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Isaiah wrote about the Messiah
who would come to earth
for a lost humanity and suffer tortures
induced by the very creation He had made.
He would deliver His people
from their sins by being the only sacrifice
holy and pure enough
to satisfy the righteous demands of a holy God.
Jesus had to become a man,
and live as a man in a world of sin.
Yet, He Himself was without sin.
He was to suffer the greatest agonies
and sorrows ever known to man.
He was betrayed by men he had created.
He suffered humiliation and
torture at their hands.
He was beaten,
had His beard plucked out,
and had a crown of thorns thrust upon His holy head.
He was spat upon and mocked.
Jesus suffered the horribly painful death of crucifixion.
Then He hung naked upon the cross,
stripped of every human dignity.
Heaven must have been aghast
at the barbaric treatment
given to the Creator of the universe.
How the heavenly host
must have watched in utter amazement,
or hid their faces
from such agonies inflicted upon God’s own Son!
The suffering didn’t end there,
for when He became sin’s sacrifice
every sin ever
committed came upon Jesus.
He became a cesspool of sin.
So vile did Jesus become that the Father,
the Holy God could not look upon Him
and turned His back upon His own Son.
This unthinkable desertion was
so heart wrenching to Jesus that He cried,
“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
I can’t help but
think that this experience of separation from the Father
must have been the greatest of Gethsemane’s
anticipated horrors.
After this, Jesus cried, “It is finished,”
as He gave up the ghost and died. What kind of
love is this,
that the Father would give His Son to suffer and die for vile sinners?
What kind of love would
cause Jesus to go to hell and suffer
all of it’s torments for those who deserved it?
To think that He would go to hell
so that you and I would not have to go there is unfathomable.
The Lamb, the spotless Lamb of God
willingly paid the supreme price,
and He paid it in full!
He paid for your and mine salvation
with His very own blood.
His life was a ransom for all of mankind.
In return, don’t we owe Him our love ?
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Isaiah 52:14
As many were astonied at Thee;
His visage was so marred more than any man,
and His form more than the sons of men:
Isaiah 53
Who hath believed our report?
and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant,
and as a root out of a dry ground:
he hath no form nor comeliness;
and when we shall see him,
there is no beauty that we should desire him.
He is despised and rejected of men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:
and we hid as it were our
faces from him;
he was despised,
and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs,
and carried our sorrows:
yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities:
the chastisement of our peace was upon him;
and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own way;
and the LORD hath laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed,
and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth:
he is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb,
so he openeth not his mouth.
He was taken from prison and from judgment:
and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of
the land of the living:
for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
And he made his grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death;
because he had done no violence,
neither was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him;
he hath put him to grief:
when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin,
he shall see his seed,
he shall prolong his days,
and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
He shall see of the travail of his soul,
and shall be satisfied:
by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many;
for he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he hath poured out his soul unto death:
and he was numbered with the transgressors;
and he bare the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
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Hebrews 12:2
Looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith;
Who for the joy that was set before Him
endured the cross,
despising the shame,
and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
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FROM MY HEART TO YOU 