The Cross, The Tenacity of Love (by WJ)

It was a work Father, Son and Holy Spirit accomplished together on our behalf.
* Not to appease an angry God but to cleanse us from sin!
* The cross was not merely about punishing sin but destroying it's power!
Thus allowing all of humanity broken by sin to recapture the relationship God has always wanted with us.
Glorious!

"Only the soul that sins shall die"
There was no amount of beating that would kill Him! Death had no power over Him! Death would come only when He surrendered to it. John 10: 17-18. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life, no one takes it from me, But I lay it down of my own accord.

A free choice got us into this bondage. Jesus free choice walks us out of it!
On the cross Jesus walked away from His own desires (unlike Adam and Eve), and put His trust in God the Father. In the agonizing atrocity of the cross and the utter darkness that overwhelmed Him He consciously and continuously yielded Himself to the Father. At any point He could have stopped it all.

And Paul wrote "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself". He wasn't a distant observer. God is powerful enough to look at sin and not be tainted by it, He has always done so and He did so on the cross. In a moment in time God made Jesus who knew no sin the personification of sin. Jesus wasn't just bearing our punishment for sin. He became sin itself. God, by allowing sin to touch His person through His Son, would be able to now prevail in Himself over that which we were powerless to fight. Through the physical body of Christ sin came face to face with the anger and power of God and God prevailed over sin completely.

He condemned sin in sinful man. Rom.8:3.

The reason we are free from condemnation in Jesus is because He bore that condemnation. It could not prevail over Him. He broke it's power and opened the door to all who want to be free of it and live in the life of the Father.
Jesus became sin for us precisely because we were powerless to deal with it ourselves.

This is Love...so amazing!

We too now have the freedom to overcome evil by putting our trust in Him. He still redeems the darkest moments of life with the wonder of His grace.