Mark spoke tonight on the subject of the nails which held Jesus to the cross, sporting a T-short which proclaims ‘My Saviour is tougher than nails.’
Nails come in all shapes and sizes and are very useful, but in each of the Gospel narratives of the crucifixion, there is actually no mention of nails (see Matt 27:35, Mk 15:24, Luke 23:33, Jn 19:18). It is not until after the resurrection, when Jesus appears to the disciples, that we hear about the nails which held Him to the cross, for Thomas needs to see the evidence of those nail marks before he will believe (see John 20:19-29). Jesus showed them the marks of the nails, proving that He really had been crucified and was alive for evermore.
It was not the physical nails themselves, however, which held Jesus to the cross. As Son of God, He could have come down from the cross and demonstrated His deity in that way; despite the pain, agony and suffering of death by crucifixion, He knew that God’s salvation could only be won if He suffered in that way and His love kept Him on the cross. He chose to die in that way to finish God’s great plan of salvation.
Jesus knew that sin had to be paid for and that the cross was the only way reconciliation between man and God could be made. He took our sins and nailed them to the cross (Col 2:14), paying the ultimate price so that our sins can be removed forever. Jesus destroyed the law of sin and death on the cross and became our atoning sacrifice (propitiation). He refused the pain relief offered (wine vinegar mixed with myrrh) because He needed to be fully aware of all that was happening and bear the weight of our sins with full consciousness. God’s grace poured out from the cross.
All sins are paid for at the cross: sins of our past and any sins we may commit in the future. We have a responsibility to pin our sins, as it were, to the cross as we repent, confess them and ask for God’s forgiveness. We need to let go of our former lifestyles (including wrong behaviour and wrong patterns of thinking) and embrace the reality of the forgiveness purchased for us through Christ’s death on the cross.