In this Holy Week, we take time to rivet our gaze on the cross of Christ and we have several questions about the crucifixion, two of which we will address this week. On Friday, we'll look more closely at why Simon of Cyrene carried Christ's cross, a curious little story we've all read but have likely never spent much time thinking about with its many interesting implications for us and for our lives.

Don't miss that episode next time on Friday, but today we address the Holy Spirit. On the cross, the triune God is at work, Father, Son, and Spirit. But how is the Spirit at work there? It's a question today from a podcast listener named James. "Dear Pastor John, I praise God for your faithful preaching of the Word.

You have had a profound impact on my life and understanding of Jesus and His cross. I have a question regarding the crucifixion. Romans 8:11 says that it was the role of the Spirit to raise Jesus from the dead, but what role did the Holy Spirit play specifically in the crucifixion?" As far as I can see, the biblical writers did not describe the activity of the Holy Spirit directly in relationship to the crucifixion in the hour of Jesus' death.

If there's a text that does that, it has slipped my attention. I'd be happy for someone to correct me. Therefore, if I'm right about that, in answering this question, we are coming at it in an indirect way from things that He said about the Holy Spirit, that God in His Word said about the Holy Spirit, in relationship to Jesus, in relationship to His Father, in other connections.

So let me begin with making explicit an assumption that I bring that is maybe different from what some people have said, especially recently I'm hearing it. Some people are saying that since Jesus was authentically human, His deity was not the means by which He did any of His miracles, but only by the Holy Spirit as a man like us, a real man, a man of faith.

Now I think this is a partial truth taken to an unbiblical extreme. The New Testament makes it plain that the works of Jesus were not only done through the Holy Spirit, but were done as evidence of His deity. Just to take one example, John 13, 19. Jesus says, "I am telling you this now, before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe that I am." And I think that "I am" is an allusion to His deity, and so His foreknowledge is given here as something from which we should infer, "Oh my goodness, this man is claiming to be very God of very God and warranting it with His works." So that's what "I am" means, and Jesus expected those who watched Him, including us when we watch Him in the Gospels, He expects us to be able to discern divine glory.

We have beheld His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. They saw something in Jesus in the combination of His works and words and ways, His whole demeanor, including His works, were communicating, "This man is more than just an ordinary man," even though it's true that He did trust in God's help and the Holy Spirit as He did His works.

By the Holy Spirit I'm casting out demons. Now having said that, it's not wrong to emphasize He was a perfect model of what humans should be like, including His reliance on the Spirit. He says explicitly that He casts out demons by the power of the Holy Spirit, Matthew 12:28.

He was led into the wilderness by the Spirit, He was full of the Holy Spirit, He was anointed by the Spirit, Acts 10:38. He was commissioned by the Spirit, Matthew 4:18. He was vindicated by the Spirit at His baptism, according to 2 Timothy. He did all of this by the Spirit.

He was the perfect model man for us in that regard. We are to live by the Spirit also. So with that assumption behind me, let me try to say maybe three things with regard to James's question, namely how the Spirit relates specifically to the crucifixion of Jesus. Number one, Jesus could not have died for sinners unless He was sinless.

In view of what we just saw about how He lived by the Spirit, I assume that the Holy Spirit was at work in the life of Jesus, enabling Him to walk in holiness and preserving Him in purity and holiness as the Lamb of God, without which there could be no substitutionary atonement.

And I assume that some of the greatest temptations for Jesus to be disobedient to the vision, to the mission, happened in the hours just before He breathed His last. Those were the worst moments of suffering. And if there was any time when He was going to make shipwreck of His faith and fail in His mission, it would be then, and if there was any time where the Holy Spirit was active, surely He was active in strengthening and helping Jesus persevere to the end in holiness and faith.

And so I would say our very salvation hangs on the involvement of the Holy Spirit in the moment of the crucifixion. Number two, the Holy Spirit's reality in the life of the God-man, Jesus Christ, was essential to His very identity as God on the cross, essential to His deity.

He was conceived in Mary's womb, Luke tells us, Luke 1:35, by the Holy Spirit, so that He could be called the Son of God. The virgin birth by the Spirit, conception by the Spirit, is the key to His deity in His God-man existence. So as He hung on the cross, He was hanging there owing to the Spirit having caused Him to be conceived in the womb as the God-man, and He could not have done His work on the cross in any other way than as very God of very God in union with the Father by the Spirit.

So His very existence as the God-man who died in our place was owing to the Holy Spirit. Thirdly, and lastly, I admit that this one is more speculative than the other two, but let me go ahead and venture it anyway. There's a profound sense in which the delight that the Father had in the obedience of His Son as He was being crucified was a delight or a love that consisted in the Holy Spirit Himself.

Now, your first reaction to that statement might be, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. His Father was pouring out wrath on His Son on the cross so that it wouldn't have to be poured out on us. What's this talk about delighting in the Son as He hung there?" Well, it's just not that simple.

He definitely was under the curse of God as He died, Galatians 3:13, Romans 8-3. Yes, He was. He was being condemned. He bore our condemnation. He bore our curse. But He was also, from another angle, approved by God and pleasing to God. Ephesians 5-2, Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

In the moment of His greatest suffering and His perfect obedience, He was a fragrance to God. God smelled the obedience of His Son and delighted in it. So God the Father was experiencing the death of Christ in more ways than one. He was experiencing the obedience of His Son as a fragrant offering, and I'm suggesting that the Holy Spirit was the mediator of that delight in the Father, in the sense that the Holy Spirit in union with the Son and the Holy Spirit in union with the Father was experienced by the Father as the union of delight.

I know that's heavy. If you wonder, "Where are you getting that idea?" That's the way to understand the Holy Spirit. I would send you to Jonathan Edwards' essay on the Trinity. You can find it online free. Jonathan Edwards' essay on the Trinity if you want to see the biblical foundations for that way of thinking.

But let this much be said for our worship of Christ in this precious season. One, our sins would not be forgiven if the Son of God were not sinless and it was the Holy Spirit who sustained His faith and preserved Him in His sinless perfection. Two, our sins would not be forgiven if the Son of God were not very God of very God as He hung on the cross.

And that deity depended on His being conceived 33 years earlier by the Holy Spirit. That's profound. And to Ephesians 5 too, maybe we could also add Isaiah 53 10, that the Lord was pleased to crush Him. Oh, that's true. I didn't even think of that. You're right. Absolutely. Yeah.

No sadistic love of harm, but a profound delight in the atoning sacrifice of the Son. Thank you, Pastor John. And listeners, thank you for listening. To find our archives, read transcripts of our episodes, or ask a question, go to our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. I'm your host Tony Rehnke, and we'll see you on Friday, Good Friday, when we look at why Simon carried the cross of Christ.

What are we to make of this episode? What are the takeaways for us? We'll see you then. Desiring God's Grace Page 2 of 9 Desiring God's Grace Page 2 of 9 Desiring God's Grace Page 2 of 9 Desiring God's Grace Page 2 of 9 Thank you.