Lent
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. Isaiah 53:12
God the Son assumed true human nature and became also the man Jesus Christ. The one the difference, however, was that He was not conceived in sin as we are.
About 700 years before God the Son became a man the Old Testament prophet Isaiah prophesied that Jesus would be “numbered with the transgressors.” When Jesus Himself came, He quoted this prophecy of Isaiah as applying to Himself: “This which is written must still be accomplished in Me: ‘And He was numbered with the transgressors’” (Lk. 23:37).
But Jesus was not a transgressor. Christ allowed Himself to be nailed to a cross with the same kind of spikes as that of the criminals to His right and left. But He was not like the others being crucified. The criminals were being punished for their crimes. Jesus had committed no crimes against man’s law, nor any sins against God’s Law. He was being punished for our sins. Jesus is more innocent than the greatest saint as far as His own Person is concerned. Yet He became the greatest thief, murderer, adulterer, desecrator and blasphemer there ever has been anywhere in the world. He was not that because of what He Himself had done, but because He took upon Himself all we have done. He let Himself be “numbered with the transgressors (us)” in order to save us, the real transgressors. Thus the Bible says, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’)” (Gal. 3:13). God the Father “made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21).
Lord Jesus, when I am reproached for Thy name by the world, help me to rejoice, inasmuch as I am a partaker in Thy sufferings. Amen.