These words were spoken to Jesus while He was nailed to the cross. From nine o'clock in the morning, when He was hung on the cross, until three o'clock in the afternoon, when He died, Jesus listened to such taunts from the people who passed by the hill of Golgotha. With derision they hurled such challenges at Him, taking His passivity as proof that He was not who He claimed to be. They were led in this verbal abuse by the chief priests and scribes, who cried out, "He saved others; He cannot save Himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down from the cross that we may see and believe," (vs. 31-32). These statements were sarcastic to the extreme. For these antagonists of Jesus had never believed from the beginning that He had actually "saved others." To save others meant to forgive them of their sins, and these people had strongly objected to Jesus' claim that He had the power to forgive sins, (Mrk. 2:7). They leveled the charge of blasphemy against Jesus for making this claim. Furthermore, in no sense did they accept the claim that Jesus was "Christ, the King of Israel." They contested Jesus' claim that He was the Christ, or Messiah (Mat. 22:41-45). And when Pilate had a sign attached to the cross above Jesus, which read JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS, these very people protested, "Do not write, 'The King of the Jews,' but rather, 'This man said, I am King of the Jews'," (Jno. 19:19-22).
If Jesus was the Christ and had all the power of heaven at His disposal with only a word, why did He not use it to save Himself? Why, after abundantly demonstrating His power to save others, did He not choose to save Himself? Satan is quoted as having said to God, "Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life," (Job 2:4). Jesus' life as a man was as precious to Him as ours is to us, so why did He fail to use His power to save His skin on the day of the crucifixion? Satan also said to God, "Stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he (Job) will curse You to Your face," (v.5). At least this is what Satan hoped would happen, for it is his vile intention to induce men to curse God, thus provoking Him to become angry at them and creating enmity between God and men. God's reply to Satan was this, "Behold, he is in your hand, only spare his life," (v.6). It came to pass, however, that Job proved Satan to be wrong. He did not curse God when Satan smote his skin, bone, and flesh with a horribly painful, loathsome disease.
If Job was a test case in loyalty to God against the provocations of Satan, Jesus was infinitely more so. God let Satan loose on His Son and did not even set the limit He did for Job, "only spare His life." He permitted Satan to go all the way against the skin, flesh, and bone of Jesus to subject them to the power of death. Had Jesus resisted by calling forth His power to save Himself and come down from the cross, He would have affirmed Satan's claim, "All that a man has he will give for his life." To have thus saved His own skin, Jesus would have dishonored God by betraying His loyalty to Him. But to suffer death rather than spare the agony of Satan touching His flesh and bone amounted to a colossal defeat for the devil. In his best effort against God, when he had the opportunity to prevail over His Son subjected to the limitations of human flesh, Satan failed totally. Jesus restrained the natural urge of the flesh to save its destruction by any means and proved Satan wrong. For this great victory God recalled Jesus from the grave, restored Him to His original seat of glory in heaven, and pronounced Him Lord over all. In winning this personal victory over Satan, Jesus also won a victory for every person who will put his faith in Him as Christ the Son of God, who will then resist Satan in that faith, and who will refuse to let his flesh rule his spirit.
