The Cross

He was pierced for my transgressions. That is how much God loves me.

Six hundred years before the crucifixion, Isaiah wrote it down. Read this slowly. It is not background material.

Scripture — Isaiah 53:4–6 (OTB)

“Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered Him stricken by God, afflicted, and humiliated. But 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. We all have wandered like sheep, each of us has turned to our own path; and the Lord has placed upon Him the iniquity of us all.”

Read it again, and this time put your own name in it. He was pierced for my transgressions. He was crushed for my iniquities. The Lord placed on Him what belonged to me. That is not a devotional trick. It is what the passage says, and it will not do its work at arm’s length.

The lamb in the Old Testament was never killed because the lamb was guilty. It was killed because someone else was.

Then the question worth asking: why like this? God could presumably have arranged forgiveness some quieter way. Isaiah says it was the Lord’s will to crush Him — which is a hard sentence until you see what it is for. God knows we doubt that we are loved. He knows it better than we do. Anything less than this and we would have found a way to explain it away. The cross is God removing every remaining argument.

So whenever you think about the cross, the thought to have is not first I should do better. It is that is how much God loves me. He did that for me.

And that is the order everything else in this class runs in. What Jesus did for you comes before what you do for Him — always, and never the other way round. A disciple driven by guilt burns out. A disciple who knows what he cost God does not.

Isaiah adds one more thing: after His suffering, He will “be satisfied.” Something makes it worth it to Him. It is people coming home.

Recite it: He was pierced for my transgressions. That is how much God loves me.

Reflect & do

Read Isaiah 53 out loud, slowly, with your own name in it. Then write one sentence — not a paragraph — of what you want to say back to Him.