Isaiah chapter 53. Let's stand to hear the word read. We'll actually start at Isaiah 52 and verse 13 to get the context. This is about the servant of the Lord. The suffering servant of Isaiah, and here particularly are the prophecy that points directly to the cross of our Savior Jesus Christ in Isaiah chapter 53. Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, so his visage was marred more than any man and his form more than the sons of men. So shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at him. For what had not been told from them they shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider. Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness, and when we see him there is no beauty that we should desire. He is despised and rejected by men. a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we did not esteem him. Surely, he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him, stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him. By his strikes we are healed. We, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of a soul. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before a shearer's is silent, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living, for the transgressions of my people he was stricken. And they made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich at his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him, He has put him to grief. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoiled with the strong, because he poured out his soul unto death, And he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors." John chapter 19, now with a new cover, a new testament, the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy. And he, bearing his cross, went out to a place called the Place of the Skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucified him and two others with him, one on either side and Jesus in the center. Now Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross, and the writing was Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Then many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Therefore the chief priest of the Jews said to Pilate, do not write the king of the Jews, but he said, I am the king of the Jews. Pilate answered, what I have written. I have written. And the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four parts to each soldier apart, and also the tunic. Now the tunic was without seam, woven from the top in one piece. They therefore said among themselves, let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be. that the scripture might be fulfilled, which says, they divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. Therefore the soldiers did these things. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, Mary his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son. And he said to the disciple, behold your mother. From that hour, that disciple took her into his own home. After this, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, said, I thirst. A vessel full of sour wine was sitting there, and they filled a sponge with sour wine and put it on Hyssop and put it to his mouth. So Jesus, when he had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished. And bowing his head, He gave up his spirit. This is the word of the living God. We consider in the preaching of the word this morning, John chapter 19, verses 17 through 30, but we will be looking at this same passage for a number of weeks. Looking at the cross of Jesus Christ this morning more generally. The coming weeks, the one on the cross, and then the triumphant cross. And so if some of you are listening along and wondering why perhaps that verse or this verse seem to be skipping over them a little bit, Lord willing, by the time we get to the end of these three sermons, this entire section, verse 17, through 30, we will have cover. For example, today, verses 25 through 27, Jesus is saying, behold your mother. We'll be looking at that in the coming weeks. So, look at this section more broadly this morning. From the earliest human consciousness, there has been this conviction. That's a conviction stated in the scriptures, but it is also clearly a conviction that is part of the human condition. To some degree or another, though it be twisted and by some denied altogether, yet there remains this idea born from consciences that know that there is a God and that one day we will have to face him. And that death is not natural, but it's a punishment. That without the shedding of blood, there can be no salvation. That life and death are intertwined. That they're connected. That in a fallen world, we live. And we die, and that sometimes death brings forth life again. We see that mysteriously reflected in the natural realm, even in a fallen, cursed world. And we see it particularly taught clearly in the scriptures. The scriptures told, God told Adam and Eve, we know in the scriptures, we heard in Sunday school this morning, that on the day that they eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die. Scripture tells us that the wages of sin is death. Scripture tells us that that's not just general, but in Psalm 90, Moses says this, he says, the reason you're gonna die, the reason that your life is 70 years, if by reason of strength, 80, and then you're gonna come to an end. Moses, reflecting on that reality as he led the people through the wilderness, he said this was because of God's anger. His wrath against sin. Death exists as God's wages for sin. Our consciences bear testimony to this as we are created in the image of God and created to live. There are some reflections of this even in a broken, fallen world. Sometimes we understand that to guard things of beauty and value For those things to be saved, sometimes the cost is at a cost of our lives. You think of why people fight wars, why people are willing to die to preserve freedom or to save their families. Even paganism, twisting and denying the truths of God's word, there is an echo of this conviction in paganism. It's rising again in our day, as a matter of fact. You look at ancient Egypt. There was a hope of an afterlife, and that death would bring one into that afterlife in some way, but not without sacrifices and offerings to appease the gods. In ancient Canaan, there were people who would sacrifice to the gods, even human sacrifice, in the hope of finding some way to appease an angry god against Sid, a god who was angry against Sid. Think of Central America and South America and the Inca culture. the massive and widespread wickedness of human sacrifice in order to try to appease the gods. There's a desperation because of conscience again. The gods be appeased because of sin. But somewhere a substitute, scapegoat, a sin-bearer, One who would appease the wrath of infallible man's rebellion of the gods, or God himself, if they only thought of one. Matter of fact, in our day, there's strange risings of this again in our own culture. Just a few months ago, about 80,000 people met in the desert of Nevada for a festival called Burning Man. I don't know if any of you have ever heard of Burning Man. It's in the news more and more every year. Who met there? About 80,000 people, this is a giant, wicked, hedonistic festival of the pursuit of pleasure. But what's so interesting at that festival, which, by the way, is attended by some of the most rich and famous members of our society, the titans of Silicon Valley, very rich and bright, intelligent people gathered there. And the central emblem of that festival is this, that they would burn a giant man in effigy, with his arms outstretched, as a way to cast their prayers on him through that typological sacrifice of another in their place. find some measure of peace in themselves or with the gods. It's very interesting that this comes up again and again in human history. Someone to bear the pain of my suffering and to appease God in case I have sinned against him. The Bible is essentially the message of a substitute, a savior, free from all of the twisted perversions of paganism. and the rebellion of natural man who will not submit to God. It is the message of a substitute, a Savior who stood in the place of sinners. And it is the Word of God that tells us, particularly and authoritatively, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. It is the Word that tells us that the reason we have a burdened conscience and we are seeking some way to appease the powers that made the universe is not that there's just general powers, but that there is a God, the God of the Scriptures, the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who made the world, who made us, who made us upright, but we have sought many inventions. We have rebelled against God. The breach of sin, the wages of sin is death, the scriptures say. And this also is evident from the earliest pages of the Bible. For when Adam and Eve fell into sin, what did God do? From the very beginning, he killed animals and he provided them with a covering. And then we have this line of altars that runs through the Old Testament. that proclaims amongst a believing people that what God has said, without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sins, is true. We believe these things. Now, the blood was the blood of placeholders, bulls and goats, which the writer in the Hebrews tells us cannot satisfy for sin. But yet in faith, in believing in a coming Messiah, Abel built an altar. Believing that God promised that one day a warrior, a champion would come, see to the woman to crush the head of the serpent and bring salvation for sinners, Abel builds an altar. No one, when he comes off the ark and surveys the landscape of the wrath of God that has destroyed the then known world, he builds an altar and sacrifices. And Moses tells us the sweet smelling aroma came up to God. Abraham builds altars, and on those altars, he brings sacrifices to God. In Genesis chapter 15, we get a little bit more of a window where there are the pieces of the animals that he lays out in the cutting of the covenant ceremony, and God himself passes through them with an oath to be the Savior of Abraham and his descendants after him, an oath of self-malediction, that he himself would be the Savior. Another window is when Isaac is laying on the altar at Mount Moriah. God says, take your son, your only son, whom you love, Abraham, and offer him as a whole burnt offering a sacrifice for sins. But then God says, stop the knife, Abraham, Abraham, because I myself will provide Jehovah Jireh. In the Mount of the Lord, it will be provided. There will be a sacrifice for sins. The Savior is coming. The Passover. You need to find a lamb without spot and without blemish. The avenging angel of death will sweep over Egypt and if you paint the blood of the lamb on the doorpost, you will be saved. The Day of Atonement. Aaron, take two goats, sacrifice them, take the blood of the one, sprinkle it on the mercy seat, and take the other, lay your hands on it, and then take a designated man to lead that one into the wilderness, proclaiming that God will deal with sin. He will cleanse His sanctuary, and He will remove our sins from us as far as east is from west, through the sacrifice of another, year after year repeated. solemnly dedicated the temple, tens of thousands of animals sacrificed, and this was the bloody, constant consciousness of Israel, waiting for a Redeemer. And in all that time, not one man sacrificed by God's command, but placeholders, animals, the blood of bulls and goats and lambs, turtledoves, all pointing ahead to the suffering servant who would bear the sins of his people. Until the one Jesus that we read of in John chapter 19. There we read of the death of Jesus by crucifixion. The death of Jesus Christ on the cross. We read it simply in the verses 16 Through 18, then he, Pilate, delivered him to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led him away. And he, bearing his cross, went to a place called the Place of the Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha, where they crucified him and two others with him, one on either side, with Jesus in the center. What does this seen mean what is its significance what happened here you already know that leading up to it there's a significance if you know your bible if you remember what john the baptist said when he saw jesus behold the lamb of god who takes away the sins of the world But how exactly does this Lamb take away the sins of the world? He does so by being crucified. Verse 18, a simple phrase, they crucified him. Crucifixion was not a Roman innovation. They themselves had borrowed it from earlier nations and cultures. There is evidence that the Persians already crucified criminals, enemies of the state, later the Phoenicians, but the Romans in particular seem to have taken up this mode of execution of those who were evildoers in the eyes of the Empire to a new level and degree. This is well attested in secular history concerning the Roman Empire. The reason Rome chose crucifixion and used crucifixion is because it was effective not only in getting rid of the evildoer, but it was a very particularly effective propaganda tool. Crucifixion in all of its bloody ugliness communicated this clearly to anyone who had ever seen it happening. That the Roman Empire had the power to crush you under its heel like you would crush an ant. wiping your foot away until there was nothing left. That Rome abided no competitors and would destroy all those who would be in rebellion against the empire. As a matter of fact, in the Roman Empire, it was such a horrific punishment that if you were actually a citizen of Rome, the emperor himself had to give permission for a Roman citizen to be crucified. It had to be for reasons of high crimes, of great wickedness. What Rome had devised to communicate this ability, or refined to communicate this ability, this apparent hopeless imbalance of power between the one being crucified and the empire, was this. to take a cross and to place somebody on it. And what was a cross? A cross was comprised of two elements. Outside various cities in the Roman Empire, you see here, it was next to, near the city, it was on one of the roads, in and out of Jerusalem, there would be a place of execution. This was not uncommon in the Roman Empire, and that place of execution was reserved for crucifixions. Those crucifixions, would happen in this way. There were posts, vertical posts, that would stay there in the ground. And the condemned would be brought there, and as we read of our Savior Jesus, this was common, to bear their own cross, the cross actually technically being the cross beam, to which they would then be affixed and hoisted up on the cross. It was on the roadside. Here in the text, it's at a place called Golgotha, which means the place of a skull. Some surmise that it was the shape of the hill, and others surmise that it was what happened there, the death that was associated with that place. As a matter of fact, words that become common to us, calvary, is Latin for skull, the place of the skull. There were at least three posts here. In verse 18, two others were crucified with Jesus, one on either side and Jesus in the center. The crucifixion was also comprised of two elements. In verse 16, when we read that he delivered them to be crucified, so they took Jesus and led him away, as I mentioned last week, part of the process of crucifixion began with this vicious and savage beating of the one to be crucified The flaying of his flesh with a whip embedded with sharp objects so that death at times for one condemned to crucify could happen before they would get to the cross. But the idea was to keep the one to be crucified yet alive so that they would suffocate on the cross and die a slow and painful death. So they took Jesus. They had stripped him naked. They flayed him, Mark 15 in verse 15. Then they placed the beam, the crossbeam, on his shoulders. The other gospels tell us that Jesus was not able to make it all the way. Simon the Cyrene finishing the journey with the crossbeam. And then, verse 18, they crucified him, which meant they laid the Lord of glory on the crossbeam and they hammered nails into his hands. They hoisted the crossbeam on the vertical and then they nailed his feet to the vertical, and they hung him there. And in crucifixion, you would die by a slow death of suffocation, unable to support your body in such a way that your ribcage could breathe. As you slowly sunk down, you would slowly die. Many could be on the cross for days, an emblem again, the power of Rome to destroy all its competitors. The shame, the horror, the slow death would mean that the crucified one would have to push their feet against the nails to lick their body for every breath. The shame of the cross was this, that to be crucified in the Roman Empire was the stamp that the emperor and the empire considered you worthless. But more than that, for a Jew watching the crucifixion, to be hung on a tree outside the city, crucified by the enemies of Israel, was the emblem that declared that this one was cursed of God. that this one was outside of the favor of God, that this one was a sinner. We read in Deuteronomy, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. The fulfillment of that curse, well that curse then was on our Lord Jesus in the eyes of all who looked upon him, the Roman and the Jew. the shamed, crucifying, dying Jesus. But John's Gospel does not major – and we'll see this in the next weeks – on the suffering, the physical suffering of Jesus. It actually assumes many details compared to the other Gospels, and it presents us with the whole, the whole of the crucifixion. And why? To present to us not only the facts, the historical facts of the crucifixion, but the why or the purpose of the crucifixion. Every detail clearly here, according to the Gospel of John, is in the plan of God. There's evidence of this. Our Savior is willing. He goes willingly. We know this already from the moment that he was arrested and betrayed and arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. He goes willingly with the arresting party. He goes willingly through the trial with the Sanhedrin. He stands willingly before Pilate and Herod and back to Pilate. He has the power in a word and in a moment to destroy all of his enemies. As a matter of fact, even the other gospels tell us that when he's on the cross and he's being mocked, saying, if you're the son of God, come down from the cross, he willingly gives himself all the way He went, in the words of Isaiah 53, like a lamb to the slaughter. He went out to be crucified, outside of the city, which reminds us of the camp of Israel in the days of the Exodus, where Moses was commanded that the sacrifices were to take place outside the camp, Exodus chapter 29. He died on a cross. His hands and his feet were pierced. Psalm 22, the psalmist prophesied there of a coming one who would be pierced. 22 and verse 16. In Zechariah chapter 12 and verse 9, the prophecy is that they shall look on him whom they have pierced. And Jesus has already prophesied in his own ministry that he would be crucified. And in chapter 3 and verse 14, even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up. In other words, every detail that we read is not simply the Romans and the Jewish authorities imposing a death sentence on Jesus, but actually it is God Himself working out a plan for His Son to be crucified. Three crosses, verse 18. Two others with him, one on either side, and Jesus in the center. He was numbered with the transgressors, Isaiah 53 and verse 14. In verses 23 and 24, it's even more evident. The soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, they took his garments, they took the spoils. There was one garment that they could not divide. It was one piece. They cast lots for it. Why? John takes pains to tell us that the scripture might be fulfilled. They divided my garments among them for my clothing. They cast lots. Again, Psalm 22 and verse 18. And then he goes on to say, therefore the soldiers did these things. That everything that was happening at every moment was not to be understood simply as the outside imposition of a death on Jesus over which he had no control, but rather the carrying out of the perfect plan of God for salvation. In verse 28, again, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, said, I thirst. Psalm 22, the one who's suffering and dying to be the Savior of Israel, his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. In Psalm 69, there's a prophecy that in his thirst, he was giving gall, vinegar to drink. The Old Testament prophecies are pulsing with fulfillment here, and Jesus knows that they are being fulfilled in his thirst, and he even says, I thirst, knowing that this was in the plan of God, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. And then verse 30, so when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished. I have accomplished what I have come to do. And more than that, bowing down his head, he gave up his spirit. The Son of Man came to lay down His life for the sheep. The Gospel of John pulses with a willing Savior laying down His life according to the eternal purposes of God to provide salvation for His people. One who is on the cross, apparently from first glance being crucified by outward forces, but in reality In control of all these things is the triune God and a Savior who is willingly laying down His life for sinners. It is finished. The Messiah was cut off for His people, Daniel 9 and verse 26. And God is over all, every detail. Paul would later write concerning the crucifixion, these words. that God did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all. And Jesus taught us earlier in this gospel, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. What John is presenting to us is not a helpless victim. but a willing Savior, the fulfillment of all the promises of God in the Old Covenant, which are yes and amen in Him as He goes to the cross to be crucified. Who is the one on the cross? Jesus of Nazareth. Galatians 4.4, again, the same language. God sent forth His own Son Born of a woman, born under the law. Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus who took to himself the likeness of sinful flesh. Truly God, but truly man is the one who is on the cross. He is the word who became flesh and dwelt among us. Again, Romans chapter eight, by sending his own son. Here again, the activity of God by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. Philippians chapter two, he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. taking the form of a servant, made himself of no other reputation, and became obedient, obedient even to death, even the death of the cross. This is the will of the Father and the work of the Son intentionally. And you have to understand that that work is done by the One who took to Himself willingly human flesh, in order that human flesh would be offered up to God in a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice. This is the voluntary condescension of Jesus Christ to identify with sinners and offer himself as the perfect sacrifice to make propitiation for our sins. Recall the imagery of the Day of Atonement. Outside the city, the scapegoat, the sin-bearer. Here is your substitute. Paul says in another place, he who knew no sin, no sin. Let's start pulling some lines together. The wages of sin is death. But we have a man here, a true man, the God-man, who has willingly taken to himself human flesh. but in all of his existence, never sin. But he's dying. He's receiving the wages of sin. The cross is the climax of a perfect life, tempted in all points as we are yet without sin, he who knew no sin. It's the climax of the perfect offering of a consecrated life to God, over which is written, your will be done. He goes to the cross. He said earlier to his disciples in the upper room, why? That the world may know that I love the Father. He's the total inverse of the first Adam placed in a garden. There in the garden. Surrounded by the goodness and mercy and condescension of God, he sins and plunges the world into the wilderness of sin and curse. Christ here in that wilderness of sin and curse, tempted by the devil, offers himself as the whole burnt offering, the lamb without spot or blemish, holy, holy, holy on the cross. But again, I said a moment ago, without sin, yet he dies. Why does he die? How can this be? As a matter of fact, this is a penetrating question. Death was in contradiction to his fundamental identity as a perfect man who deserved no such wages. It was in contradiction to him as the God-man. John opens up this Gospel. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. He is the Second Person of the Trinity through whom all things were made. He is the Originator of life. He is the Giver of life. In Him is abundant life and everlasting life. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. But the sinless life-giver is dying. Why? Because Paul goes on to say that He became sin for us. In the crucifixion, he became sin for us. The cross is that emblem of shame and rejection. Cursed is everyone who is on the tree. His death pertained to sin and the wages of sin. Now, the only way that the death of a sinless man, who himself had the power of life, so he was giving up his life willingly, could be the wages of sin, is if he was the sin bearer. if he became sin for us, to use the language of Isaiah 53, that he himself was the one who bore the sins of many. And that's why he died. As the voluntary sin-bearer, the willing sufferer in the place of sinners. And this is what he has said all through the Gospel in his teaching. No one takes my life from me. I lay it down of myself. I lay my life down for the sheep. John 10 and verse 18. I am giving my life. I'm willingly coming to be the sin bearer. I'm the one who has had the sins of my people imputed to me, counted against me as a public person. that He comes, to use this language, it's staggering language, in the likeness of sinful flesh, as close to sinful flesh as possible without being polluted in any way by sin, became sin for us vicariously, not just thinking about the sins that we've committed as He went to the cross. but he himself bearing those sins and their guilt being imputed to him, the scapegoat, that the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. And that's why he's dying on a cross outside Jerusalem. Here's the intentionality of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, in dying for sinners. Again, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He has the power to lay down his life with full control, conscious willingness. The God-man goes to the cross to bear the sins of many. Because Christ loved the church, and he gave himself for her. When we pull all these strands together, we have the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement. that we have the dying of Jesus in the place of sinners, as a public person, a representative, the God-man. Particular in design, infinite in degree and power. You remember, this is the God who made the stars also, the thunder of his power, who can understand. The thunder of the power of God was evident at Calvary's cross. The father here, in the dying of Jesus, executes divine justice with infinite power, and the hot winds of the wrath of God, the floods of his judgments, are against Jesus Christ on the cross. Sodom times infinity, the judgments of God there, the furnaces of God's judgments. Hell itself experienced each individual sin that we have committed deserves eternal condemnation and Christ, the sin bearer, the wrath bearer, bears them all on the cross. At the same time, as we see the power of God in visiting wrath on the sin bearer, we see Jesus bearing it up. It's remarkable, as a matter of fact, if you look here at the sin bearer on the cross. He is speaking. He is fulfilling Scripture. He's declaring with triumph, it is finished. He's the one who is giving up his own spirit. There's divine power in the visitation of wrath on the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And there's divine power in the one who, upheld by his divine nature, takes the fullness of the wrath of God as a true man, and there triumphantly proclaims, it is finished. And you need to know that the Jews did not kill Jesus. They did not have the power to take his life away. That the Roman nails and floggings were not the ultimate cause of the death of Jesus, but that Jesus laid down his life, finished the work of atonement, and gave up his spirit in order that we might have everlasting And what you need to see at the cross is the display of triune glory. You need to be very careful when you think about the cross and the dying of the Lord Jesus. Some people think that the cross has an angry father and a loving son. The angry father visits his wrath on his son, and they see nothing of the love of God. They see a strange transaction, but rather it is the father who gives his son. The son who in love to his father gives himself. And the father who visits the justice and the wrath of God on the sin bearer, because the father and the son together in the great covenant of grace have determined to show love and grace and compassion to unworthy sinners. And what is being proclaimed is for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. And there is what is being demonstrated is the love of the father who looks down on his obedient son in whom he is well pleased, he or him, and the son who looks to his father with obedience, saying, this Father and His will are worthy of my obedience and my sacrifice. So that at the heart of the cross, we see the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. We see both into the glory of the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we see what flows from the Godhead to undeserving sinners. The infinite, boundless love of God for an undeserving people. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. That Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering, a sweet-smelling sacrifice. Well, Ephesians 5. That the Spirit of God has poured this love of God into our hearts when we come to faith in Jesus Christ. The cross is a window into the triune glory of God. Paul, when he preached, said this. I determined to know nothing among you, save Christ and him crucified. If there was one thing he said that I possess that you need to know, it's the message of the cross of a sin-bearer, of the wrath of God against sin being quenched and satisfied in the one who said, it is finished. I possess one thing, he says, that you desperately needed, and that is what I preached. How often do you think about the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and his death in your place? How often do you think about the reality that though God was using instruments, secondary causes, that behind it all is the saving purpose of God to provide a total redemption for sinners. How about the comfort of the cross for you? What does the cross say for your salvation? When Jesus says, it is finished, you as a believer ought to never forget those words. When he finishes offering himself, the perfect man, but the voluntary sin bearer, and then finishes that work, declares it complete, and gives up his spirit, when he finishes those mighty works, your salvation is finished also. Now, he will rise again from the dead. We'll get to that. There's the cross and the resurrection. But the reality of the finished work of Jesus on the cross is the bedrock hope out of which you live. This is why you can resist the accusations of the devil when he says, look, you've sinned and sinned again and you keep sinning. You're not what you should be. You haven't achieved a righteousness that would be acceptable to God. And not only that, now that you did these things, you're guilty, and you're a failure, and God would never accept you. The simple message of the cross is that the sinless substitute in your place satisfied divine justice, offered himself as a sacrifice once to God, and it's finished, and you, by faith, are united to him in his death, burial, and resurrection. And the fullness of a finished salvation belongs to you that can never be taken away because it's not found in you, it's found outside of you in the one who conquered at the cross, triumphing there. It does remind us of what we failed to do. We haven't been obedient to death. We haven't lived that consecrated life. But see Christ for the sinner. fully finishing the work. It represents to us also the bitterness of what we have done. And so there's two parts of us when we come to the cross. The first is the tears that we shed because it was my sin that nailed him there. And then it's the awe and the wonder that it was my sin that nailed him there because he willingly bore it. And then the deeper awe and wonder He didn't just willingly bear it, but he finished paying the price for all of it. So I'm free. When you come to Jesus Christ by faith, you have all of this finished, complete. You have the one who willingly went to the cross to fulfill the scriptures, to be the sin bearer, You have salvation. There's a universal call that the cross has to all humanity, rightly so. John Murray, writing about the cross, he says, the cross is the ground of the free offer of the gospel to all men without distinction. Because there, the loveliness of the triune God in the face of Jesus Christ is freely offered to all humanity. See, at the cross, Christ offers himself to the world. He offers salvation in all of its respects to the furthest reaches of glory. And at the cross, Christ proclaims this, he who comes to me, I will never cast away. And if you come to me, you will have life and life abundantly. We call this simple truth of the cross penal substitutionary atonement. that Christ, to pay the penalty that was due to us, stood in our place and brought us back to God. Praise be to God for the cross of our Savior. Amen. Lord our God, we come to you as those who so often think passing thoughts of the cross. or help us to understand its design, its purpose, its ultimate purpose, its ultimate cause in you. That there you displayed your glory, your love, your wrath, and your mercy, both being the just and the justifier of sinners. Lord, we come again this morning thankful for a Savior who has stood in our place, who has finished the work of propitiation. Lord, we pray that as we think on these things, That these truths would be so rooted and grounded in our hearts that we would have joy inexpressible and full of glory. That we would love you with heart, soul, mind, and strength. That, Lord, we would stop being petty with our neighbor, but love others as you have loved us in Christ. Lord, we humble ourselves before your glory. We pray for grace to understand these truths. We ask again for mercy in the name of the one who loved us and gave himself for us, our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.