Pastor Barry's  "Chapter & Verse"  2024  Day 281

October 6;      John 10:18;       78/260(III);      ‘Jesus’ Life Laid Down’

John 10:18 No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father." 

Jesus Christ is God.  Following the mission God the Father had for Jesus, Jesus came to earth as a Man.  He laid His deity aside temporarily.  In this verse Jesus is talking about laying His physical life down for us.  Our Lord redeemed us taking our sins and sicknesses upon Himself on the cross and being punished for them in our place, so that we would not be punished for them.  Jesus indeed was willing to give His life for us.  Even though Jesus was a Man, relationally He always was the Son of God and He had certain rights that no one else had.  The Lord tells us here no one takes His life.  The religious leaders, because of jealousy, hated Jesus and wanted to kill Him for a long time.  They could not.  There was a time when those who heard Jesus teach were offended and wanted to throw Him off of a cliff.  They could not.  Several times the Word of God teaches that the Pharisees wanted to arrest and crucify Jesus.  They could not, as His time to die, determined by God the Father had not come yet come.  The redemptive sacrifice of Jesus was on God the Father’s terms and not man’s.  The hypocritical, murdering religious leaders and satan himself thought that they had won, when Jesus was crucified.  They did not know that the cross was the Father’s plan for His Son and the death of Jesus was on exactly the day chosen by the Father, Passover.  The Jewish Holy Day when the blood of the sacrificial lamb was shed for the protection of the people.  Jesus willing died for us on the exact terms of God His Father.