Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. (Isaiah 53:4)
It was bad enough that he was beaten almost to death with rods or whips. But, the soldiers and the Jewish Sanhedrin took great pleasure in it. They esteemed, highly regarded, highly prized it.
The soldiers mocked him because they understood that this itinerant preacher and magician dared to defy Caesar and the mighty power of Rome. They mocked him as a king and Pilot's inscription on the cross said: "King of the Jews."The Sanhedrin and temple priests were ridding themselves of the threat they felt from this upstart leader. In America you can honor any nut in town but do not mention Jesus. Islam is welcome in our schools and court rooms and public places but Jesus is out.
Had he not gone into the Temple twice and took charge of the commercial enterprise of sacrifices and money changing and turned their tables over and renounced them? Now it was their turn to take down this man who challenged their authority and they took great delight in punishing him with rage. (This clip is only 2 ½ minutes.)
The keen and accurate prophecies of the Bible are one of the things that set it apart as a book like no other. How could Isaiah have written this hundreds of years before it happened? And consider the other Old Testament prophecies such as Psalm 22.
"The prophet was so afraid that you and I would miss this that he mentioned it three times: "The LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." "Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him." "He hath put him to grief." Consternation fills our souls when we recognize that it was God the Father who treated the perfect Man in such terrible fashion.
"What had he done to merit such treatment? Christ was on the cross six hours, hanging between heaven and earth from nine o'clock in the morning until three o'clock in the afternoon. In the first three hours man did his worst. He heaped ridicule and insult upon Him, spit upon Him, nailed Him without mercy to the cruel cross, and then sat down to watch Him die.
"At twelve o'clock noon, after He had hung there for three hours in agony, God drew a veil over the sun, and darkness covered that scene, shutting out from human eye the transaction between the Father and the Son. Christ became the sacrifice for the sin of the world. God made His soul an offering for sin. Christ Jesus was treated as sin, for we are told that He was made sin for us who knew no sin. If you want to know if God hates sin, look at the Cross.
"If you want to know if God will punish sin, look at the Darling of His heart enduring the tortures of its penalty. By what vain conceit can you and I hope to escape if we neglect so great a salvation? That cross became an altar where we behold the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world. He was dying for somebody else—He was dying for you and me" (McGee)
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