“When Thou shalt make His Soul an Offering for Sin!”

Why did the Lord of glory endure such a horrible, shameful, ignominious death for us upon the cross? The Lord God bruised His Son and put Him to grief upon the cursed tree because He made “His soul an offering for sin.” Christ died as He did, He had to die as He did, so that He might be a suitable Substitute and Sin Offering to God for His people. Here are four reasons for the crucifixion, four reasons why the Lord Jesus Christ died the painful, shameful, ignominious death of the cross.

1. Christ died the death of the cross because He must bear the curse of the law in His death, if He would save us from our sins (Galatians 3:13; Deuteronomy 21:22-23).

2. The Lord Jesus died the horrid death of the cross to fulfill the Old Testament types as our Sin Offering. — Those sacrifices were always lifted up upon an altar before God. The brazen serpent was lifted up on a pole. Even so, God’s great Sin Offering, the true Sin Offering had to be lifted up (Numbers 19:9; John 3:14; 12:32).

3. Our Savior died as He did upon the cursed tree to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies concerning His death (Psalm 22:16-17; Zechariah 12:10).

4. The Lord Jesus endured the death of the cross for us, as our Substitute, that God might be both just and the Justifier of all who trust him (Romans 3:24-26; Psalm 85:10-11; Proverbs 16:7; Isaiah 45:20).

This is the crucial issue of the Gospel. Christ did not die merely as a moral example to display the love of God. The Son of God died because that is the only way God could save chosen sinners. It would not be a display of divine wisdom, but of utter barbarism, if God sacrificed His Son without a necessity!

Sure Salvation

The fact that our redemption by the blood of Christ is a matter of justice satisfied assures us that all for whom justice has been satisfied are forever freed from the

claims of justice! The law required two goats on the Day of Atonement. The name of the Lord’s goat was Truth. The name of the scapegoat was Mercy. In the redemption of our souls by the blood of Christ, “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”

Today we are told that the sacrificial blood of the Lord Jesus Christ does not, in itself, secure the salvation of anyone, but that it only makes salvation possible for everyone. We are told that the blood of Christ becomes effectually operative by man’s faith, by man deciding to believe on Jesus, by the act of man’s great, imaginary free will. Nonsense! Such doctrine is utter heresy! That is not the teaching of Holy Scripture! The Book of God everywhere asserts that every sinner shall be saved for whom Christ died at Calvary! — The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ shall never be discovered a miscarriage!

Redemption upon the grounds of justice satisfied is of necessity a particular and effectual redemption. Those for whom justice is satisfied cannot be condemned (Galatians 3:13-14; Romans 8:1, 33, 34). The Lord Christ is not our helper. He is our Savior! He is not an accomplice in salvation, but the Accomplisher of salvation! All for whom He died are redeemed, effectually, eternally redeemed! He who entered into heaven with His own blood and sat down because His work was finished obtained eternal redemption for His people (Hebrews 9:12).

Made Sin

Isaiah’s words, “made His soul an offering for sin,” might be translated “made His soul guilt, guiltiness, an offense, a trespass,” or as God the Holy Spirit translates them in 2^nd Corinthians 5:21, — “For He hath made Him [to be] sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

“The transfer of sin to the Savior was real,” Spurgeon wrote, “and produced in Him as man the horror which forbade Him to look into the face of God, bowing Him down with crushing anguish and woe intolerable.”

Why was the Son of God brought to such sorrow and grief? Here is the answer. — “He made him sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him!” Indeed He could never have suffered the painful, shameful, ignominious death of the cross as our Substitute had He not been made sin for us. Justice would never have allowed it (Exodus 23:7; Proverbs 17:15).

The transfer of sin to our blessed Savior was not figurative, but real (1 Peter 2:24). Blessed be His name forever, our penal Substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ, has fully satisfied His own infinite justice for us, by suffering in our room and stead as One made sin for us, bearing in His own body all the iniquities, transgressions, and sins of all His people! When the Triune Jehovah made His soul an Offering for sin, He put away our sins by the sacrifice of Himself!

Don Fortner

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