A Glimpse of Glory

We might here look on [Christ] as under the weight of the wrath of God, and the curse of the law; taking on himself, and on his whole soul, the utmost of evil that God had ever threatened to sin or sinners. We might look on him in his agony and bloody sweat, in his strong cries and supplications, when he was sorrowful unto the death, and began to be amazed, in apprehensions of the things that were coming on him, — of that dreadful trial which he was entering into. We might look upon him conflicting with all the powers of darkness, the rage and madness of men, — suffering in his soul, his body, his name, his reputation, his goods, his life; some of these sufferings being immediate from God above, others from devils and wicked men, acting according to the determinate counsel of God. We might look on him praying, weeping, crying out, bleeding, dying, — in all things making his soul an offering for sin; so was he “taken from prison, and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off from the land of the living: for the transgression,” says God, “of my people was he smitten,” Isa. liii. 8. But these things I shall not insist on in particular, but leave them under such a veil as may give us a prospect into them, so far as to fill our souls with holy admiration.

Lord, what is man, that thou art thus mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? Who has known thy mind, or who has been thy counsellor? O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! What shall we say unto these things? That God spared not his only Son, but gave him up unto death, and all the evils included therein, for such poor, lost sinners as we were; — that for our sakes the eternal Son of God should submit himself unto all the evils that our natures are obnoxious unto, and that our sins had deserved, that we might be delivered!

John Owen, The Glory of Christ
Taken from Chapter VI. The glory of Christ in the discharge of his mediatory office.