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while people looked on

Isaiah 53:4-6 (JDV).

Isaiah 53:4 However, he was the one who lifted up our sicknesses, and he carried our pain, yet we ourselves assumed him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted.
Isaiah 53:5 But he was pierced because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities; the beating which brought us wholeness was placed upon him, and by his wound healing happened for us.
Isaiah 53:6 All of us have wandered about like sheep; we each have turned to his own way; and Yahveh let fall on him the iniquity of us all.

while people looked on

We have had two thousand years to ponder the significance of the cross. We call it the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. It involves four particular things that Jesus did for us by dying on the cross.

By dying on the cross, Jesus purchased forgiveness for sinners so that we can be justified — declared righteous in God’s sight.

By dying on the cross, Jesus reconciled us to God, so that we could become his friends instead of his enemies.

By dying on the cross, Jesus served as our substitute, taking upon himself the penalty of death that we deserve.

2 Corinthians 5:21 God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God.

1 John 4:10 In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

By dying on the cross, Jesus absorbed the full wrath of God for all those who put their faith in his finished work. That does not keep any of us from dying the first death, but it will prevent us from experiencing the second death.

Isaiah also mentions in this amazing section that the Messiah would do this while people looked on, thinking that he was suffering for his own sins. Verse 4 says we thought he was being punished, attacked by God, and afflicted for something he had done. The cross was for criminals — but here is the sinless Son of God walking the via dolorosa and getting nailed to the cross — not for a real crime but as a sacrifice to purchase deliverance for us