Why? Scripture gives the answer. First of all,
God is Holy, Righteous and Just, and this means that He must punish sin wherever
He finds it. To wink at sin, or to overlook it is impossible for God. Although
the Lord Jesus had no sins of His own, He took our sins
upon Himself. He voluntarily assumed responsibility to pay the penalty
of all our iniquities.
The debt we owed was charged to His
account, and He willingly became surety for it all.
What can God do? All His righteous attributes
demand that sin be punished. Yet, here He looks down and sees His only begotten
Son becoming the scapegoat for others. The Son of His love has become our
sin-bearer. Jehovah God, cannot bear to look at sin. He did the only thing He
could do — He deliberately unleashed all the fury of His righteous wrath on His
own beloved Son. The fierce torrent of divine judgment broke upon the innocent
Victim. For our sakes,
Christ was forsaken by GOD so that we might never
be forsaken. HE
bore it all for us, for me. He was forsaken for
me, for you. When I hear Him cry, “Why are You so far from helping Me, and from
the words of My groaning?” I know that it was
for me and it was for my
sake that the heavens were silent to Him by day and by night.
The love of God demanded that sin’s wages be
paid. God’s love provided what His holiness demanded. He sent His Son to die as
a substitutionary sacrifice. Not only was He forsaken by God, but He was
despised and rejected by the people. To the creatures whom His hands has made,
Christ was hardly even a man ──just a worm. He knew the bitterness of scorn and
rejection by the very people He had come to save. Even as He hung on the Cross,
the watching people ridiculed and mocked the Eternal Lover of their souls!
They sang a taunt song in which they mocked His
apparent helplessness and seeming fertility of His trust in God. “He trusted in
the Lord, let Him rescue Him; let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him?”
This is exactly what the jeering crowd said at the cross. (Matt. 27:39,43)
But, the Son of Man turns away from man to God,
for it was God, who brought Him forth from the virgin's womb, it was God who
preserved Him during the fragile day’s of His infancy, it was God who sustained
Him through boyhood to manhood. We too, can turn to God, to sustain us if we
only believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, and put our faith and trust in Him.
Christ’s physical sufferings were excruciating
beyond description. There was His exhaustion; He was poured out like water.
There was the agony of bone dislocation. By hanging on the cross; all His bones
were out of joint. There was violent disorder of His internal organs; His heart,
for instance, was melted like wax within His breast. There was His unendurable
weakness; His strength was dried up like a fragment of pottery. There was His
unremitting thirst; His tongue was clinging to His jaws.
The sufferings of the Lord
Jesus are now forever past. His redeeming work has been finished. The cross has
been exchanged for the crown! Do you have Your crown? Have you asked Jesus to
come live in Your heart? If not do it today, don’t delay; don’t crucify our Lord
Jesus again, and again by denying Him. Just as He died on that cross, He was
buried in a borrowed grave to arise again of the third day.
Hallelujah! Our Lord is Alive! Reigning at the
right hand of the Father. As our advocate, He intercedes to the Father on our
behalf.