By His Wounds
/I just finished reading John’s account of the crucifixion of Jesus. As we are about to enter “Holy Week,” where we specifically focus on the sacrifice of Jesus and ultimately His victorious resurrection, I wanted to take a moment and just focus on what Jesus did for us.
It’s easy to let this story become familiar. We talk, read, and sing about Jesus’ sacrifice often in the church. In an effort to keep this story in front of us, sometimes it can create a feeling of routine in us.
What Jesus did on the cross is anything but ordinary.
God came down to earth, left His position in heaven, and became a man. He did all of this so He could one day take our place on the cross and take all of the judgment of God on His body.
That is an unbelievable thought.
Paul put it this way…
[Jesus] who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death — even to death on a cross. -Philippians 2:6-8 (CSB)
Jesus, became God in the flesh of humanity, and took our punishment. We would all have to be held accountable for every sinful thing we’ve ever done. But by the grace of God, Jesus took that judgment upon Himself.
For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For rarely will someone die for a just person — though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. -Romans 5:6-8 (CSB)
Jesus suffered an incredibly painful, humiliating, and excruciating death… all for His love of us. Jesus wanted to make a way for mankind to know God.
My prayer for this week as we focus on Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection is I don’t lose sight of the magnitude of what He did for me. This is not just another Bible story. This is the story of our salvation!
As I close this post, I want to share Isaiah 53 below. Written many, many years before Jesus came to earth, it predicts what His death would be like and it what it would accomplish…
Isaiah 53 (CSB)
Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He didn’t have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at him, no appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turned away from; he was despised, and we didn’t value him.
Yet he himself bore our sicknesses, and he carried our pains; but we in turn regarded him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds. We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way; and the Lord has punished him for the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughter and like a sheep silent before her shearers, he did not open his mouth. He was taken away because of oppression and judgment; and who considered his fate? For he was cut off from the land of the living; he was struck because of my people’s rebellion. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, but he was with a rich man at his death, because he had done no violence and had not spoken deceitfully.
Yet the Lord was pleased to crush him severely. When you make him a guilt offering, he will see his seed, he will prolong his days, and by his hand, the Lord’s pleasure will be accomplished. After his anguish, he will see light and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many, and he will carry their iniquities. Therefore I will give him the many as a portion, and he will receive the mighty as spoil, because he willingly submitted to death, and was counted among the rebels; yet he bore the sin of many and interceded for the rebels.
