1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.

The Cross was a Substitution

How does God forgive sin? He must do it with a substitute. There must be an animal or somebody who pays the penalty for sin. God cannot just overlook sin. If God were to overlook sin, God would no longer be a holy God

They say when a guilty man is acquitted, the judge is condemned. If a judge were to just say, “Well, I’m a loving judge. I will overlook all those horrible crimes, at that moment the judge becomes a criminal.

Why God could not just simply say, “I forgive you.” Why did Jesus have to die?

God is infinitely righteous and infinitely just. Being infinitely righteous, infinitely just, and completely holy God has a burning hatred for sin. By contrast man is sinful, by nature, by choice and by practice. He is a sinner. There has to be some way the two can come together.

We hear a lot of pop psychology today saying, “Well forgive yourself.” People need to forgive themselves.. Suppose that Frenchie were to come up here and punch me in the nose. And, then after he punches me in the nose he says, “Now, Pastor, don’t worry about it. I have forgiven me.”

Now we are sinful by birth. We are sinful by nature. We are sinful by practice.

How could God, a holy God, punish sin and love the sinner at the same time? That’s the problem, but the problem is solved by Calvary.

God cannot just overlook sin. If God were to just simply overlook sin, God would not be just.

If God were to just say, “My love allows that sin to go unpunished,” then God, though some might call Him loving, would be unjust. God would be unholy. He would topple from His throne of holiness.

God Himself would have broken His own law that says, “The wages of sin is death; the soul that sinneth, it will surely die.” No. God must be just. God cannot merely overlook sin.

When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden and they tried to hide their shame with fig leaves, what did God do? God clothed them with coats of skin, animal skin. Well, when you slay an animal, when you skin an animal, there is shed blood. That’s not incidental. That’s put there in the Garden of Eden to teach us that we need a covering for our shame, and that covering cannot come apart from shed blood. Hebrews 9:22 tells us, without shedding of blood is no remission.

What God was doing was conditioning His people for Calvary. What He was showing them by the shed blood of these innocent animals is, “without shedding of blood is no remission. The wages of sin is death. The soul that sinneth, it must surely die.” Sin means death. It is a conditioned response in the Old Testament till one of these days the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the fulfillment of all of this, came, and John said, “Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” And He died, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.

There was a man named Abraham. He was the first of the Hebrews, Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation; (Genesis 18:10–18).

God comes to Abraham, and God says to Abraham, “Abraham!” “Here am I, Lord.” “Abraham, take Isaac, your son, your only son, the son that you love, take him to a place that I will show you—not just any place, but a place that I will show you—and offer him up there, a burnt sacrifice. (Hebrews 11:19) So they go up; they come to this place. God points out this place. It’s called Mount Moriah

Young Isaac asked, Father, where is the sacrifice?” Abraham chokes back the tears, but he makes one of the greatest statements in all of the Bible: “My son, God will provide Himself a sacrifice”—“God will provide Himself a sacrifice.” (Genesis 22:8)

When God saw Abraham was going to be obedient, He said, Abraham, do the lad no harm. Don’t touch him. Look, Abraham.” And over there in a thicket was a ram with his horns, and his horns are locked in the thicket. He can’t escape. He’s caught in the thicket. He is crowned with thorns. And God says, “Abraham, take him. Offer him in the stead, in the place, of your son.” (Genesis 22:12–13) God is there again teaching substitution.

No wonder Jesus said, “Abraham saw my day, and was glad.” (John 8:56) By faith he learned substitution. Now he named that place Moriah, and he got a name for God there: Jehovah Jireh, “the God who will provide.” God would provide Himself a lamb. Abraham learned the lesson of substitution: that ram for his son.

God taught His people about the Passover lamb, and thousands and thousands of lambs were sacrificed by the Jews. (Exodus 12:13)

Then came that week of the crucifixion, the week of Passover.

Pilate, trying to escape from a predicament, thought that perhaps he could get himself off the hook, because it was the custom in that day that one notorious criminal would be released. And they had a man there; his name was Barabbas, the son of Abbas. And Barabbas was an insurrectionist.. Pilate had a plan. This was his way to let Jesus go and for him to maintain his dignity and his station with Rome. So Pilate gathered the people, and the people were clamoring for the blood of Jesus. But Pilate said, “Look. Here’s Barabbas, and here’s Jesus. Which of these do you want me to release to you: Barabbas the criminal, or Jesus, who is called Christ?” They said, “Release Barabbas.” “Release Barabbas? Well, what do you want me to do with Jesus?” “Let Him be crucified. Crucify Him!” (John 18:39–John 19:6) And so Jesus loses an election to a crook, a criminal, a murderer.

A soldier goes down a narrow corridor in a Roman jail. he guard comes and puts the torch in his face and says, “You! Barabbas, get up! It’s time!” Barabbas says, “No! I don’t want to go!” You are the luckiest guy in the world, you’re not going to die. You’re not going to be crucified, Barabbas. I want to show you something. Look over there on that hil, Barabbas! You see those three crosses? See the man on the middle cross? That cross was made for you. We could hardly wait to nail you up there. But Pilate says you are going to go free. That man up there, whoever He is, is dying in your place.”

The Passover lambs are going through the Sheep Gate; Jesus coming through the Eastern Gate. They are all there on the Temple Mount at the same time. The priests are examining the Passover lambs to make sure they are perfect. They are looking at Jesus Christ, the Lamb, and He’s being criticized and interrogated and castigated. And they are trying to find some flaw in Him. They said, “Never man spake like this man.” (John 7:46) “I find no fault in him.” (John 19:4, 6) Jesus could look at them and say, “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” (John 8:46) He was a perfect lamb.

And then, at three o’clock in the afternoon, they took those Passover lambs that pictured substitution, At three o’clock in the afternoon, they are nailing the Lamb of God to the cross—at the same time, on the same mountain where God had said to Abraham, “God will provide himself a sacrifice.” (Genesis 22:8)

Jesus, the Lamb of God, bows His head in agony and blood, and says, “Tetelestai. It is finished. It is paid in full.” (John 19:30) “Levitical priests, you can go home now.” “Passover shepherds, we don’t need you now.” “It is done. God is teaching substitution: the just for the unjust.

The Cross was Suffering

“For Christ also hath once suffered.” (1 Peter 3:18) Jesus suffered on that cross. Sin brings suffering, and unless we have a substitute, we will suffer for our sin..

“How could Jesus in that period of time suffer an eternity of hell?” He, being infinite, suffered in a finite period of time what we, being finite, would suffer in an infinite period of time. The eternities were compressed upon Jesus. The sins of the world were distilled upon Jesus. “Father, if there be some other way, please let this cup pass from me.” And the silence from heaven said, “There is no other way.” And the dear Savior said, “Then not my will, but thine be done.”

Emotional Suffering of the Cross

In dark Gethsemane. Jesus is facing the cross. And it says: “And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, “And being in agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:41–44

Jesus was in a battle with His own humanity. He knows what He is about to face, and He says, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” (Matthew 26:39)

The cup is a metaphor for suffering. There was a cup that Jesus must drink from.

What was in that cup?

If you were to put all of our sins in that cup, every person who would ever be born until Jesus comes, every ones sins would be pilled on him. He is going to be a substitute, “Him who knew no sin God hath made to be sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21.

The Bible says, “It pleased the LORD to bruise him.” (Isaiah 53:10) And Jesus knew that He who had been in the bosom of the Father from all eternity would now become the object of the Father’s wrath—that He would be separated from God the Father. Jesus knew that the fires of God’s wrath would burn themselves out in Him. There was the emotional suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Physical Suffering of the Cross

Pilate, hoping to get Jesus off his hands, thought maybe if they saw Jesus brutalized, the people would be satisfied, So Pilate said, “Let Him be scourged.” (John 19:1)

What was scourging?

The Romans knew how to whip a man so as to take away the flesh, expose the nerves, yet not disembowel him. There was a pillar or post. The Romans would take the person to be scourged and tie his hands above his head so that he’s standing on the balls of his feet. His back would be smooth as silk. They would strip from him his clothing. And scourging was done not by one, but by two. They took a whip called a flagrum—with a sturdy handle, thongs of leather. Embedded in those thongs of leather would be bone and glass and lead and iron, and it was an instrument of torture. Probably some psychopathic dungeon keeper would volunteer for the job—the lictors. One would start at the front and start at the throat and whip downward. The other would start at the back, at the heels, and whip upward. And those thongs would reach around the body, and the little bit of bone and lead would pick little pieces of flesh off. They were artists. They knew how to whip a man so as to take away the flesh, expose the nerves, yet not disembowel him. Historians tell us, no man ever walked away from that. If anything, he crawled, if he could move at all.

The Bible said He “was so marred more than any man.” (Isaiah 52:14) You couldn’t tell if He was a human being.

The Bible says, “They smote him.” (Mark 15:19; John 19:3 He’s blindfolded. Hey, if you’re God, if you’re King, if you know everything, who is this that is hitting you?” And they slapped Him. They spat in His face, the Son of God. “Christ also hath once suffered for sins.” (1 Peter 3:18)

Finally, when He comes to Moriah, it could have been the same spot where the ram was caught in the thicket; where “God will provide himself a lamb” (Genesis 22:8), they stretch Him out. They knew how to put the nails right where they’d find the median nerve so every nerve would be in pain.

The Romans did this on purpose. They wanted their victim to squirm on the cross, and they wanted everybody to see it. Do you know what the word excruciating means? Ex means “out of”; crux means “cross.” It means “out of the cross”, excruciating. It was out of the cross that this word comes—excruciating. Jesus is there in excruciating pain upon the cross,

The Spiritual Suffering of the Cross

When Jesus had my sin and your sin upon the cross, Jesus was treated upon that cross just like you and I would be treated if we were punished for our sin. God did not dumb down the punishment. It was multiplied billions on times.

All the sin of the world was distilled upon Jesus, and the suffering was compounded upon the Lord Jesus. No one ever suffered like the Lord Jesus upon that cross! “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46; if you don’t trust Christ, and allow Him to be your substitute, God will forsake you.. He was taking your place! He was taking my place!

The Cross Provides Satisfaction

Christ also hath once suffered.” (1 Peter 3:18) God is completely satisfied in the Lord Jesus Christ. He will never ever, face that cross again.

“It is finished; it is paid in full.” And He bore our sins. It is God that justifieth.” (Romans 8:33)

In the times of Jesus, when a man was found guilty of a crime, he would be put in prison. They would write the charges against him and nail it to the prison door. Once he had paid his debt, they would let him out of prison. They would take that writing that was against him, and the judge would write on there “Tetelestai”, “it is finished; it is paid in full,” and give it to him, and he could keep it. If anybody ever wanted to accuse him of that crime, he could hold that up and say, “Look. That crime has been paid for. It is finished.”

The Bible says that Jesus has taken away “the handwriting of ordinances that was against us nailing it to his cross.” (Colossians 2:14) This is good evidence to believe in the eternal security of the believer: because Jesus “hath once suffered.” (1 Peter 3:18) If it doesn’t last, then Jesus would have to get crucified all over again. And He’s not going to do that, Jesus will only die once.

The Cross Provides Salvation

“Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God”, bring us to God. It means is to take someone and bring them to another person.

You and I can not just walk into the presence of God on our own, Jesus must escort us there. How often Jesus would say, there is no other way to the Father but by me.

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by me

The reason for the cross is that you and I might come to God. “We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son”? (Romans 5:10)

The apostle Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation.” (Romans 1:16)