Jesus Bore our Shame that we might Share His Glory

We’re going to continue today with the theme of the cross. Yesterday I explained that by the cross I do not mean a piece of metal or of wood—although I have no objection to that—but I mean what was accomplished by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross to be received by faith. I tried to lay the basis of understanding saying that the essence of what took place was a divinely ordained exchange in which all the evil due to man’s disobedience came upon Jesus that all the good due to the sinless obedience of Jesus might be made available to us. That, I believe is the key that opens the treasure house of God. Very, very simply stated: “The evil came upon Jesus that the good might be made available to us.”

We had no claim upon it, we couldn’t demand it, God simply did it out of his sovereign, fathomless grace. I don’t believe that eternity will be long enough to find out why God did it but I’m so glad he did do it. That’s the most important fact of all.

Now, I want this to be a real learning period with you and so I’m going to do review from time to time and I’m going to give you some simple assignments which are option, you don’t have to do them. But you’ll benefit if you do do them. We did, in the course of our sessions yesterday, cover six aspects of the exchange. I would like you to see if you can remember them without looking at your outline. It’s no sin to look at your outline but let’s just check how much we do remember. And I often need to look at the outline myself. I also want to say that there’s absolutely nothing final, no absolute theology in all of this. I’m not claiming that it contains all that was accomplished by the cross, it’s simply opening a door for you to enter in and appropriate what God has made available. So please don’t start a Derek Prince theology of the cross.

This is simply a guideline to point you in the direction in which you have to go for yourself. Nobody else can ultimately make these discoveries but you. There’s that old hymn that says there’s room for just one at the cross. And that really is true. You, personally, have to appropriate from God by the Holy Spirit and by the Word of God what the cross has made available to you, personally.

However, we’ll try and do this. Now I may stumble myself because I’m not going to look at my own outline. And I don’t always teach this exactly the same way so it could be that you’ll have to correct me. But we’ll do the evil on the left hand, the good on the right hand. Everybody participating now, the first one is:

• He was punished that we might be forgiven.
• He was wounded that we might be healed.
• He was made sin with our sinfulness that we might be made righteous with his righteousness.
• He died our death that we might share his life.
• He was made a curse that we might receive the blessing.
• And he endured our poverty that we might share his abundance.

Well, that’s wonderful!

Now with regard to the curse and blessing part of it, let me just hold up this little book for a moment, From Curse to Blessing which, if you want some further insight onto this theme, will help you. It’s available on the book table, there’s a limited number I’m sorry to tell you. But you can also order it free—not free but very cheap from my ministry. Why I said free was because this is a transcript of two weeks of my radio teaching on my radio program Today With Derek Prince which is aired on about between 60 and 70 stations in the States. It was broadcast for the first time last September and we offered this free transcript for any listener that would write in for it. And we had 6,000 responses which gives you some indication that this is meeting people’s needs, it’s reaching people in an area that they didn’t realize they had a need. So we’re not going to deal with the whole of this theme here in this teaching because it’s not our theme, but you can obtain that transcript very simply.

Now you can look at your outline. We’re going to go on. There are four further aspects of the exchange which are on the outline. I want to make it very clear to you that’s not all, these are just some examples. If you look in the outline, after the exchange between poverty and abundance there is shame and glory. This was made real to me through ministering to people in the area of deliverance and what is called emotional healing. I discovered that one of the deep problems that many people have is a sense of shame.

Now I don’t know why it is, I’m not claiming to be any bit better than anybody else, but some of these emotional problems I never had. I had to think myself into the position of people who did have them. For instance, I’ve met uncountable people who had a problem with rejection. I just never had that problem. It wasn’t because I was better, I mean my problem was something rather the opposite. If you don’t like me, that’s your problem not mine. But I discovered that there are multitudes of people who are tormented with a sense of shame. They feel really somehow they can never really lift up their face in the presence of God. I’ve noticed some people who worship, they always worship with their heads down. I think it’s a real symptom of something. Job said, “I will lift up my face without spot to God.” We ought to be able to come into God’s presence without any sense of shame whatever.

One great cause of shame in our contemporary culture is child abuse. People, whether boys or girls, who were sexually abused in childhood often have a lingering sense of shame which will follow them up through life. But I’m so glad that the cross provides a remedy.

Let’s look at the picture of the crucifixion of Jesus that’s given us in Matthew 27:35–36. You know, the Bible, and particularly the New Testament is unique in its discipline the way it describes things. You take any modern author describing the crucifixion, he would have gone into all sorts of detail and tried to make it emotionally impacting. But the New Testament simply says `they crucified him’. It’s the most amazingly short statement. Let’s look there. Matthew 27:35–36:

“Then they crucified him, and divided his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoke by the prophets, “They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.’ Sitting down they kept watch over him there.”

We are often deceived by pretty religious art as to what took place when Jesus was crucified. But it’s stated very clearly here, they took all his clothes from him—because they wanted his clothes. Generally speaking, a man in those days had four basic garments. There were four soldiers, each soldier took one garment. Then there was the seamless robe and because it was such a particularly beautiful garment they said, “Don’t let’s tear it up, let’s cast lots for it.” So, if you study what that says it implies that he was left totally naked. Obviously there will be no religious art that will ever portray him that way.

So he was stripped naked and exposed to the gaze of the soldiers and all the passers by. And you find the New Testament in a way is very discreet. It says the women who came with him stood at a distance. The only one who came close was his mother. Behind that you see this picture of Jesus exposed in total shame. Why? This is the wonderful answer: He bore our shame. He took the shame that had come upon so many of us in so many different forms to do away with it, to eliminate it, to set us free from it.

What’s the opposite of shame? Glory, that’s right.

Let’s look at just one other picture the Bible gives of the shame in Isaiah 53. You really need to keep a marker in Isaiah 53 because we’ll keep going back there from time to time. It says in verse 3:

“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief [and that really is a man of pain, and acquainted with sickness]: and we hid as it were our faces from him.”

In modern English: we averted our eyes from him. The sight was so offensive we didn’t even want to look at it. That was our shame that he was bearing. Then we look at the opposite side in Hebrews 2:10:

“For it was fitting [or appropriate] for him for whom all things and by whom all things [that’s God the Father], in bringing many sons to glory, to make the author of their salvation [that’s Jesus] perfect through suffering.”

Notice one purpose of the sufferings of Jesus was to bring many sons to glory. So we have the exchange “Jesus bore our shame that we might share his glory.”

It’s wonderful to think that God’s purpose was to bring many sons and daughters to glory. But it was only possible through the cross. Let’s do that now with the gestures, I’ll do it just once to sort of get you lined up. “Jesus bore our shame that we might share his glory. Jesus bore our shame that we might share his glory.” To be sure we really mean it we’ll do it once more. “Jesus bore our shame that we might share his glory.” Now we make it personal. It’s very important to make it personal because in the last resort it’s you as an individual. “Jesus bore my shame that I might share his glory.”

Let’s say thank you to him, shall we? I don’t think we can really believe that without saying thank you.