2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 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.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
10 Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. 11 After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light [of life] and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
1 Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe 3 and went up to him again and again, saying, "Hail, king of the Jews!" And they struck him in the face.
23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
22 In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
27 Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
“How deep the Father’s love for us, how vast beyond all measure that He should give His only Son to make a wretch His treasure. How great the pain of searing loss, the Father turns His face away As wounds which mar the chosen One, bring many sons to glory. Behold the Man upon a cross, my sin upon His shoulders ashamed I hear my mocking voice, call out among the scoffers. It was my sin that held Him there until it was accomplished His dying breath has brought me life I know that it is finished. I will not boast in anything no gifts, no power, no wisdom but I will boast in Jesus Christ His death and resurrection. Why should I gain from His reward? I cannot give an answer but this I know with all my heart His wounds have paid my ransom.” Stuart Townend
“I simply argue that the Cross should be raised at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles; but on a cross between two thieves; on the towns' garbage heap; at a crossroad, so cosmopolitan they had to write his title in Hebrew and Latin and Greek... at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where He died. And that is what He died about. So, that is where church-men ought to be and what churchmen ought to be about.” Rev. Dr. George McLeod, Minister, Church of Scotland, 1895-1991
“The only ground on which God can forgive our sin and reinstate us to His favor is through the Cross of Christ. There is no other way! Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony at Calvary. We should never take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and our sanctification in simple faith, and then forget the enormous cost to God that made all of this ours. Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. The cost to God was the Cross of Christ. To forgive sin, while remaining a holy God, this price had to be paid. Never accept a view of the fatherhood of God if it blots out the atonement. The revealed truth of God is that without the atonement He cannot forgive – He would contradict His nature if He did. The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God through the atonement of the Cross. God’s forgiveness is possible only in the supernatural realm......Once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vise, constrained by the love of God.” Oswald Chambers
“No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.” William Penn
“That is the horror of the cross. It is the sum of all our infinite hells rolled into one moment of time and placed on one Man.” David Robertson
“Being a ‘missionary’ (one who is sent) is not a matter of crossing the sea, but of seeing the cross. Hudson Taylor
“Jesus is the great teacher of lowliness of heart. Witness the Master taking a towel and washing His disciples' feet! Isn't it true to say that on earth He was always stripping off first one robe of honor and then another until, naked, He was fastened to the cross and emptied Himself, pouring out His lifeblood, giving it up for all of us, until they laid Him penniless in a borrowed grave?” C. H. Spurgeon
“The cross, intersection of His love and my need, beam that supports the whole of a real life.” Ann Voskamp
“Participate with God and proclaim the Gospel, not because you have a low-grade sense of guilt that you ought to act, but do them because you have a high-grade sense of grace that makes you want to act. Do them because you know that you were once impoverished in your sin, a slave to Satan, orphaned from God, and alone in this world. Yet God reached down his mercy-filled hand into your sin-soaked heart and through the sacrifice of His only begotten Son on a blood-stained cross, He lifted you up to new life by His alluring love. You now have nothing to fear and nothing to lose because you are robed in the riches of Christ and safe in the security of Christ.” David Platt
“The more we meditate on the Cross, the deeper our companionship and knowledge gets of Christ the Lord.” Pishoy Kamel
“And if you don’t lie prostrate on the ground before that cross, you have never seen it: if you are not humbled in the presence of Jesus, you don’t know Him. You were so lost that nothing could save you but the sacrifice of God’s only begotten. Think of that, and as Jesus lowered Himself for you, bow yourself in lowliness at His feet. A sense of Christ’s amazing love to us has a greater tendency to humble us than even the conscious awareness of our own guilt......Pride cannot live beneath the cross.” Charles H. Spurgeon
“When Jesus as a babe lay in the manger, He was the One through whom that manger came to be, and who even then sustained its very existence! Indeed, as our Savior hung on that cross to make atonement for sin, He was sustaining the very nails that held Him there.” Sten-Erik Armitage
“Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy Cross I cling.” Augustus Toplady
“Many people have difficulty believing God is a God of love....If you really want to know the reality of God’s love, look at the Cross....It was love that restrained Him when He was falsely accused of blasphemy and led to Golgotha to die with common thieves. He raised not a hand against His enemies. It was love that kept Him from calling legions of angels to come to His defense. It was love that made Him, in a moment of agonizing pain, pause and give hope to a repentant sinner who cried, ‘Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom’ (Luke 23:42)....Does God love us? Yes....and the proof is the Cross.” Billy Graham
“Don't sit in the shadow of the broom tree saying, ‘It is enough!’ Instead, sit in the shadow of the cross and say, ‘It is finished!’” Paige Benton Brown