depicts for us the crucifixion, saying “Then when they had crucified Jesus, the soldiers took His garments and made four parts, one part to each soldier; and also His tunic. And the tunic was without seam, woven from the top throughout. Therefore they said among themselves, Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to find whose it shall be that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says, "They parted my garments among them, and for my garment they cast lots". Therefore the soldiers did these things. And His mother stood by the cross of Jesus, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. Then when Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, Woman, behold your son! Then He said to the disciple, Behold your mother! And from that hour that disciple took her into his own home. After this, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus said, I thirst. Then a vessel full of vinegar was set. And they filled a sponge with sour wine and put it upon hyssop, and put it to His mouth. Then when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, It is finished! And He bowed His head and gave up the spirit. Then the Jews, because it was Preparation, begged Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away, so that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the sabbath. For that sabbath was a high day. Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a lance, and instantly there came out blood and water.” I would ask that the reader familiarize him/herself with this passage thoroughly, as I will be spending the next several pages breaking it down, picking it apart and attempting to determine exactly its importance in regard to our faith.

The passage begins, “Then when they had crucified Jesus, the soldiers took His garments and made four parts, one part to each soldier; and also His tunic. And the tunic was without seam, woven from the top throughout. Therefore they said among themselves, Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to find whose it shall be that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says, ‘They parted my garments among them, and for my garment they cast lots.’ Therefore the soldiers did these things.” The interesting point here in my opinion is not in what the passage says, but in the fact that whenever I have heard it preached I have never hear the words “that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says, ‘They parted my garments among them, and for my garment they cast lots.’ Therefore the soldiers did these things” expounded upon.

Generally believers hear that the soldiers cast lots for the tunic, so that it would not be ruined, but so very few ever grasp the significance of these verses. In fact, asking the question, “Which Scripture was he fulfilling and what else does it say?” is the step which tends to take one just beyond the point of no return in the journey to discover the true significance of the crucifixion.

The Scripture which is in question is found in Psalm 22, in which Jesus, speaking through David in a pre-carnate manner, gave us an extremely graphic description of His own crucifixion, in a time when crucifixion had not yet been invented. Since many have argued with me, stating that there is no evidence that this statement by David is in fact a messianic prophesy and since most scoff when I point out that the Gospel says these things were done to fulfill this Scripture, I will now show that the situation depicted by David could be little else.

Let us begin with David’s opening words, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me.” Most believers are quite familiar with this phrase, not in having come from the mouth of David, but as having been uttered from the cross by Jesus in Matthew 27: 46 and Mark 15: 34.

From this point, David turns to other matters concerning his immediate situation, but in various other verses, as he calls out to God to save him from the moment, Jesus repeatedly replies in the very thoughts of his heart, by confirming that He will in fact save him for all eternity from a fate much greater than what is then before him. We will look deeper into this as we proceed through the crucifixion description in John.

It continues, “And His mother stood by the cross of Jesus, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. Then when Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, Woman, behold your son! Then He said to the disciple, Behold your mother! And from that hour that disciple took her into his own home.” Most take this passage as a mere passing mention by the author of the gospel, that Jesus personally appointed him to care fro his mother and some, seeking to venerate her, attempt to claim Christ's love for his mother was greater than His love for any other human being.

In fact, this too is a fulfillment of prophetic Scripture. The prophet Zechariah foreshadowed the mother’s grief over the loss of her first-born son in Zechariah 12: 10 when he wrote, “And they shall look on Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be bitter over Him, as the bitterness over the first-born.”

John then tells us that, “After this, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus said, I thirst,” then logically raises the question, what Scripture was fulfilled in Christ’s uttering “I thirst?”

In fact, to find this information we need to turn once again to Psalm 22. In verses 15-16 Christ speaks through David Declaring, “My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue clings to My jaws; and You have brought Me into the dust of death.”

It seems that nearly every time I teach this, someone comes forward, either during the teaching or afterward and questions the use of a capital Y in verse 16 and its apparent indication that God the Father had brought Christ to the point of death. In fact, despite the popular teaching of many churches today which claim the responsibility falls to the Jewish people, one has only to look to Christ’s prayer in Luke 22: 42, in which He asks the Father to spare Him from the suffering to come, saying “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me. Yet not My will, but Yours be done.”

In fact it was the will of the righteous God which brought His Son to Calvary. He had declared throughout the generations that He would provide a perfect sacrifice for our sins and He kept His Word by allowing the sacrifice of the only one who was capable of keeping, and thus fulfilling, His Law.

It is often forgotten, because it is seldom preached, that Christ’s purpose for coming to the earth was to fulfill the Law. In this day and age, people are so much about the grace of God, they forget that grace has no place outside the Law.

John records “Then a vessel full of vinegar was set. And they filled a sponge with sour wine and put it upon hyssop, and put it to His mouth.” This is highly important, because it is where we begin to see exactly how Christ fulfilled the law of the sacrifice.

Exodus 12 tells the manner in which the Law of God dictates the Passover sacrifice had to be made and verses 21-22 make the statement “Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, Draw out and take a lamb for yourselves according to your families, and kill the passover. And you shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip in the blood in the bowl, and strike the lintel and the doorposts with the blood in the bowl. And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning.” Some will think that I am reaching here when I say that the hyssop used to quench Christ’s thirst fulfilled this commandment, but considering the profuse amount of blood which would have been emitted during a crucifixion, it would have been almost impossible for this to have been done without the blood of the Lamb of God having made contact with the hyssop.

Most to whom I have preached this have countered that according to the Law the blood was required to be struck against the door posts of the dwelling, not against the Lamb. However, I believe the Law was fulfilled here, once we understand something else about Christ’s ministry.

In John 14: 6, when speaking to His disciples concerning entering into eternal life with God the Father, He said “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father but by Me.” In addition, He told us that passing into the Kingdom of Heaven could only be accomplished if we were to “Strive to enter in at the narrow gate. For I say to you, many will seek to enter in and shall not be able.”

Finally, consider that countless times, suchas in Galatians 1: 22. the Apostle Paul refers to the saved as being “in Christ.” Now I ask you, is it so hard to grasp that if Jesus is the way to salvation, the gate to the Kingdom of Heaven and our spiritual dwelling place if we are born again in Him, then through the touching the hyssop to His bleeding mouth the fulfillment was made of not only the taking of the lamb’s blood but also its spreading upon the doorpost?

John continues in his record of the crucifixion, saying “Then when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, It is finished! And He bowed His head and gave up the spirit.” It is my humble opinion that the use of the words “it is finished” here is both a terrible translation from the Greek and a primary cause of one of the worst false teachings afflicting the Church today.

What is translated “it is finished,” is in fact only one word in the Greek. The word is ????ì?, it is primarily a commercial word and its meaning is “paid in full.”

Thus John tells us that when Christ had taken the drink he had been given, thus fulfilling the striking of the doorpost with the blood of the lamb, He announced the something was paid in full. This of course points us in the direction of the next logical question, which has to be “What was paid in full?”

I Corinthians 16: 19-20 tells us more, stating “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit in you, whom you have of God? And you are not your own, for you are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.” Still, we are forced to question, in what way and at what price were we purchased and for that answer we must look to Hebrews 2: 9 which declares, “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He by the grace of God should taste death for all.”

Furthermore, we have the question, why did we have to be purchased in the first place? The answer to this question lies in Romans 6:22-23 which tells us “But now, being made free from sin, and having become slaves to God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

We had to be purchased at the cost of Christ’s life, because the wages of sin is death. According to God’s own just Law, someone had to die for our sins and, if God were going to give us the gift of eternal life, someone had to die in our place.

God decided to let His Son die for us. That is how much He loved us.

Next in the chronology given by John, we read “Then the Jews, because it was Preparation, begged Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away, so that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the sabbath. For that sabbath was a high day.”

There are two very important points we need to look at here. The first is the fact that John says it was “Preparation” and the second is that he says “that sabbath was a high day.”

To begin with, most Christians do not understand that according to God’s Law, we are command to prepare in specific manner for the keeping of any Sabbath day and it was just such a day on which Christ was crucified. However, when John calls the Sabbath a “high day,” he actually tells us that this was not the ordinary Sabbath of the week, but in fact the Sabbath of Passover, which would have taken place earlier in the week. (See related article: Our Passover Is Sacrificed For Us.)

All of this tells us without a doubt that Christ was crucified on the Preparation Day before the Sabbath of Passover. This is highly important in light of the fact that John has told us the Jews asked to have His legs broken.

From this we can determine that the time was somewhere near the setting of the sun, when the day would end according to the biblical time table and Passover would begin.

In Deuteronomy 16: 4-6 we learn that God commanded a specific time and place for the sacrifice of the Passover, saying “Nor shall any of the flesh which you sacrificed in the first day at evening remain all night until the morning. You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates, which Jehovah your God gives you, but at the place which Jehovah your God shall choose to place His name in, there you shall sacrifice the Passover at evening, at the going of the sun, at the time that you came out of Egypt.”

Again, we need to look at several points, each of which I believe shows without a doubt the significance of Christ’s crucifixion beyond any shadow of a doubt. First, the fact that God had commanded, “Nor shall any of the flesh which you sacrificed in the first day at evening remain all night until the morning” which was fulfilled due to the request of the Jews, who certainly had not concept of the fact that their actions were leading to the fulfillment of God’s Law on such a universally impacting scale.

Next, let us consider that God had said, “You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates, which Jehovah your God gives you.” In fact, Christ was crucified outside the city, beyond its outermost gates.

Some have said I am reading too much into this, since it was not an uncommon practice for the Romans to crucify lawbreakers at Calvary. This is true, but it was also not uncommon fro them to do so right in the heart of the city, where more people could witness it and so therefore it is very important to note that they unwittingly fulfilled God’s commandment when they killed the law fulfiller outside the gates rather than inside.

Then God said, “but at the place which Jehovah your God shall choose to place His name in.” Some have said that in order for this to have been fulfilled, Christ would have had to have been crucified inside Jerusalem, since this was considered to be where God’s name dwelled. Consider however that John 19: 19 states “And Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.”

“King of the Jews” is a name which has been reserved for God since the very beginning of Jewish History. The very fact that this name was placed at Calvary and in fact, was attached to the cross of Christ, renders this commandment fulfilled.

Deuteronomy goes on to say, “there you shall sacrifice the Passover at evening, at the going of the sun, at the time that you came out of Egypt.” We have already seen that Christ was crucified on the Preparation Day, but most do not realize that He died in the very hours when the Passover lamb was required to be crucified.

Remember I said earlier that we need to note that John tells us that the reason the Jews wanted Christ’s legs broken was so “that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the sabbath. For that sabbath was a high day.” Some have speculated that they wanted the men killed before sunset so that they could be taken down during the night, but a simple study on biblical time tables shows us that the new day begins when the sun has set, not at midnight or at sunrise.

The bodies had to be off of the crosses before the sun set, otherwise the high Sabbath of Passover would have been defiled according to custom. When Christ “gave up the Ghost,” He not only allowed this to happen, but he secured Himself as our Passover sacrifice, by allowing His body to die at the hour appointed by Scripture.

Can even the most dedicated of skeptics simply brush off the fact that Jesus fulfilled so many messianic prophesies? Perhaps, but let us take yet another look at John’s Gospel and we will see that he continues by stating “Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs.”

For years I pondered the significance of this passage. I wondered, why would Christ’s bones having not been broken be important enough to the story that the apostle would take the time to record the fact, considering he was not a wealthy man and lived in a time when paper would have been quite difficult for someone of his status to come by.

I have discovered that John’s reasoning was none other than the fact that the unbroken bones themselves qualified Jesus of Nazareth to be my Savior and, that had even one of His bones been broken by the guards in order to expedite His death, His whole sacrificial work, indeed His entire life’s purpose would have been rendered null and void.

The Book of Exodus 12: 46 gives one of the qualifications for the sacrificial lamb which God commanded for the Passover and Christ came to fulfill. It says, “Neither shall you break a bone of it.”

Generally, when I am preaching this message, it is when I have reached this point that the scoffers and the mockers come to a dead silence and, for the duration of the message, they sit on the edges of their seats. Sometimes I have considered the possibility of ending the message here and turning directly into the plan of salvation, however, the Lord has repeatedly answered my inqueries over the matter with a reminder that as a preacher of His Word the Apostle Paul admonished me in II Timothy 4: 1-5, saying “Therefore I solemnly witness before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is going to judge the living and the dead according to His appearance and His kingdom, preach the Word, be instant in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. For a time will be when they will not endure sound doctrine, but they will heap up teachers to themselves according to their own lusts, tickling the ear. And they will turn away their ears from the truth and will be turned to myths. But you watch in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fully carry out your ministry.”

I fully believe in my heart of hearts, that we live in the very age of which Paul wrote and that those few of us who, by God’s empowerment remain bold enough in our witness to tell any of this, have an obligation to all of it. I realize that simply showing every manner in which Christ fulfilled the sacrifice of Passover would more than fill this book, however, with such conviction upon my heart, I cannot in good faith and sound conscience close this chapter without listing just a handful more.

John tells us, “But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a lance, and instantly there came out blood and water.” Many have taken this verse and pointed back to Moses’ striking of the rock to produce water and, in light of Paul’s teaching that Christ was the Rock to whom the fathers of Israel looked, I would have to agree.

However, I believe this reference has another, often completely overlooked meaning. If we look again at David’s psalm to which we refered earlier, we find that in verse 14 he spoke prophetically, saying “I am poured out like water.”

Again, many will claim that I have read too much into this passage and that I am turning the words around to fit my own theology, stating that there is here absolutely no proof that this is a reference to the crucifixion of Christ. However, we must look at the context within which these words appear and then look closely at a few facts which have been determined about crucifixion.

David went on to say, “and all My bones are spread apart.” Anyone who has ever studied the medical and anatomical aspect of crucifixion will tell us several things without question, including that when the individual was placed upon the cross and nailed in place, the position most commonly used would have wrenched the very vertebrae loose, which fact served to greatly endear the Romans to the process, as they were in fact seeking the most painful death possible when they invented crucifixion.

Another undisputed fact of crucifixion is that, regardless of which of the several methods were used, the nails were always positioned in such a manner as to very brutally push apart bones which were intimately related and thereby tear the very tendons which connected them. Again, this is a fact which was much coveted by the Romans.

David then went on to say, “My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of My bowels.” Scholars debate heavily over the meaning of these words and many have claimed that David is in fact referring to his own state and indicating a great period of depression.

In the context however this makes sense to me. I want you to consider for a moment the fact that Christ had been whipped and scourged prior to the crucifixion, in addition to the pounding of nails through His flesh. This in turn would have caused a great deal of internal bleeding, in which case His heart might have felt as though it were melting like wax, as His very life blood flooded His bowels.

Consider also another aspect of the anatomy of crucifixion. Because of the spreading of the arms and the suspension of His weight upon them, the chest cavity would have fallen down upon His lungs, rendering Him breathless for much of the time He was on the cross.

When He desperately required a breath, the Lord would have had to pull Himself up, using the very nails which bound Him to the cross as His means of support. This would have caused excruciating pain, as His tendons ripped farther, His bones were spread apart even more and His very nerves were ripped lose and exposed to the elements.

Continuing in David’s psalm, we read “For dogs have circled around Me; the band of spoilers have hemmed Me in, piercers of My hands and My feet.” This to me is the point which closes the door on all arguments as to what David is describing.

He speaks the words of the Savior, telling of being surrounded by those who have pierced His hands and His feet, a clear depiction of crucifixion. This is most important for two reasons.

First, David was never crucified. Second, he said these words fourteen generations prior to the event having taken place and nearly as long before history records crucifixion having been used.

A common reason for people arguing against this interpretation is because of the psalmist’s use of the Hebrew word ??? which literally means "a lion" , rather than a word which literally means piercers. However, the very fact that the word lion makes the sentence lose any coherency, indicates a need to look deeper for a more complete answer.

A careful study of the word’s usage shows us that it is commonly used to mean “an act of violence” and most commonly “ripping” or “forceful penetrating” action. Thus, when David spoke the words which came to be recorded in Psalm 22, he said “doers of violence to My hands and My feet,” “rippers of My hands and My feet” or “those who forcefully penetrated My hands and My feet.”

Regardless of which of these uses of the word one chooses to insert, we once again return to the mental picture we had when we used the word “piercers.” Once again, we find ourselves face to face with an image of the crucified Christ, in a time when no one could have had such vivid knowledge of the incident, without the divine intervention of God.

The psalmist then goes on to tell us, “I can count all My bones.” This may seem of little importance to many, as it did to me for many years, but let us consider again the whipping and scourging which Christ had already received a the fact that this would have undoubtedly ripped his flesh in many places and, undoubtedly, revealing many bones and ribs.

Next we read the words “they look and stare at Me,” which is an echo of the earlier statement of verses 7-8, which read “All who see Me mock me; they shoot out the lip; they shake the head, saying, He trusted on Jehovah; let Him deliver Him; let Him rescue Him, since He delights in Him!” Here we need to turn away from John’s Gospel and look at that of Mark.

In Mark 15: 29-32 we read, “And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, Aha! You razing the temple and building it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross! And also the chief priests mocking, with the scribes, said to one another, He saved others but he cannot save himself. Let Christ the King of Israel now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe. And they who were crucified with Him insulted Him.” There is no doubt in my heart that David was speaking prophetically of the taunting which the Messiah would undergo, as He suffered even for the sins of those who were doing the taunting.

Without any doubt, Christ came to earth for the sole purpose of fulfilling the Law and thereby paying the penalty for our sins. However, this truth has been terribly misrepresented our the last hundred years or so, until a whole new doctrine has been developed which in no way resembles the true doctrine of the crucifixion.

So often today we are told that because Christ died for our sins, we are no longer under the law. In truth though, Romans 8: 2 tells us that we are only made free from “the law of sin and death,” which is the death penalty for our past transgressions of His righteous statutes.

To understand this we have to look at the reason for which He said He came into this world. In Matthew 5: 17-18 the Lord said “Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to destroy but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, Till the heaven and the earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle shall in any way pass from the Law until all is fulfilled.”

In His own words, we see that the purpose of Christ’s life, death and resurrection were not to destroy the Law and the Prophets and, thus the currently popular teaching that they did so cannot possibly be true. He told us that until heaven and earth passed away, “not one jot or one tittle” would pass from the Law and since heaven and earth are both still here, it stands to reason that the Law remains in effect, despite its penalty having been paid for believers.

The reason so many people misunderstand this passage, is because the word which is translated “fulfill” is taken for its common modern meaning of “complete” or “bring to an end.” Actually, the Greek word which appears here is ?????ì?, which literally means to “level up,” “satisfy” or to “fill to the fullest,” thus the rending in the English of fulfill.

Christ did not come to do away with the law, but to “level up” those places where we were lacking, by showing us how to follow the Law. He came to satisfy that awful penalty which the righteous Law of a just and holy God demands from sinners like you and me.

I am including this, because every time I hear the crucifixion preached, it seems I also hear the man in the pulpit saying something along the lines of, “It does not matter what you do if you are saved, because Jesus Christ died for your sins.” What I hope and pray that you will consider today, is that if you are saved that means you love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul and very being and because of that you will not ever take His sacrifice for granted, making mockery of it in your loveless acts of rebellion.

There will be many, I am certain, who will claim that I have over emphasized the crucifixion as being so central an aspect of our faith for salvation. This is not unexpected, seeing as to how we live in a society where the watered down “church” has in many instances completely removed the preaching of the blood from its pulpits and all mention thereof from its hymnals.

The reasoning, as it was explained to me by the “pastor” of one such “church,” is that “We cannot be too quick to mention the blood, because it often offends new believers.” I believe I hurt his feelings when I expressed my opinion on the matter which is that, “If you take the blood out of the message, then there is no message and if you are offended by the blood of Christ, then you are not a believer, new or otherwise.”

You may think that I am coming off of some radical, right wing position, but the Bible backs me up. Hebrews 9: 22 says it loud and clear, “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission.”

You could very easily insert after the word remission, the word “sin,” because that is exactly what the Word is saying. So with that in mind, you have those three questions which you must ask: Do you believe this? Does this offend you? What then shall you do with Jesus, who is called Christ?