From the book Seeking and Savoring Jesus Christ, by John Piper:
Never before or since has there been such suffering, because in all its dreadful severity it was a suffering by design. It was planned by God the Father and embraced by God the Son. “It was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief” (Isaiah 53:10). Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). Herod, Pilate, the soldiers, and the Jews did to Jesus “whatever [God’s] hand and…plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:28). Down to the details, the sufferings of the Son were written in the Scriptures. “Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst’” (John 19:28).
Not only was it suffering by design, but also by obedience. Jesus embraced the pain. He chose it – “obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). And his obedience was sustained by faith in his Father. “When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (I Peter 2:23). “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46).
And what was that design? To be a substitute for us, so that we might live. “The Son of Man came…to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (I Peter 2:24). “The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).
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