Lamb Slain Before the Foundation by Pastor Jim Wilson

“Hail, King of the Jews,” they cried, as they put a crown made of thorns on his head.  They spat in his face, they pulled his beard and they mocked his Holy name.   They put a 300-pound cross on his back, and in His weakened state, He stumbled beneath the load.  Simon of Cyrene carried the cross for Him as he walked up the hill to His destiny.   The soldiers ripped His robe from Him, reopening his wounds and forced Him on the rough hewn cross. Though it was customary to use ropes to tie a victim to the cross, the soldiers used fourteen-inch spikes to nail Him and our sins to the cross. First one spike and then another through the quivering flesh of His hands.   He stayed on the cross for six hours before the ridiculing, mocking crowd, and then He became sin for us. Paul wrote, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21 ESV).   There, He forgave our trespasses, and there He “nailed our sin to the cross.”  And God turned His back on His Son refusing to look at the sin He’d become.          The earth trembled, the skies blackened, and the veil in the temple split, and Jesus exclaimed. "It is finished."   Some would say that the Romans took Jesus’ life from him. Others understand that no one took his life. He gave it willingly.