“And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last.” – Mark 15:37 (ESV)
“It was most fitting that every word of our Lord upon the cross should be gathered up and preserved. As not a bone of him shall be broken, so not a word shall be lost. The Holy Spirit took special care that each of the sacred utterances should be fittingly recorded. There were, as you know, seven of those last words, and seven is the number of perfection and fulness; the number which blends the three of the infinite God with the four of complete creation. Our Lord in his death-cries, as in all else, was perfection itself. There is a fulness of meaning in each utterance which no man shall be able fully to bring forth, and when combined they make up a vast deep of thought, which no human line can fathom.” – C. H. Spurgeon
We’ve been studying the seven last words of Jesus from the cross these past four weeks. We have three more to go. This has been a rich time of study and meditation as we prepare for Easter Sunday. And we thought we would share a couple of the charts we have written to help prepare these messages.
The first chart we made was in preparation of the whole study. We wanted to verify the last sayings of Christ, discover which gospels reported them, and place them in the best chronological order. Here is a link to a PDF of the chart that we made: A STUDY OF THE SEVEN LAST WORDS OF JESUS FROM THE CROSS
The second chart came out of a desire to know the identity of the four women who stood near the cross of Jesus as reported in John’s gospel. “Just how many “Marys” were there?” We wondered. So, we charted what all four gospels said concerning the women at the cross and compared each to try and identify the four women reported in John. Here is a link to a PDF of the chart that we made: WHO WERE THE WOMEN AT THE CROSS?
We concluded that the two pairs of women (one pair unnamed and one named) at the cross in John’s gospel were:
- Mary, mother of Jesus
- Mary Magdalene
- Mary, wife of Clopas, and mother of James the younger and Joseph (or Joses)
- Salome, wife of Zebedee, mother to James and John, and sister to Mary, mother of Jesus
We offer these two charts to enhance your own Bible study during this series. We hope you find it helpful and that it offers additional insight and blessing to your consideration of the seven last words of Jesus.
The great British expositor, C. H. Spurgeon has said on this subject, “There is a fulness of meaning in each utterance which no man shall be able fully to bring forth, and when combined they make up a vast deep of thought, which no human line can fathom.”
Yet, we would invite you to join us as we endeavor to try and fathom them, diving deep into these seven sayings of Jesus to meditate on their meaning.