1. The death of the Lord was the expression of Israel's rejection of Him, and His way of getting, by resurrection, upon that new ground proper to the church-" From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day." (Matt. 16:21.)
From WHAT time? From the time that, having experimentally discovered that the Jews were prepared to reject their Messiah, He had for the first time declared that " The knowledge of Himself as the Son of the living God, should become the foundation of a new kingdom, to be called the church." (Read vers. 16-20.) His being killed, therefore, is here to be looked at not only as in itself (as ver. 21) the expression of Jerusalem's. rejection of Him, and of the hatred entertained against Him by false professors of that day; but also as connected with the church in the resurrection; for it was only by resurrection that Jesus got into a place where He could gather Jew and Gentile unto Him, as now gathered in the church.
Let persons who think themselves as religious as those around them, see how the great grace of Jesus in being willing to be killed, proclaimed the utter vileness of all that looked fair in the accredited religion of that day. For where and by whom was the Lord slain? Let us observe also the effect its announcement had upon a true-hearted disciple by reason of his ignorance: "'Then [ver. 22] Peter took him, and began to rebuke him "!!!
How gracious of Jesus to open the interests of His God and Father as soon as possible to the disciples! to tell them too the subject exercising His own mind; and to invite them thus to enter with Him into the sorrow into which His faithful service to His Father and tender love toward them was leading Him! Compare Mark 8:31 Luke 9:22.