of rock outside the walls of ancient Jerusalem—a place the locals called Golgotha, the skull. Jesus was crucified by Romans at the request of the Jews for claiming to be their king, the charge posted at the top of his cross. The greater anguish for Christ, though, is not the brutality he feels at the hands of men, but the punishment inflicted by the Father for a different list of crimes—our crimes, also “posted” on that cross—until the King’s anger is spent, his justice is satisfied, and Jesus’ task is finished. Jesus takes our guilt so that we might have his innocence; he takes our sin so
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