Healed By His Wounds

"and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed."

1 Peter 2:23-24

Imagine you are standing in front of the authorities in your town. You have done nothing wrong, yet you have been taken into custody; dragged from a garden where you were quietly praying. Soldiers mock you and spit on you. They beat your head with a stick and jam a crown of thorns into your head. You are stripped and scourged almost to the point of death. In fact, you are so bloodied and bruised that you are unrecognizable. What would you say to your accusers? What insults would you hurl at those who want you dead? Surely you would not just stand there and take it. I doubt that I would. The fact that Jesus Christ endured all these things and much more, but did not retaliate, is beyond comprehension. But Peter was there and he saw everything. He saw the Lord place His life in the hands of the Father, the One who would make all things right in the end. Jesus was wounded for our transgressions. It was our sin that brought suffering upon Him. He did nothing wrong. He did everything right. By Jesus' wounds we are healed of our sinfulness.When He died on the cross, we and our sins died with Him.  And when He rose from the dead, we rose with Him into new life. But only if we repent of our sins, confessing them to the Lord and asking forgiveness, then giving our lives over to Him in acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Savior, and following Him instead of going our own way. Until then, we're still dead in our sins, with no hope of escaping the righteous judgment of God.