Ah! It had been written:
“Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”
Jesus is made a curse for us. God can not look upon sin; and now His own Son is bearing, in His own body, the sins of the world; and so He can not look upon Him.
I think that was what was heaviest upon the Savior’s heart, away there in the Garden, when He prayed: “If it be possible, let this cup pass away from Me.”
He could bear the unfaithfulness of His friends, the spite of His enemies, the pain of His crucifixion and the shadow of death. He could bear all these. But when it came to the hiding of His Father’s face, that seemed almost too much for even the Son of God to bear. But even this He endured for our sins; and now the face of God is turned back to us, whose sins had turned it away, and looking upon Jesus, the sinless One, He sees our souls in Him.
In the midst of all His agony, how sweet it must have been to Christ to hear that poor thief confessing Him! He likes to have men confessing Him.
Do you remember His asking Peter: “Who do men say that I am?”
Peter answered: “Some people say You are Moses; some people say You are Elias, and some people say You are one of the old prophets.”
He asked again: “But, Peter, who do you say that I am?”
And when Peter said “Thou art the Son of God,” Jesus blessed him for that confession.