The Splendor of His Suffering

This past Sunday, I challenged the church to rest in God's Word. Not to answer any specific question(s), just to be still in the presence of God and listen to his voice through His Word. So my desire in this devotion is to allow God's Word to speak for itself. I value the quotes by John Piper, not to hold equality to scripture, only as beautiful sentiments to what has already been explained in the inerrant Word of God. Jesus Christ's death and resurrection is something that time itself is dependent upon. The centrality of the history of mankind points to his life, death, and resurrection. I pray this speaks to your heart and brings some realization that you do not have to live in the bondage of your sin. Be set free in Jesus Christ and allow Him to welcome you in to ultimate, everlasting freedom!

The death of Jesus is our forgiveness!

"One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him. He was beaten, he was tortured, but he didn’t say a word. Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered and like a sheep being sheared, he took it all in silence. Justice miscarried, and he was led off—and did anyone really know what was happening?" (Isaiah 53, The Message)

No one ever deserved suffering less, yet received so much...The only person in history who did not deserve to suffer, suffered most. When every judicial sentiment in the universe cried out UNJUST, Jesus was silent. No one has ever borne so much injustice with so little vengeance. (John Piper)

"He did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly." (1 Peter 2:23, NLT)

"Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief..." (Isaiah 53:10, ESV)

At one time they were torn by scourges down to deep-seated veins and arteries, so that hidden contents of the recesses of their bodies, their entrails and organs, were exposed to sight. (Eusebius, 300 A.D.)

Suffering by design, but ultimately by obedience. Jesus' obedience was sustained by faith in his father. He lived in order to die.

"For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45, ESV)

"That’s what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others’ sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God." (1 Peter 3:18, The Message)

Our joy in savoring God and his glory in saving us are one. The glory of Christ's incomparable sufferings. (John Piper)

We live united with Him in His resurrection!

"We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God." (Romans 6:9,10, ESV)

"He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God." (1 Peter 1:20-21, ESV)

Jesus' resurrection from the dead is a part of the same harvest of all other bodies that he will raise in glory at the last day. (John Piper)

"Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?" (Romans 7:24, NLT)

"Then God released him from the horrors of death and brought him back to life again, for death could not keep this man within its grip." (Acts 2:24, TLB)

The resurrection vindicates the sufficiency of the cross and seals the certainty and finality of our justification by faith...All the promises of God, purchased by the blood of Christ, became ours in everlasting because of the resurrection of Jesus. (John Piper)

"And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." (1 Corinthians 15:17, ESV)

"The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you." (Romans 8:11, NLT)

"That’s what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we’re going in our new grace-sovereign country." (Romans 6:3-5, The Message)

The glory of Christ in the power of his resurrection in to invincible life and omnipotent authority will be reflected back to him in the joyful worship of his risen and perfected saints. (John Piper)

"I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die..." (John 11:25-26, NLT)

When God wakens us from the stupor of unbelief and shines into our mind with 'light of the gospel of the glory of Christ' (2 Corinthians 4:4-6), what we see along with the terrible splendor of his suffering on the cross, is the beautiful, undeniable, glorious, grandeur of his resurrection! (John Piper)

Do you accept this truth? (John 14:6)
Will you live in the vision of the resurrection? (John 16:16-24)
Do you desire to live in freedom? (John 8:34-36)

* John Piper quotes taken from Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ. Crossway Books, 2001.