Who were the people who crucified Jesus, and what was their relationship to Him?
The people who crucified Jesus were created beings, and their relationship to Him was that He was their Creator. They were crucifying the very Creator who made all things; all things were created by Him, a truth never to be lost from view.
Les explains from Ephesians 3:9 that the mystery had been hid in God, the same God of Genesis 1:1 who created all things, and that the Creator is Jesus Christ. He recalls teaching a class in Iowa and making the point that the people who nailed Christ to the cross and set Him up in public spectacle were the created beings of the Creator they were crucifying. That realization shook his class, because they had never had that concept of who Jesus was. Les stresses that it was the created beings crucifying their Creator and says never lose sight of that. He connects it to salvation: the sovereign, total God of the universe is the same God who died the death that Les should have died, rose from the dead, and extended eternal life, and that cannot be separated from Him.