FROM TODAY’S READING (4/10/2020)...
EASTER WEEK
“Our sins were focused on Christ on the cross, and he suffered the fiery wrath of God. On the cross Christ was robed in all that is heinous and hateful as the mass of our corruption poured over him. With horror Christ found his entire being to be sin in the Father's sight.
Wave after wave of our sin was poured over Christ's sinless soul. Again and again...his soul recoiled and convulsed as all our lies, infidelity, hatreds, jealousies, murders, and pride were poured upon his purity. "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us...Jesus was cursed as he became sin for us!
Jesus in full, lucid consciousness took on your sins and mine and bore them with a unity of understanding and pain that none can fathom. And he did it willingly, so that ‘we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Corinthians 5:21). There in the darkness our sins were imputed to Christ, and his righteousness has now been imputed to us who believe.”
R. Kent Hughes
Luke 23:44-49 (NLT) By this time it was about noon, and darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. The light from the sun was gone. And suddenly, the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn down the middle. Then Jesus shouted, “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!” And with those words he breathed his last.
When the Roman officer overseeing the execution saw what had happened, he worshiped God and said, “Surely this man was innocent.” And when all the crowd that came to see the crucifixion saw what had happened, they went home in deep sorrow. But Jesus’ friends, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance watching.
Isaiah 53:3-6 (NLT) He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.
2 Corinthians 5:21 (NLT) For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.
1 Peter 2:24 (NLT) He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed.
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