By His Wounds: Devotions From Time Of GraceSample

Condemned!

If you ever serve on jury duty, you might learn more about our judicial system than you care to know. The courtroom world of endless waiting, obscure arguing, behind-the-scenes plea bargains, and delays can diminish your confidence in our system.

But nothing you see in our courts could compare with the dreadful miscarriages of justice we read in Scripture about our Lord Jesus. He actually had four judicial hearings in the middle of the night as Maundy Thursday turned into Good Friday. He was arraigned before the retired high priest Annas; tried and “convicted” by the high council of the Jewish people and its chairman, Caiaphas; sent for a hearing to the Roman governor of Galilee, “King” Herod; and finally sentenced again to death by crucifixion by the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate.

The kangaroo courts were bad enough. You know what’s really scary about the trials of Jesus? God took those unjust guilty verdicts and endorsed them! Seriously! He let those unworthy judges speak for him as they cried out, “He is worthy of death!” Isaiah revealed that God wasn’t just watching Jesus’ trial; he was joining in the condemnation: “The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).

That’s pretty good news for you, you know. Because you and Jesus switched places, he gets your guilty verdict and you get his not guilty verdict.