At the heart of the story stands the cross of Christ
where evil did its worst and met its match.
Assorted Authors
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When they came to a place called The Skull, they nailed him to the cross.
And the criminals were also crucified—one on his right and one on his left.
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”
And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice.
The crowd watched and the leaders scoffed. “He saved others,” they said,
“let him save himself if he is really God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”
The soldiers mocked him, too, by offering him a drink of sour wine.
They called out to him, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”
A sign was fastened above him with these words: “This is the King of the Jews.”
Luke 23:33-38 NLT
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“Unless you see yourself standing there with the shrieking crowd,
full of hostility and hatred for the holy and innocent Lamb of God,
you don’t really understand the nature and depth of your sin
or the necessity of the cross.”
C.J. Mahaney
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But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law.
When he was hung on the cross,
he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing.
For it is written in the Scriptures,
“Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”
Galatians 3:13 NLT
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Love was compressed for all history in that lonely figure on the cross,
who said that he could call down angels at any moment on a rescue mission,
but chose not to – because of us.
At Calvary, God accepted his own unbreakable terms of justice.
Phillips Brooks
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He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross
so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right.
By his wounds you are healed.
1 Peter 2:24 NLT
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Through the death of Christ on the cross making atonement for sin,
we get a perfect standing before God.
That is justification, and it puts us, in God’s sight,
back in Eden before sin entered.
God looks upon us and treats us as if we had never sinned.
A. C. Dixon