The cross and atonement

He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. “By His stripes you are healed.”

¹⁰ Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush Him and to cause Him to suffer; and when His soul is made a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.

¹¹ After the anguish of His soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities.

¹² Therefore I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the spoils with the strong, because He has poured out His life unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors. Yet He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.

³ For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,

⁴ that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

¹⁸ For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit,

¹⁹ in whom He also went and preached to the spirits in prison

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”

⁴ Surely He took on our infirmities and carried our sorrows; yet we considered Him stricken by God, struck down and afflicted.

⁵ But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.

⁶ We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.

⁷ He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth.

⁸ By oppression and judgment He was taken away, and who can recount His descendants? For He was cut off from the land of the living; He was stricken for the transgression of My people.

⁹ He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in His death, although He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.

¹⁷ For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with words of wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

¹⁸ For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

¹⁸ For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life you inherited from your forefathers,

¹⁹ but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or spot.

God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

But as for me, may I never boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

¹² He did not enter by the blood of goats and calves, but He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood, thus securing eternal redemption.

¹³ For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that their bodies are clean,

¹⁴ how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, purify our consciences from works of death, so that we may serve the living God!

¹⁰ And by that will, we have been sanctified through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

¹¹ Day after day every priest stands to minister and to offer again and again the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

¹² But when this Priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God.

¹³ Since that time, He waits for His enemies to be made a footstool for His feet,

¹⁴ because by a single offering He has made perfect for all time those who are being sanctified.

²² And this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no distinction,

²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

²⁴ and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

²⁵ God presented Him as the atoning sacrifice through faith in His blood, in order to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had passed over the sins committed beforehand.

²⁵ Nor did He enter heaven to offer Himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own.

²⁶ Otherwise, Christ would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But now He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

²⁷ Just as man is appointed to die once, and after that to face judgment,

²⁸ so also Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many; and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await Him.

²⁶ While they were eating, Jesus took bread, spoke a blessing and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is My body.”

²⁷ Then He took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you.

²⁸ This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

He was delivered over to death for our trespasses and was raised to life for our justification.

²² Jews demand signs and Greeks search for wisdom,

²³ but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,

²⁴ but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

⁹ This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.

¹⁰ And love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

²⁸ After this, knowing that everything had now been accomplished, and to fulfill the Scripture, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.”

²⁹ A jar of sour wine was sitting there. So they soaked a sponge in the wine, put it on a stalk of hyssop, and lifted it to His mouth.

³⁰ When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished.” And bowing His head, He yielded up His spirit.

¹⁶ Then Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified, and the soldiers took Him away.

¹⁷ Carrying His own cross, He went out to The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha.

¹⁸ There they crucified Him, and with Him two others, one on each side, with Jesus in the middle.

When they came to the place called The Skull, they crucified Him there, along with the criminals, one on His right and the other on His left.

⁴⁵ From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.

⁴⁶ About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

⁵⁰ When Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, He yielded up His spirit.

⁵¹ At that moment the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked and the rocks were split.

²² While they were eating, Jesus took bread, spoke a blessing and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take it; this is My body.”

²³ Then He took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it.

²⁴ He said to them, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.

³³ From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.

³⁴ At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

³⁷ But Jesus let out a loud cry and breathed His last.

³⁸ And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

And they sang a new song: “Worthy are You to take the scroll and open its seals, because You were slain, and by Your blood You purchased for God those from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

⁵ Your lamb must be an unblemished year-old male, and you may take it from the sheep or the goats.

⁶ You must keep it until the fourteenth day of the month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel will slaughter the animals at twilight.

⁷ They are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs.

“The Son of Man must suffer many things,” He said. “He must be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”

⁴⁴ It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over all the land until the ninth hour.

⁴⁵ The sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn down the middle.

⁴⁶ Then Jesus called out in a loud voice, “Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit.” And when He had said this, He breathed His last.

From that time on Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and that He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

¹⁸ “Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes. They will condemn Him to death

¹⁹ and will deliver Him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. And on the third day He will be raised to life.”

Then He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and that He must be killed and after three days rise again.

He was delivered up by God’s set plan and foreknowledge, and you, by the hands of the lawless, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross.

³² The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so He did not open His mouth.

³³ In His humiliation He was deprived of justice. Who can recount His descendants? For His life was removed from the earth.”

Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? No, it is for this purpose that I have come to this hour.

³³ But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs.

³⁴ Instead, one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water flowed out.

³⁵ The one who saw it has testified to this, and his testimony is true. He knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe.

³⁶ Now these things happened so that the Scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of His bones will be broken.”

³⁷ And, as another Scripture says: “They will look on the One they have pierced.”

³² He will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon.

³³ They will flog Him and kill Him, and on the third day He will rise again.”