Featured The Bearer of Sin and Guilt

A righteous ground has been provided on which God can be just and yet the justifier of all who believe. Hence it is we are told, "Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; And that repentance and remission [forgiveness] of sin should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem" (Luke 24:46-47). And again, "Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you forgiveness of sins: And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the Law of Moses" (Act 13:38-39). It was in view of the blood He was shedding that the Savior cried, "Father, forgive them." It was in view of the atoning sacrifice He was offering, that it can be said, "without shedding of blood is no remission."

 

The wages of sin is spiritual death. Sin separates from God, Who is the fount of all life. This was shown forth in Eden. Previous to the Fall, Adam enjoyed blessed fellowship with his Maker, but in the early eve of that day that marked the entrance of sin into our world, as the Lord God entered the Garden and His voice was heard by our first parents, the guilty pair hid themselves among the trees of the garden. No longer might they enjoy communion with Him Who is always light, instead, they are alienated from Him. So, too, was it with Cain: when interrogated by the Lord he said, "From your face shall I be hid" (Gen 4:14).

Sin excludes from God's presence. That was the great lesson taught Israel. Jehovah's throne was in their midst, yet it was not accessible. He abode between the cherubim in the Holy of Holies and into it none might come, saving the high priest, and he but one day in the year bearing blood with him. The veil which hung both in the tabernacle and in the temple, barring access to the throne of God, witnessed to the solemn fact that sin separates from Him.

The wages of sin is death, not only physical but spiritual death; not merely natural but essentially penal death. What is physical death? It is the separation of the soul and spirit from the body. So penal death is the separation of the soul and spirit from God. The Word of Truth speaks of her that lives in pleasure as being "dead while she lives" (1 Timothy 5:6). Note, too, how that wonderful parable of the prodigal son illustrates the force of the term "death." After the return of the prodigal the father said, "This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found" (Luke 15:24). While he was in the "far country" he had not ceased to exist; no, he was not dead physically, but spiritually—he was alienated and separated from his father!

Now on the Cross the Lord Jesus was receiving the wages which were due His people. He had no sin of His own, for He was the Holy One of God. But he was bearing our sins in His own body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24). He had taken our place and was suffering—the Just for the unjust. He was bearing the chastisement of our peace; and the wages of our sins, the suffering and chastisement which were due us, was "death." Not merely physical but penal; and, as we have said, this meant separation from God, and hence it was that the Savior cried, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

 

So, too, will it be with the finally impenitent. The awful doom awaiting the lost is thus set forth, "who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power" (2 Thessalonians 1:9)—eternal separation from Him Who is the fount of all goodness and the source of all blessing. Unto the wicked Christ shall say, "Depart from me, you cursed"—banishment from His presence, an eternal exile from God, is what awaits the damned. This is the reason why the Lake of Fire—the eternal abode of those whose names are not written in the Book of Life—is designated "the second death" (Rev 20:14). Not that there will be an extinction of being, but everlasting separation from the Lord of life, a separation which Christ suffered for three hours as He hung in the sinner's place. At the Cross, then, Christ received the wages of sin.

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

 

Isaiah 53:4-6 ESV / 24 helpful votes
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

 

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

2. Here we see the absolute holiness and inflexible justice of God. The tragedy of Calvary must be viewed from at least four different viewpoints. At the Cross man did a work: he displayed his depravity by taking the perfect One and with "wicked hands" nailing Him to the tree. At the Cross Satan did a work: he manifested his insatiable enmity against the woman's seed by bruising His heel. At the Cross the Lord Jesus did a work: He died—the Just for the unjust that He might bring us to God. At the Cross God did a work: He exhibited His holiness and satisfied His justice by pouring out His wrath on the One who was made sin for us.

What human pen is able or fit to write about the unsullied holiness of God! So holy is God that mortal man cannot look upon Him in His essential Being and live. So holy is God that the very heavens are not clean in His sight. So holy is God that even the seraphim veil their faces before Him. So holy is God that when Abraham stood before Him, he cried, "I am but dust and ashes" (Gen 18:27). So holy is God that when Job came into His presence he said, "Wherefore I abhor myself" (Job 42:6). So holy is God that when Isaiah had a vision of His glory he exclaimed, "Woe is me! for I am undone…for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts" (Isa 6:5). So holy is God that when Daniel beheld Him in theophanic manifestations he declared, "there remained no strength in me: for my loveliness was turned in me into corruption" (Dan 10:8).

So holy is God that we are told, "He is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and can not look on iniquity "(Hab 1:13). And it was because the Savior was bearing our sins that the thrice holy God would not look on Him, turned His face from Him, forsook Him. The Lord made to meet on Christ the iniquities of us all: and our sins being on Him as our substitute, the divine wrath against our offences must be spent upon our sin-offering.

 

They avoid the clear meaning of these words, over and over, to no avail.

 

Many times I am driving, but I am out of hours till the morning, at a truckstop in SC. along i -95....going up tyo ny, then back south..

 

At the Cross, then, as nowhere else, we see the infinite malignity of sin and the justice of God in the punishment thereof.
Was the old world over-flown with water? were Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by a storm of fire and brimstone? were the plagues sent upon Egypt? and were Pharaoh and his hosts drowned in the Red Sea?

In these may the demerit of sin and God's hatred thereof be seen; but much more so here is Christ forsaken of God. Go to Golgotha and see the man that is Jehovah's fellow drinking up the cup of His Father's indignation, smitten by the sword of divine justice, bruised by the Lord Himself, suffering unto death, for God "spared not his own Son" when He hung in the sinner's place.

Behold how nature herself had anticipated the dreadful tragedy—the very contour of the ground is like unto a skull. Behold the earth trembling beneath the mighty load of outpoured wrath. Behold the heavens as the sun turns away from such a scene, and the land is covered with darkness. Here may we see the dreadful anger of a sin-avenging God. Not all the thunderbolts of divine judgment which were let loose in Old Testament times, not all the vials of wrath which shall yet be poured forth on an apostate Christendom during the unparalleled horrors of the Great Tribulation, not all the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth of the damned in the Lake of Fire ever gave, or ever will give such a demonstration of God's inflexible justice and ineffable holiness, of His infinite hatred of sin, as did the wrath of God which flamed against His own Son on the Cross. Because He was enduring sin's terrific judgment, He was forsaken of God. He who was the Holy One, whose own abhorrence of sin was infinite, who was purity incarnate (1 John 3:3) was "made sin for us" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Therefore did He bow before the storm of wrath, in which was displayed the divine displeasure against the countless sins of a great multitude whom no man can number. This, then, is the true explanation of Calvary. God's holy character could not do less than judge sin, even though it be found on Christ Himself. At the Cross, then, God's justice was satisfied and His holiness vindicated.

 

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

3. Here we see the explanation of Gethsemane. As our blessed Lord approached the Cross, the horizon darkened for Him more and more. From earliest infancy He had suffered from man; from the beginning of His public ministry He had suffered from Satan; but at the Cross He was to suffer at the hand of God. Jehovah Himself was to bruise the Savior, and it was this which overshadowed everything else. In Gethsemane He entered the gloom of the three hours of darkness on the Cross. That is why He left the three disciples on the outskirts of the garden, for He must tread the winepress alone. "My soul is exceeding sorrowful,"

He cried. This was no shrinking horror in anticipation of a cruel death. It was not the thought of betrayal by His own familiar friend, nor of the desertion by His cherished disciples in the hour of crisis, nor was it the expectation of the mockings and revilings, the stripes and the nails, that overwhelmed His soul.

No, all of this keenest anguish as it must have been to His sensitive spirit, was as nothing compared with what He had to endure as the Sin-bearer.

 

Here is the real expression of wrath;
"Then comes Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and says unto the disciples, Sit you here, while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him, Peter, and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then says he unto them, my soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry you here, and watch with me. And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as you will" (Mat 26:36-39). Here He views the black clouds arising, He sees the dreadful storm coming. He premeditated the inexpressible horror of that three hours of darkness and all they held. "My soul is exceeding sorrowful," He cries.

The Greek is most emphatic. He was begirt with sorrow. He was plunged over head and ears in the anticipated wrath of God. All the faculties and powers of His soul were wrung with anguish. St. Mark employs another form of expression—"He began to be sore amazed" (14:33). The original signifies the greatest extremity of amazement, such as makes one's hair stand on end and their flesh to creep. And, Mark adds, "and to be very heavy," which denotes there was an utter sinking of spirit; His heart was melted like wax at sight of the terrible cup.

But the evangelist Luke uses the strongest terms of all: "And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground" (Luke 22:44). The Greek word for "agony" here, means to be engaged in a combat. Before, He had combated the oppositions of men and the oppositions of the devil, but now He faces the cup which God gives Him to drink. It was the cup which contained the undiluted wrath of a sin-hating God. This explains why He said, "If it be possible let this cup pass from me." The "cup" is the symbol of Communion, and there could be no communion in His wrath, but only in His love. Notwithstanding; though it means being cut off from communion He adds, "Nevertheless not as I will, but as you will."

Yet so great was His agony that "His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." We think that there can be little doubt that the Savior shed actual drops of blood. There would be little meaning in saying that His sweat resembled blood, but was not really that. It seems to us the emphasis is on the word "blood." He shed blood—just like great beads of water in ordinary cases. And here we see the fitness of the place chosen to be the scene of this terrible but preliminary suffering. "Gethsemane"—ah, your name betrays you! It means the olive-press. It was the place where the life-blood of the olives was pressed out drop by drop! The chosen place was well named then. It was indeed a fit footstool to the Cross, a footstool of agony unutterable and unparalleled. On the Cross then, Christ drained the cup which was presented to Him in Gethsemane.

 

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

4. Here we see the Savior's unswerving fidelity to God. The forsaking of the Redeemer by God was a solemn fact, and an experience which left Him nothing but the supports of His faith. Our Savior's position on the Cross was absolutely unique. This may readily be seen by contrasting His own words spoken during His public ministry with those uttered on the Cross itself. Formerly He said, "And I know that you hear me always" (John 11:42); now He cries, "O my God, I cry in the day time, but you hear not "(Psalm 22:2)! Formerly He said, "And he who sent me is with me: the father has not left me alone" (John 8:29); now He cries, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He had absolutely nothing now to rest upon save His Father's covenant and promise; and in His cry of anguish His faith is made manifest. It was a cry of distress but not of distrust. God had withdrawn from Him, but mark how His soul still cleaves to God. His faith triumphed by laying hold of God even amid the darkness. "My God," He says, "My God," You with Whom is infinite and everlasting strength; You who have hitherto supported My manhood, and according to Your promise upheld Your servant—O be not far from Me now. My God, I lean on You. When all visible and sensible comforts had disappeared, to the invisible support and refuge of His faith did the Savior betake Himself.

 

In the Twenty-second Psalm the Savior's unswerving fidelity to God is most apparent. In this precious Psalm the depths of His heart are told out. Hear Him: "Our fathers trusted in you: they trusted, and you did deliver them. They cried unto you, and were delivered: they trusted in you, and were not confounded. But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. But you are he who took me out of the womb: You did make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts. I was cast upon you from the womb: You are my God from my mother's belly" (Psalm 22:4-10). The very point His enemies sought to make against Him was His faith in God. They taunted Him with His "trust" in Jehovah—if He really trusted in the Lord, the Lord would deliver Him. But the Savior continued trusting though there was no deliverance, trusted though "forsaken" for a season! He had been cast upon God from the womb and He is still found cast upon God in the hour of His death.

He continues, "Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help. Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my affections. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; and you has brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture. But be not you far from me, O Lord; O my strength, haste you to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword; My darling from the power of the dog" (Psalm 22:11-20). Job had said of God, "Though he slay me yet will I trust him," and though the wrath of God against sin rested upon Christ, still He trusted. Yes, His faith did more than trust, it triumphed—"Save me from the lion's mouth: for you have heard me from the horns of the unicorns" (Psalm 22:21).

O what an example has the Savior left His people! It is comparatively easy to trust God while the sun is shining, the test comes when all is dark. But a faith that does not rest on God in adversity as well as in prosperity is not the faith of God's elect: We must have faith to live by—true faith—if we would have faith to die by. The Savior had been cast upon God from His mother's womb, had been cast upon God moment by moment all through those thirty-three years; what wonder then that the hour of death finds Him still cast upon God. Fellow-Christian, all may be dark with you, you may no longer behold the light of God's countenance. Providence seems to frown upon you, notwithstanding, say still Eli, Eli, my God, my God.

 

At the Cross all our iniquities were laid upon Christ, and therefore did divine judgment fall upon Him. There was no way of transferring sin without also transferring its penalty. Both sin and its punishment were transferred to the Lord Jesus. On the Cross,

Christ was making atoning sacrifice, and atoning sacrifice is solely godwards. It was a question of meeting the claims of God's holiness; it was a matter of satisfying the demands of His justice.
Not only was Christ's blood shed for us, but it was also shed for God : He "has given himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor" (Eph 5:2). Thus it was foreshadowed on the memorable night of the Passover in Egypt: the lamb's blood must be where God's eye could see it— "When I see the blood, I will pass over you!"

The death of Christ on the Cross was a death of the curse: "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree" (Gal 3:13). The "curse" is alienation from God. This is apparent from the words which Christ will yet speak to those that shall stand on His left hand in the day of His power— "Depart from me, you cursed" He will say (Mat 25:41). The curse is exile from the presence and glory of God. This explains the meaning of a number of Old Testament types. The bullock which was slain on the annual Day of Atonement, after its blood had been sprinkled upon and before the mercy-seat, was removed to a place without [outside] the camp" (Lev 16:27), and there its entire carcass was burned. It was in the center of the camp that God had His dwelling-place, and exclusion from the camp was banishment from the presence of God. Thus it was, too, with the leper. "All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be" (Lev 13:46)—this because the leper was the embodied type of the sinner.

 

But more: the greatness of Christ's love for us can be estimated only when we are able to measure the wrath of God that was poured upon Him. This it was from which His soul shrank. What this meant to Him, what it cost Him, may be learned in part by a perusal of the Psalms in which we are permitted to hear some of His pathos-filled soliloquies and petitions to God.

Speaking anticipatively, the Lord Jesus Himself by the Spirit cried through David, "Save me, O, God; for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying: My throat is dried: Mine eyes fail while I wait for my God…Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters. Let not the water-flood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me…Hide not your face from your servant; for I am in trouble; hear me speedily. Draw near unto my soul, and redeem it: deliver me because of mine enemies. You have known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonor: Mine adversaries are all before you. Reproach has broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none" (Psalm 69:1-3, 14-15, 17-20). And again, "Deep calls unto deep at the noise of your waterspouts; All your waves and your billows are gone over me" (Psalm 42:7).
God's abhorrence of sin swept forth and broke like a descending deluge upon the Sin-bearer. Looking forward to the awful anguish of the Cross, He cried through Jeremiah, "Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, with which the Lord has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger "(Lam 1:12). These are a few of the intimations we have by which we can judge of the unspeakable horror with which the Holy One contemplated those three hours on the Cross, hours into which was condensed the equivalent of an eternal Hell. The Beloved of the Father must have the light of God's countenance hidden from Him; He must be left alone in the outer darkness.

Here was love matchless and unmeasured. "If it be possible let this cup pass from me," He cried. But it was not possible that His people should be saved unless He drained that awful cup of woe and wrath. And because there was none other who could drink it, He drained it. Blessed be His name! Where sin had brought men, Love brought the Savior.

 

We will not repeat again what has already been said at length, sufficient now to remind the reader once more, how this cry of Christ's witnesses to God's hatred of sin. Because He is holy and just, God must judge sin wherever it is found. If then God spared not the Lord Jesus when sin was found on Him, what possible hope is there, unsaved reader, that He will spare you when you stand before Him at the Great White Throne with sin upon you? If God poured out His wrath on Christ while He hung as surety for His people, be assured that He will most certainly pour out His wrath on you if you die in your sins. The Word of Truth is explicit—"He who believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him" (John 3:36). God "spared not "His own Son when He took the sinner's place, nor will He spare him who rejects the Savior. Christ was separated from God for three hours, and if you finally reject Him as your Savior you will be separated from God forever— "Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord" (2 Thessalonians 1:9).

 

f old the Spirit of God moved David to say of the coming Messiah, "They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink" (Psalm 69:21). How marvelously complete was the prophetic foreview! No essential item was missing from it. Every important detail of the great Tragedy had been written down beforehand. The betrayal by a familiar friend (Psalm 41:9), the forsaking of the disciples through being offended at Him (Psalm 31:11), the false accusations (Psalm 35:11), the silence before His judges (Isa 53:7), the being proven guiltless (Isa 53:9), the numbering of Him with transgressors (Isa 53:12), the being crucified (Psalm 22:16), the mockery of the spectators (Psalm 109:25), the taunt of non-deliverance (Psalm 22:7-8), the gambling for His garments (Psalm 22:18), the prayer for His enemies (Isa 53:12), the being forsaken of God (Psalm 22:1), the thirsting (Psalm 69:21), the yielding of His spirit into the hands of the Father (Psalm 31:5), the bones not broken (Psalm 34:20), the burial in a rich man's tomb (Isa 53:9)—all plainly foretold centuries before they came to pass. What a convincing evidence of the divine inspiration of the Scriptures! "How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!"

 

"It is finished." The mission upon which God had sent His Son into the world was accomplished. That which had been eternally purposed had come to pass. The plan of God had been fully carried out. It is true that the Savior had been by "wicked hands crucified and slain," yet was He "delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God" (Act 2:23). It is true that the kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against His Christ; nevertheless it was but for to do what God's hand and God's counsel "determined before to be done" (Act 4:28). Because He is the Most High, God's will cannot be thwarted. Because He is supreme, God's counsel must stand. Because He is almighty, God's purpose cannot be overthrown.

 

Are you able to deal honestly with PSA? What you described is the heretical word of faith teaching that Kenneth Copeland teaches and other WOF teachers hold to, which IS NOT PSA. All who hold to PSA vehemently condemn this teaching as heresy.

To take upon the burden of someone else's debt doesn't make you the party who incurred that debt. Christ standing in our place and being accounted with our penalty doesn't make Him sinful.
If you run up a bill that you can't pay, and I step in to pay your debt. I do not become the party that ran up the debt, rather I become the individual who takes your debt upon myself and pay the one to whom it is owed.
In this case, Christ steps in to bear the penalty. This does not mean that He ceases to be God or is cut off from the rest of the Trinity.

I've tried to understand your and JonC's position, but it is incoherent.

 

And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Luke 24:27
And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. Gen 4:10
For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Matt 12:40
Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. “I cried out to the LORD because of my affliction,
And He answered me.
“Out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
And You heard my voice. Jonah 1:17 2:2
2:10 So the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
John 5:21 For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth
Rom 8:11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

For how many days and nights did the Son cry out to the Father? How many days and nights did his blood cry out?

You posted: See the father did not abandon the Son. "He has not hidden His face from Him, but has attended to His cry for Help." ----- After three days and three nights.

BTW Why 3 days? Why not 1 or 2 or 40? I am truly asking.

 

_doesn't make Him sinful," you wrote, yet our sins were laid on him. Are they still on him? Could he have been raised out of the dead with our sins still upon him? His blood was given, to make atonement.

Did washing of regeneration have anything to do with our sins that had been laid on Jesus, that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

Consider what 1 Cor 15:17 states - and if Christ hath not risen, vain is your faith, ye are yet in your sins;