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Editors’ note: 

Pastor Colin Smith continues his Christmas season devotional to help you reflect on Jesus’ glory by taking a broad look at all that God has promised and accomplished in Him. The readings follow the pattern of his sermon series, “The Plan: God’s Design For the Universe and Your Place In It.” You can read, hear or watch these sermons as they are posted at Unlocking the Bible.

Our sin reached its full horror and found its most awful expression at Calvary. We had disobeyed God’s commands. Now we were crucifying God’s Son.

If ever there was a moment when God’s judgment had to fall on the human race, this was it. Jerusalem wiped out. The whole earth fried.

But God finds a way to divert the judgment due to us to another place.  The curse falls on the ground not on the man. The sinner’s death is on the sacrificed lamb, not on the sinner.

As the soldiers were nailing Jesus to the cross, our Lord said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). In saying this, Christ was isolating Himself under the judgment of God. He knew that judgment would come that day, and it did. But He cried out to the Father, “Don’t let it come on them. Let it fall on Me!”

That is what happened at Calvary: The punishment due to your sin was poured out on Jesus. Christ became the lightning rod for your judgment, and forgiveness is released through Christ’s suffering and death on the cross for you.

The curse fell on Jesus because He bore our sins (1 Peter 2:24). The weight of our guilt was laid on Him (Isaiah 53:6) and He became the sacrifice for our sins.

Christ died for you. When you die, you will not carry your sin and guilt into your death because He carried it into His death for you. If you are in Christ you will never know what it is like to die a sin-bearing death.  Christ’s death changes death for all His people.

When sin reached its full horror, God’s love was displayed in its full glory. If you doubt God’s love for you, look at the cross. The Son of God loved you and gave Himself for you (Galatians 2:20). No other love can match this. Nothing else in your experience can even come close. God’s love for you in Christ is greater than you ever dared to dream.

We may not know, we cannot tell,
what pains He had to bear;
But we believe it was for us,
He hung and suffered there.

Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?

In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.
But the Gospels are historically reliable. And the evidence for this is vast.
To learn about the evidence for the historical reliability of the four Gospels, click below to access a FREE eBook of Can We Trust the Gospels? written by New Testament scholar Peter J. Williams.

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