July 9, 2006

• Where is Calvary

  Putting this up early because I have a treat for you for tomorrow. My husband wrote another letter to the family, no – not to Buzz the Wonderdog, but a piece of his history, a bit traumatic, a bit illuminating, some wonderful pictures and information – the subject – eggplants. Hold your breath, and I will post it later. I feel I owe it to him to let him send it to the family first. Trust me, it is worth it!

  
  

  Heather

  
  

  I am reading a book by Gordon Lindsay, The Life and Teachings of Christ, and I am amazed at the wonderful way God will share information. Right now the book is covering the crucifixion of Jesus, and pages 240-242 cover what I am studying in Genesis.

  
  

  Where Is Calvary Located?

  
  

       Before we conclude the story of the crucifixion, there is a question often asked that we may consider. It is this: “Where is Calvary and the tomb where Jesus was laid located?” We believe that an authoritative answer can be given to this question. We wish to give acknowledgment to L. T. Pearson, whose booklet, Where is Calvary? is a scholarly investigation of the subject and which is the source for much of the data used in the following pages:
       Where is the place called Calvary located? And where is the site of the tomb where the body of Jesus was laid? No spot on earth is so sacred. For a number of reasons we believe that Mt. Calvary lies outside the wall of Jerusalem at the northern end of Mt. Moriah. The tomb is nearby the crucifixion, for John 19:41-42 declares “In the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid. There they laid Jesus.”
       The first mention in the Bible of Mount Moriah, is found in Genesis 22:2, when Abraham was directed of God to “Take now thy son…and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell the of.” The spot was chosen of God. And it was here that Abraham offered his son in sacrifice and received him back as it were from the dead. In type, therefore, the death and resurrection of the Son of God was symbolically pre-enacted on the very spot. It was a rehearsal in the life of Abrahm of the great sacrifice that was to take place 1900 years later.
       Mt. Moriah came into view again when David committed the sin of numbering the people, and the nation came under judgment. “God sent an angel into Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was destroying, the Lord beheld, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed, it is enough, stay now thine hand. And the angel of the Lord stood by the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.” (I Chron. 21:15)
       Then God commanded the angel of the Lord to say to David that the King should go up and “set up an altar unto the Lord in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite…And David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt-offerings and peace offerings” (1 Chron 21:18-26).
       In this place of Mt. Moriah, judgment was stayed for sin, and so it is stayed for all sinners. As David set up an altar there, so the cross is the Great Altar, where the Supreme Sacrifice was later made. It was also on Mt. Moriah that God told Solomon to build the temple.
                          “Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at
                          Jerusalem in Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto
                          David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the
                          threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite” (II Chron. 3:1)
  
       And in II Chronicles 7:12, 16, the Lord said it was to be His place for sacrifice, that His name might be there forever. The temple that Solomon built did not cover the whole Mt. Moriah, only the southern part of it. Mt. Moriah runs north beyond the wall of the city and reaches its highest point at Calvary or Golgotha. This is the place where Christ was crucified. The gospel writers are very precise in this statement: (Mark 15:22, Luke 23:33).
                       “And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha,
                       that is to say, a place of a skull” (Matt. 27:33).
       Why is it called “the place of a skull?” As we stand looking at the little cliff-like hill (it is a place where busses are now parked), we note that it has a curious formation or representation of a human skull caused by the natural weathering of the rock. We note that the gospels specifically declare it “the place of a skull.” This abrupt face of the hill was the result of a moat cut through the hill about fifty feet deep and about five hundred feet from the wall of the city. It was made some years before the era of Christ to keep an enemy at a safe distance from the wall. This artificial separation has caused people to forget that Calvary or Golgotha was once united to the rest of Mt. Moriah. Very fortunately Golgotha has been preserved from any buildings being built upon it because of the fact that for centuries it has been a Mohammedan cemetery!
       From this hill all of Jerusalem may be seen. The terrible spectacle of Christ on the Cross was shrouded from public view of the city, after the darkness that descended upon it.
       As we have said, the present wall of Jerusalem is about 500 feet from Golgotha. This wall built by Soliman in the 16th century lies directly over Herod’s archeological excavation. Moreover, this Roman or Herodian gate is directly opposite Golgotha and must have been the one that Christ passed through bearing the cross.
      Now therefore, we have the necessities of the type. Christ must have died on Mt. Moriah, but outside the city gate. “Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate” (Heb. 13:12)
       This was the place reserved by the Jews for stoning, and when the Romans occupied the land, they used the place for their executions.
       But the place where the Lord was crucified is verified by one more fact. The tomb was nearby (John 19:42). It was privately owned by Joseph of Arimathaea. This tomb or sepulcher is hewn out of the very rock of Calvary. It is definitely a Jewish tomb of the Roman period. Various historical records which we cannot mention here also verify this place as the site of the actual tomb of Jesus.
       The tomb of Christ differs from all others in that it is an empty tomb! He is not there, He is risen! He that was dead, is now alive! And because He lives, we shall also live!”

  
  

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  I love how God works, making everything tie in together so well. I hope this blesses you, I love the history of things.

  
  

  Heather

  • 3:46 pm
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