Good Friday Meditation: What did the FATHER think?

When He saw His own dear Son murdered? I can't imagine.  He watched every single thing. He heard His dearest, the Son of His heart, broken and crying out. He watched the beatings. The humiliation. Everything.
I know what I would have done.  I would have personally crushed the life out of such men with my bare hands, from Pilate to the members of the Jewish Council, to Judas to the Pharisees.
Yet the Father did nothing.
He watched the nails being driven. The whips descending. The soldiers mocking. Pilate washing his hands. The crown of thorns pressed into Jesus' scalp.  The cross being carried.
I find it totally amazing that we celebrate "Good Friday," and not "The slaughter of the Romans and Jews."
But Jesus Himself really said it:
"Don't you think," He said to Peter, "That I can call to my Father, and He will send 12 legions of angels? But how then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen this way?"
And...
(from Luke 24, after His resurrection):
"Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken, that the Messiah must suffer these things, and then enter into his glory?"
In other words, Jesus and His Father were fulfilling the plan.
But oh, how it hurt.
It is a measure of the terribleness of sin and Satan that Jesus and His Father must suffer so.
It is a measure of the mightiness of God's love and grace (and that of His Son) that He would do this for us..."We were the reason He suffered and died..."
"All we like sheep have gone astray, and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."
"If you make His soul an offering for [your] sin...He shall see His seed (in other words, you will become His child)...He [The Father] shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall my righteous servant [Jesus] justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities [sins]."
These words are from Isaiah (53rd chapter), who lived about 800 years BC.

Sin must receive absolution, and the only way for that to permanently happen is through the death and sacrifice of  The Messiah, according to the Scriptures.  So Jesus volunteered.

For you.

And me.

And you.

And you.

And you.

He died for all...

God gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life.

And all this happened because the Father restrained Himself, and let His dear Son die, that He might rise again, without our sins (because He left them in the grave), and freely provide us with everlasting life.

God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

"For He [the Father] made Him who knew no sin [Jesus] to be sin for us; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

"he who believes in Him is not condemned"

"He who believes in the Son has everlasting life"

"He who hears my word [said Jesus], and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall never come into condemnation..."

"He who comes to Me [said Jesus] I will never cast out."

The price for Him was death;

The price for you is believing.

The reward for Him is resurrection, Kingship, and many Sons of God to populate heaven forever.

The reward for you is life everlasting, and to be a member of heaven's citizens.

Why not come to Him today?

Do you really have a reason for rejecting Him to the destruction of your own soul, and the disaster for your own future? 

Come to Him now!

Forgiveness=GONE!

About a million years ago (in exaggerated time), C.I. Scofield wrote that the Bible concept of forgiveness was that "the sinner was separated from his sin."
I was reminded of how that actually works today when I was reading Matthew in Greek (yes, I still do that), and I came to the passage that says that Jesus entered Peter's house (Matthew 8), and Peter's mother-in-law was lying in bed with a fever...

14 And when Jesus had come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother lying [down], and sick with a fever.
15 And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she got up, and ministered to them.

That little expression, "The fever left her," uses very similar words as Jesus' words to the paralytic in Mark 2:5: "Son, your sins have been forgiven you..."

The Greek word is "aphiemi," and the essence of its meaning is to "send away, or leave." This is a concept that sometimes is completely forgotten when we think of God forgiving us.  It doesn't just mean, "God grudgingly lets us out of punishment, but He never forgets what we did," it means,
"God sends our evil deeds to another place, and disconnects us from them." They are no longer ours. They have left us, just as the fever left Peter's mother-in-law.
The price for this marvellous gift?
Believe. Believe in Jesus Christ and His Father.  That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.
"Forgiven" means YOUR sins are past history, disconnected from you.