It was to redeem us that Jesus lived and suffered and died. He became "a Man of Sorrows," that we might be made partakers of everlasting joy. God permitted His beloved Son, full of grace and truth, to come from a world of indescribable glory, to a world marred and blighted with sin, darkened with the shadow of death and the curse. He permitted Him to leave the bosom of His love, the adoration of the angels, to suffer shame, insult, humiliation, hatred, and death.

"The chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed." Isaiah 53:5.

Behold Him in the wilderness, in Gethsemane, upon the cross! The spotless Son of God took upon Himself the burden of sin. He who had been one with God, felt in His soul the awful separation that sin makes between God and man. This wrung from His lips the anguished cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Matthew 27:46. It was the burden of sin, the sense of its terrible enormity, of its separation of the soul from God – it was this that broke the heart of the Son of God.

Go on to Christ was God's Ultimate Pouring Out Of Love Upon A Fallen World...

White, Ellen Gould: Steps to Christ. Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1892; SC 13.1

Questions answered:

• What did our redemption require of Jesus?
• What things did Jesus suffer?
• What did the burden of sin do to Jesus?