“Just as many were appalled at Him-His appearance was disfigured beyond that of any man, and His form was marred beyond human likeness.” (Isaiah 52:14 BSB)
“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21 NKJV)
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us-for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” (Galatians 3:13 ESV)
For most of my life I have pictured the Cross as a time in which the Father poured out His wrath on His Son because of His great anger toward me and every other person who like me was not living up to His expectations. Religion had trained me to somehow overlook just how harsh eternal punishment with no hope of release from the burning torment of hell was going to be for the vast majority of the human race. Somehow I was blinded to just how unjust this must appear to those who had not been raised in my particular religous persuasion. The deeper my relationship with Jesus has become, and the clearer Daddy has revealed Himself to me, the more I have begun to question the way I have seen this central event on which all of my eternity rests.
Recently Daddy revealed to me that it wasn’t Jesus on which He poured out His wrath. It was what Jesus “became” on the Cross that he poured His wrath out on. For a moment in time Jesus “became” everything that the enemy brought into creation to seperate us from our Creator, to divide the Father from His children.
What hit me was the revelation that Jesus didn’t just “carry” sin, sickness, and all that ailed humanity on the cross, he “became” those things. For a moment in time Jesus was not Jesus. He was sickness. He was sin. He was poverty. He was prejudice. He was everything depraved and deplorable. That is why Scriptures say he was so distrorted and contorted that he did not look human. He became such complete “ugliness” that he couldn’t be looked upon.
Men killed Jesus (actually, Jesus gave his life freely). Daddy killed sin, sickness, etc. He didn’t turn His back on Jesus and pour out His wrath on His only begotten, beloved Son. He turned His back on all that Jesus had “become” and poured His wrath on sin and all the rest of those things that were plaguing His children.
Daddy is Good. He is Love. He is Holiness. He judged everything that was coming between Him and those He created, not those He loved so much that He gave His only begotten Son for.
That is what I believe Daddy wants us to see in the Redemption account of Jesus death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. Jesus did not come to condemn the world, but to save us from everything that the enemy brought in to steal, kill, and destroy.
I am rejoicing in…
…Eric’s Life Lesson # 202: Jesus “Became,” Not Just “Bore.”