With blood flowing from His wounds and streaming down His face from the thorns in His brow, Jesus stood before Pilate. As part of the Passover celebration, it was Pilate’s custom to release any prisoner the crowd chose. It just so happened that “at that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Barabbas. So . . . Pilate asked them, ‘Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus Who is called Christ?'” (Matt. 27:16-17, NIV)
The rulers shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” (John 18:40, NIV). Barabbas! Barabbas was a thief and a murderer and a rabble-rouser! The religious leaders of Israel were demanding that Barabbas be set free and Jesus be crucified. And so Barabbas became the first person to be set free by the death of Jesus.
Jesus died, not just in the place of Barabbas, but in your place and mine. Because He died, I am free! Free from my sin and its penalty.
Perhaps thinking to satisfy the crowd’s thirst for blood without actually going so far as to execute Jesus, Pilate had Him flogged. The flogging would have ripped the flesh off of His back, exposing His internal organs. History records that flogging victims either passed into unconsciousness, went insane, or died. The miracle is not that Jesus survived the whipping, but that He submitted to it! How easy it would have been for Him to defy them and, without cursing but in righteous judgment, send them all to hell!
Why? Why would God allow His Son to endure such physical torture? The answer had been given years earlier, when Isaiah solemnly prophesied, “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. . . . He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isa. 53:4-5, NIV).
Thank Him now for bearing God’s judgment that should have been yours!
Before the foundation of the world was laid, God, in His divine sovereignty, planned to send His own Son to the cross to be our Savior. Before the beginning of time and space and human history, He took counsel with Himself and decided to bring us into existence, knowing full well that we would rebel against Him and become separated from Him by our sin. So He made preparations for our redemption-preparations that were finished once and for all time at the cross.
The heartbeat of Jesus was to finish His Father’s plan and, in so doing, bring glory to God. In other words, through His own death on the cross, Jesus would reveal the love of God in such a way that people throughout the ages would praise Him and love Him and lay down their lives before Him. So He embraced the cross and all that it meant.
God left His throne at the center of the universe. He set aside His glory, and He humbled Himself as He took on human flesh.
He came to His own – those whom He had created for Himself – but they didn’t receive Him.
They contradicted His Word.
They challenged His authority.
They denied His claims.
They questioned His motives.
They mocked His power.
They rejected His Person.
And God in Christ submitted Himself to their slapping, spitting, mocking, taunting, flogging, and stripping then allowed them to nail Him to a cross where He gave His own life as a sacrifice for their sin. And mine. And yours. His own death satisfied His own judgment for sin, and we are saved. Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Has someone suggested to you that:
If God really loved you, He would heal your disease?
If God really loved you, He would never have allowed you to lose your job?
If God really loved you, He would bring your spouse back home?
If God really loved you, you would be healthy and wealthy and problem free?
Yet God has said that the proof of His love is none of those things! The proof of His love is that while we were sinners, passing Jesus by on the road of life, He sent His only, beloved Son to die for us.
Would you thank God, not just for saying, “I love you,” in words, but for proving it?
