Atonement.

Last night I was reading in Wayne Grudems Systematic Theology and was once again brought to tears when pondering the Atonement. Chapter 27 of his Systematics is all about the Atonement of Christ. The part that I was reading was on the Cross, what happened there. He categorized it in four parts. 1.Physical Pain and Death, 2. The pain of bearing sin, 3. Abandonment, 4. bearing the wrath of God.

Each one worse then the next. As bad as the pain of the cross was Jesus took on our sins. All of his very being must of been repulsed by this, his whole life on earth he detested sin, in the pre-incarnate he hatted sin, and now he became sin. As if becoming sin wasn't bad enough, it caused him to be abandon. The closeness of the Father was was gone, he faced the guilt and punishment of million alone. finally he boar our wrath for us. He faced my eternal punishment and drank it dry, not only for me, but for millions of the elect.

"Then at last Jesus knew his suffering was nearing completion.He knew he had consciously borne all the wrath of the Father against our sins, for God's anger had abated and the awful heaviness of sin was being remove. He knew that all that remained was to yield up his spirit to his heavenly Father and die. With a shout of victory Jesus cried out, "it is finished!". Then with a loud voice he once more cried out, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!" And then he voluntarily gave up the life that no one could take from him, and he died. As Isaiah had predicted, "he poured out his soul to death" and "Bore the sin of many". God the Father saw "the fruit of the travail of his soul" and was "satisfied"." -W.G Systematic Theology

WOW.