Jesus Christ's death holds profound significance in fulfilling ancient prophecies and divine instructions. During His crucifixion, the Roman soldiers broke the legs of the two felons crucified alongside Him to hasten their deaths, but when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. This act fulfilled Psalm 34:20, which declares that the Lord guards all the bones of the righteous man, ensuring not one of them is broken. Despite the severe beatings, bruising, scourging, piercing, and marring He endured, God preserved the integrity of His bones, underscoring His watchfulness and care. The unbroken state of Christ's body also aligns with the stipulations for the Passover sacrifice, as outlined in Exodus 12:46 and Numbers 9:12, where God commands that the bones of the Passover lamb remain intact. As our Passover, Jesus' death was orchestrated by God to meet this requirement perfectly. Additionally, the timing and nature of His death connect to the covenant God made with Abraham, where God swore a self-maledictory oath, promising to be cut asunder if He failed to fulfill His promises. Had Christ's body been divided during His crucifixion, it would have implied that the Covenant-Maker was paying the price for failure. Therefore, it was imperative that His blood be shed to seal the New Covenant while His body remained unbroken to uphold the promises made to Abraham. In His sovereignty, God accomplished both imperatives flawlessly.

The phrase "Christ's broken body" is often used, yet it raises questions about its accuracy and faithfulness to Scripture. Jesus Himself does not mention His body being broken, only that the bread represents His body, as He states that the bread He shall give is His flesh for the life of the world. The notion of His body being broken introduces grammatical and scriptural difficulties, as the verb for breaking pertains to dividing bread at a meal, not to the breaking of His physical body. On a practical level, Jesus broke the physical bread to share among the Twelve, symbolizing the sharing of His life, but His body remained unbroken, a significant distinction. The apostle John's account of the crucifixion provides crucial details, emphasizing the fulfillment of Scripture. He records that not one of Jesus' bones was broken, fulfilling the prophecy of Psalm 34:20. During crucifixion, the victim's position made breathing difficult, and executioners would sometimes break the legs to hasten death by preventing the victim from pushing up to breathe. The Jews requested the Romans to break the legs of those crucified to avoid interference with their holy day, but when they came to Jesus, He was already dead. Instead of breaking His legs, they pierced Him, thus fulfilling another Messianic prophecy.

Jesus Christ's death was a supreme victory, not a defeat. He held His head up until the end, bowing it only when He gave up His spirit. He had finished what the Father had given Him to do, accomplishing it perfectly. He died after living a completely sinless life, fulfilling the sin offering. He gave Himself in complete devotion to the Father up to His death, fulfilling the burnt offering. He served humanity to the utmost, satisfying the meaning of the grain offering, and poured Himself out as a drink offering. His death would reconcile God and men, making harmony and fellowship possible, as the peace offering pictures. His crucifixion was not a defeat in any way; though marred beyond recognition with His bones countable, Jesus Christ remained unbroken. Before we can take the Passover, we must be baptized into His death, but we are saved by His life. Only a body undefiled by sin has blood that can pay the death penalty, and He lived life flawlessly for that sacrifice to be effective.

Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, our Savior, our Redeemer, the Messiah, died 1,964 years ago on the day of the Passover, Nisan 14. He was crucified on that day, fulfilling the type of the Passover lamb, as He is named specifically as our Passover. Like the innocent lamb slain at Passover, He bled to death, His blood spilling onto the earth as He expired as an innocent and pure Man. His bones were not broken, mirroring the instructions for the Passover lamb, which was to be without blemish. His ghastly death and the terrible scourging He endured redeemed us, buying us back from the second death, just as the blood of the lamb saved the firstborn of Israel from the plague. Three days after His death, at the end of the Sabbath, He was resurrected to eternal life by our Father in heaven. The following morning, on the day of the wavesheaf offering, He ascended to heaven as our High Priest and Savior, accepted before God. His crucifixion and death had to occur on Nisan 14 to perfectly fulfill the type of the Passover lamb, as no other day would align with this symbolism. His resurrection on the Sabbath, when the wavesheaf was cut, symbolized Him entering His rest, becoming the perfect Firstfruit of God's spiritual harvest. His ascension, occurring shortly after sunrise on the day after the Sabbath during the Days of Unleavened Bread, coincided with the waving of the sheaf, further fulfilling the type as He was accepted as our Redeemer and High Priest before God.

As God leads us through conversion, He challenges our understanding of Him, and accepting the reality of Jesus Christ's death is crucial to clarifying our vision of His nature. The Scriptures reveal the harsh truth of His sacrifice, which some find difficult to embrace, yet it remains a significant part of what He accomplished. Isaiah 53:4-6 prophesies that He bore our griefs, carried our sorrows, was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all, fulfilling the type of the azazel goat from Leviticus 16, where sins were placed on the goat and it bore them into the wilderness. Further, Isaiah 53:11-12 states that He shall bear our iniquities, justifying many, and poured out His soul unto death, numbered with transgressors. I Peter 2:24 confirms that He bore our sins in His own body on the tree, enduring extreme suffering, shame, reproach, anguish, piercing, crushing, and bruising during those hours, not merely dying but bearing sin in a real, physical way. This bearing of sin was not an abstract act but a recorded fulfillment of intense agony. Paul in II Corinthians 5:21 declares that God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, a startling truth paralleling the azazel becoming a representation of sin. Galatians 3:13 adds that Christ became a curse for us, as He hung on the tree, redeeming us from the curse of the law. Hebrews 13:12 notes that He suffered outside the gate, akin to the azazel being led outside the camp, enduring hours of bearing our transgressions before His death. Matthew 27:45-46 captures the culmination of His suffering, with darkness over the land and Jesus crying out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" This sacrifice, where He became sin and a curse, was a terrible yet necessary role He fulfilled, bearing all the chastening in His body so that we might have life with Him.

Jesus Christ's death was a profound shock and disappointment to His followers, who had believed He would lead an insurrection to restore Israel as a sovereign and glorious nation. His unexpected execution left them in despair, and the public remained uncertain about His identity despite the signs foretold in ancient scriptures. Crucified at Calvary, outside Jerusalem's walls, Jesus endured immense agony, despised and rejected by the very humanity He came to serve. The night before, His disciples had deserted Him out of fear, and one had betrayed Him to His executioners. During His final hours on the stake, Jesus spoke seven times, offering a powerful message of love and hope. His words, recorded across the four gospels, included three statements to God the Father and four to those nearby. First, He prayed for forgiveness for His crucifiers, saying, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do," demonstrating His boundless love even in pain. Second, He offered hope to a repentant thief crucified beside Him, assuring him of a future in God's Kingdom. Third, He ensured His mother's care by entrusting her to His disciple John, honoring family even at death's brink. In His fourth statement, Jesus cried out in anguish, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" reflecting the torment of bearing humanity's sins alone, cut off from His Father. His fifth statement expressed physical thirst, fulfilling prophecy as He accepted sour wine, showing His true humanity in suffering. Sixth, He declared, "It is finished," signifying the completion of His redemptive work, the penalty for sin paid in full. Finally, with His seventh statement, "Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit," He surrendered His life, trusting His Father completely. Jesus was completely dead for three days and nights following His crucifixion, His life poured out through His blood shed on the stake. His death was essential, as only through it could the penalty for humanity's sins be paid. As the Creator, His life held greater value than all human lives combined, ensuring that His sacrifice covered every sin. God the Father raised Him from this state of death, restoring Him to life, not from a state of consciousness, but from complete unconsciousness, affirming the reality of His human death and the hope it brings to all.

Suffering and sorrow indeed come to those Jesus Christ loves, as evidenced by the fulfilled prophecies surrounding His death. The apostle John records specific events of the crucifixion that align with Old Testament predictions, demonstrating that God orchestrated every detail. These events, fulfilled within a twenty-four-hour period during His crucifixion, include the division of His clothing and the casting of lots for His seamless inner garment, as prophesied in Psalm 22:18; the offering of vinegar or sour wine to quench His thirst, fulfilling Psalm 69:21; the decision not to break His legs, as foretold in Psalm 34:20; and the piercing of His side with a spear, as predicted in Zechariah 12:10. These fulfillments affirm that the Scriptures are God's Word about Jesus Christ, revealing His identity as the anointed One. During His final hours on the cross, Jesus Christ's thoughts reflected on Psalm 22, indicating His understanding of His suffering. He cried out in anguish, expressing separation from God, and later declared, "It is finished," signaling the completion of His mission. His mind dwelled on the alienation He endured, the suffering described in the psalm, and the eventual spread of the gospel to the Gentiles. Even in His agony, He showed concern for others, speaking words of care to His mother and the disciple John, ensuring their well-being. His words from the cross, spoken between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., amidst darkness from noon to 3 p.m., reveal His clarity of mind, His understanding of His death's purpose, and His persistent love for others. Jesus Christ's seven statements from the cross further highlight His humanity and compassion. He prayed for forgiveness for His executioners, promised a future opportunity to the believing thief, expressed His thirst to fulfill Scripture, and voiced His separation from the Father. He entrusted His mother to John, affirmed the completion of His work, and finally yielded His spirit to God. Even in His suffering, He remained focused on the needs of others, demonstrating care for His disciples and envisioning the spread of the gospel beyond Israel. His death on the cross was a deliberate act, planned and executed with precision by God, fulfilling every prophecy with exactness.

Jesus Christ's death stands as a profound and central event, revealing the stark reality of death as an enemy, not a friend. Unlike Socrates, who faced death with calm composure under the false belief of an immortal soul, Jesus approached His death with great fear and distress. He became deeply troubled, expressing that His soul was exceedingly sorrowful unto death, feeling an affliction so great that He was sinking under its weight. This was no mere resignation; it was a titanic battle against the most powerful weapon of satan—death itself. Jesus knew that His death would mean absolute separation from the Father for the first time, a dreadful abandonment that intensified His anguish. He called out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" showing death in all its frightful horror, as He understood the immense stakes involved. Death, as Jesus faced it, is the ultimate separation from life and relationships, a state of nothingness that rifts the complete loss of everything God created for humanity. He did not sleepwalk through this ordeal; He was afraid, not of the men who would kill Him, but of the utter forsakenness death represented. Three times in Gethsemane, He reached out to His human friends, begging them to stay awake, desperate not to be alone in this most terrible moment. His death was not divine or beautiful in God's eyes; it was an accommodation to the outworking of His plan, an enemy that must be overcome and destroyed. Jesus had to meet and conquer death on its own turf—absolute nothingness—by giving up the most precious good God has given, life itself. If anyone deserved to live on without dying, it was Him, based on His perfect life, yet He was not inherently immortal. He truly died, facing the final challenge of humanity's worst enemy. His victory over death could not be obtained by living on as an immortal soul; He had to invade death and conquer it by never sinning, even as death claimed His life. This act was essential, for without His genuine death, there would be no immortality for us. Passover serves as a memorial of Christ's atoning death, and appreciating what He did is of prime importance to God. Not discerning His death from all other deaths is a critical failure; it must be recognized as unique and vital. His death, coupled with His resurrection, rendered death powerless for those who truly believe and steadfastly practice the way of life He pioneered. Jesus affirmed that in order for God's plan to be concluded, He had to die, tasting death for every man by the grace of God, though He was qualified and had every right to live without dying. His death provides the means for the forgiveness of sins, granting access to the throne of God and allowing His creative power to work in us, preparing us for the Kingdom of God through resurrection in His spiritual likeness.