What is the value of the human soul? The value of the soul brought Jesus Christ, the crowned Prince of heaven, to leave the splendor of glory for a stinking manger in Bethlehem, filled with the stench of livestock, to be born as the Son of Mary. The Seed of Mary punished the prince, the powers, and the principalities of darkness permanently. The Lion of the Tribe of Judah crushed the roaring lion. You can’t win against a lion when your head is in its mouth. Jesus lost His life at Calvary, but He didn’t lose the fight. Jesus, from outside of history, entered into history and would have bankrupted heaven for you—the value of your soul. He came to seek and save that which was lost! For the value of your soul, Jesus Christ did not come here with a pretty face and a pretty message but with a salvation message. Calvary was not a picnic ground; it was a battleground.

The value of your soul drove Jesus to Gethsemane, with the enemies of the cross lurking in the shadows. Jesus knelt beneath the olive tree in the shadows of Gethsemane, and His foot was on the doorsill of the house of death. The drops of sweat and blood flooded down His sacred brow, and the chariots of sin were placed upon His shoulders.

Jesus was having severe anxiety and panic attacks, and He had not slept for days, knowing the cup of His Father’s wrath had to be filled. His stress was so intense that He began to sweat blood. This is a rare condition known as hematidrosis, which occurs when capillaries that feed into the sweat glands brutally explode due to extreme stress and anguish (Luke 22:44). Jesus slammed His face to the ground and prayed, “Father, let this cup pass from Me! Not as I will, but as Your will!” Be grateful that God doesn’t answer every prayer, because if the Father had answered this prayer, 100 percent of humanity would be going to hell.

With hundreds of flaming torches that could be seen through the olive trees, five hundred battle-hardened-battle-ready Roman soldiers and one traitor, Judas, the devil’s advocate, came from the Antonia fortress and invaded the garden to arrest one Jewish Rabbi praying with twelve sleeping disciples. The apostles were sleeping in Jesus’ most crucial hour of His ministry. Are we sleeping now? Is the church sleeping and slumbering now, in the most crucial hour in the Age of Grace?

Back to the severity in Gethsemane, the Roman soldiers said, “We seek Jesus of Nazareth!” So humble and so meek, Jesus replied, “I am He!” Standing next to the portrait of Absolute Power, the armed guards and shielded soldiers fell to the ground, trembling in catastrophic, catatonic fear, powerless and pitiful. Why? Because no one takes Jesus’ life, He lays down His life. Immediately, an apostolic slugfest broke out, and the tribe of twelve began to fight to prevent the Son of God from being apprehended and arrested.

Peter took a sword and slashed the ear off of Malchus, a Jew, the servant of Caiaphas. Why? According to the Law of Moses, if you were a Jew with a physical defect, you could not serve in the temple. Peter ended his entire career. Then Jesus miraculously healed his ear and restored his career. Jesus said, “Peter, lay down your sword! Live by the sword, die by the sword!” The message is that people are never won over to Christ by violence but by the demonstration of love.

The value of your soul drove the Lamb to Pilate’s politically correct whipping post and stripped Him naked. They tied the Creator’s hands together—hands which healed the sick, healed the blind, and atomized the spots of leprosy—then brutally beat Him to a bloody, pulsating pulp, leaving a scourging portrait of pain on His back. The relentless whipping tore into His flesh and tissue from His buttocks up to His shoulders, exposing muscles and even His spine. “I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting” (Isaiah 50:6, NIV).

They whipped Him thirty-nine times because forty was considered a death sentence. With thirty-nine lashes, listen to the bone, steel, and leather Roman cat-o’-nine-tails sizzle through the silence of the air. Each time the merciless steel lashes the Redeemer’s back, it rips into the layer of the epidermis and grabs the subcutaneous tissue off His back and bone. The blood begins to run down His back into a dozen streams, making an audible voice: “By His stripes, I am healed.” Then the blood drips onto the sacred concrete of the sacred city, like water dripping from a leaking faucet.

The value of your soul allowed Herod’s men-of-war to rip off His seamless robe and mock Him with a purple robe. Artists depict Jesus on the cross in a loincloth; the Bible depicts Jesus on the cross naked. His only wardrobe was the faucet of blood on His skin. “Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet. All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment” (Psalm 22:16–18, NIV). While the crude crucifixion was an execution, it was also a humiliation by making the condemned as vulnerable as possible.

In merciless mockery and unmatched cruelty, the soldiers began to beat, punch, and slap the mouth that would breathe life into a handful of dirt until it became a living soul. Then they spat on Him and crowned Him with thorns of humiliation, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” The woven thorns were about two inches long and as sharp as steel-stained ice picks. His hair began to be matted with blood, and strands began to fall out due to the severe trauma. The thorns reached down into His skull, and parts of His scalp were exposed. Beyond any recognition, His face was infused with coagulating blood and the spittle of Rome. “…his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness…” (Isaiah 52:14, NIV).

The Roman flogging was child’s play compared to what was about to happen next: the crucifixion. Go back to Pilate’s court, where Jesus was on trial for His life. With cold-heartedness, like men dragging an ox to be slaughtered, they dragged Jesus Christ with sacrilegious hands from the place of prayer to the place of pain. After visiting Pilate several times, Jesus was sentenced to death by crucifixion. The crowd could vote to set either Jesus or Barabbas free. The crowd chose Barabbas because they loved the lie and voted to kill Jesus because they hated the truth—just like today. The recognized mainline religious leaders led the crucifixion parade.

From Gethsemane to Calvary, the value of your soul compelled Jesus Christ to carry the rugged cross on His blood-soaked, open back through the cobblestone streets of Jerusalem to the crest of Calvary. From Pilate’s Palace to Calvary, the distance was longer than six football fields. From Pilate’s post to the cross post, people would collapse because of the trauma and loss of blood. Jesus was believed to have collapsed while carrying the cross—possibly multiple times—because Simon of Cyrene was compelled by the Romans, the devil’s demonic army, to carry the cross of Christ.

The daughters of Zion were watching from the sidelines, crying and screaming. Jesus said, “Daughters, don’t weep for Me. Weep for yourselves and your children!” Jesus could see through the lens of time, and He knew that in about three decades the Romans would surround Jerusalem and murder millions. He knew that under Titus, thousands of Jews would be captured and hauled off to Rome to construct the Colosseum—the amusement park of Jewish and Christian butchery—which would birth the Diaspora.

Jesus could see the Crusades, where the Jews would be slaughtered by the Crusaders, who carried a sword in one hand and a cross in the other—the army of the Roman Catholic Church. Before the Crusaders would leave Europe, they would confess their sins before they would commit the sin of Jewish torture and antisemitism. The Roman Catholic mob that abused the Jews was no different from the Islamic fascists: convert or die—the same ideology. The Crusaders, the Roman Catholic army, would set synagogues on fire, chanting, “Christ we adore thee!” If they could, they would probably put a pistol to your head and shove rosary beads down your throat.

The value of your soul apprehended the Lamb of God on the cross. His arms were stretched six to seven inches beyond their normal length, causing His shoulders to be dislocated and His bones to be pulled out of the joints. The soldiers drove spiked nails through the metacarpals and hit the median nerve in His wrists, causing the nerves to explode. The created drove nails through the hands of the Creator, who sprinkled the stars like diamonds on Creation’s morning.

The unbearable pain from the spikes went up into His arms, into His brain, and down into His spine. This piercing, flaming pain is like hitting the funny bone, but thousands of times worse. In His feet, they drove spiked nails through the metatarsal bone, hitting the plantar medial and lateral nerves, producing a very similar unbearable pain. His feet were strapped to the cross, so the trapped Son of God could not move. The Romans and the religious pierced the feet of the Son of God, who walked on water.

Once Jesus was locked to the cross, the Romans lifted the cross and slammed it into the bowels of the earth. Suspended between heaven and earth, Jesus could not breathe—there was no asthmatic inhaler. While suffocating, and possibly defecating, on that cross, Jesus had to lift Himself every time He needed to breathe or speak, using any muscle remaining. He was able to suck air in, but He could not exhale until the buildup of carbon dioxide in His lungs and bloodstream stimulated His breathing to relieve the cramps.

Listen to the wheezing, weeping, and suffocating Son of God, dying for your sins, screaming, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—meaning, “Father, why hast thou forsaken Me?” Cursed and crushed on the cross, He was fettered naked; His muscle tissue showed, and His spine was exposed for the world to see. Birds would peck at His open wounds. The wood splinters and wood chips would penetrate all His cuts, bruises, and wounds from the Roman whip, and would rub against His open back.

Fulfilling Psalm 69:21, Jesus said, “I am thirsty!” The Creator created every stream, river, lake, and ocean, yet He said, “I thirst!” His bodily fluid hydration was lost through His sweat, breath, blood, and immense physical trauma. His lips were dry; there was no ChapStick or Vaseline. His gastrointestinal tract had lost all its ability to process anything—think of battery acid in your stomach, a piranha of ulcers eating at your stomach lining—and His kidneys were struggling to function due to dehydration.

Expressing His thirst, the soldiers offered Him vinegar on a sponge. Imagine drinking apple cider vinegar as your last drink before you die. His unquenchable thirst increased, burning His crinkled lips and parched throat. He asked for water, just like the rich man in Luke 16, and couldn’t even get that. The Son of God needed water just as much as someone in hell needed water.

Jesus’ suffering was not just physical, but deeply emotional and spiritual. All through His agony and torture, Jesus had full control of His mind. He had to push against the nails even to speak, and the nails dug into the rugged wood. He forced Himself to lift His blood-soaked face to the stars, saying—praying—“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” This prayer shook from Calvary to the Roman Empire and eventually echoed throughout the whole New Testament. He forgave them while they were in the act of murdering Him. When you know all, you can forgive all! Even after every lash, slap, and spit, He ruled the Roman Empire with mercy.

The Man who raised the dead was hanging and dangling from the cross, mocked by the Romans and the religious: “If You are the Son of God, save Yourself!” Jesus denied His deity to rely solely on His Father as an example for us to rely solely on our Father. Jesus could have called on twelve legions of His Father’s army to save Him. He couldn’t save Himself and you; He chose you and not Himself. With spinal splinters and wood chips hanging out of His spine, He lifted Himself one more time to exhale, “It is finished”—for you, the value of your soul. Then He bowed His head, adorned with a crown of thorns, and the sacrifice was satisfied. When He died, death died!

With twelve legions of angels standing on the balconies of heaven with their swords drawn, they watched the Son of God draw His last breath and die for the sins of humanity. Jesus had the power to smash us, but He stooped to save us. The created killed the Creator. He suffered and died alone, as the forsaken Lamb of God, for your redemption! Jesus forgave you handsomely; forgiveness plunges you into the fountains filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins. He endured it all to communicate a spinal message that He was indeed the Lamb of God. “For hours, the Son of God hung on the cross and bore our sins,” in the language of Peter.

For the value of your soul, heaven had one thing on its mind: the death of Jesus Christ. Without the substitutionary death of Christ, there would be no salvation, and mankind would be eternally lost. Without the death of Christ, there would be no church built on the Solid Rock. Without the death of Christ, the song “Amazing Grace” would have been lost at sea. Without the death of Christ, Satan would be supreme and control men. Without the death of Christ, there is no New Jerusalem over the hilltop. Without Christ and Him crucified, and the shed blood, there is no church. It was the Father’s will—the death of His only Begotten Son—for the value of your soul.

If the devil is working tirelessly to steal your soul, and the Lamb of God died to save your soul, there is nothing in the world that is more important than your eternal soul. “Consider how precious a soul must be when both God and the devil are after it” (Charles Spurgeon).

“He had no stately form or majesty to attract us, no beauty that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Like one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. Surely He took on our infirmities and carried our sorrows; yet we considered Him stricken by God, struck down and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away, and who can recount His descendants? For He was cut off from the land of the living; He was stricken for the transgression of My people.”—Isaiah 53:2–8 (BSB)

In the life of my mind, I see this: On the cross, God saw the sinless, spotless, undefiled Lamb of God as if He were me; and after the cross, it’s as if God sees me as if I were Him. Religion puts you around the cross; righteousness puts you on the cross. Religion will let you sing about the cross, but it will not put you on the cross. “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21, NKJV).

The cross of Calvary was the place of the great exchange. Do you think a loving God would have put His only Son through hell on the cross just so He could write something in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, so that we can have a feel-good, emotional experience? Never! Or, do you think a loving God would have put His Son on the cross if there were other ways to get to heaven? Absolutely not!

Jesus Christ went to the cross because it was imperative for everybody’s redemption. Jesus Christ paid the ultimate bill because we could not pay the debt. When Jesus Christ was on the cross, suffering for our sins, God poured out His wrath on His Son as our substitute. Anyone who rejects the substitute will have the wrath of God upon them. “...you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed” (Romans 2:5, NIV).

Do you think you had a tough life? Consider the earthly life of God, engulfed in the skin of human flesh—the Miracle Manna, Jesus Christ. He was born in a group of minorities who were hated. The day He was born, the antisemite Herod killed thousands of children under two, trying to kill Him. He had to become an illegal in a foreign country to prevent His death. When He returned to His country, the religious accused Him of being a drunkard and promoted by the spirit of Beelzebub. The first day He opened His mouth, He was an object of assassination. He made an appearance at the courthouse and was charged with accusations that were less than true. Even though He was innocent, He died between two criminals who were destined to die, and He liberated humanity.

There is one ancient theme that the world is so desperately trying to forget: the blood of Christ. Look at the scarlet stream of blood that flows through the Scripture. The scarlet stream began at the gates of Eden, when Adam and Eve were found naked because the hands of sin stripped them naked, and God baptized them in animal skins. The innocent creature must die for the guilty, just like the Lamb of God—yet innocent—died for the guilty.

The blood continues with the story of Cain and Abel. Abel slaughtered a sacrifice, and it pleased God. Then Cain slaughtered Abel as if he were sacrificing him to the devil. The innocent lamb pleased God because the lamb was the portrait of the Lamb of God. The blood continues to flow centuries later with little scriptural notice. Then the flood—Noah’s first act was to worship the Lord by the shedding of blood. Sin again prevailed. The blood runs through the life of Job. He offered a sacrifice for each of his children and said, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” The blood runs through the life of the father of all those who believe. God called upon Abraham to take his son to the altar, and God provided a ram, and the blood spilled down the peak of Mount Moriah.

The stream of blood continued hundreds of years later when, during the slave trade, the Hebrews sealed the doorposts with lamb’s blood. How were they set free? By the shedding of blood! The death angel was executing judgment on every firstborn who was not caked with lamb’s blood. The Egyptians went to bed and woke up childless. From the length and breadth of Egypt, you could hear the sobbing of Egyptian royalty. If they had put golden jewels on the doorpost and sidepost, there would be no spare. If rubies gleamed like red flares and flames on the door, it would not have kept the death angel away.

Across the entirety and totality of Egyptian palaces, if diamonds glistened like miniature suns, it would not have restrained the death angel. If silver necklaces laced the front porches, it still would not have apprehended the death angel. The only thing that would stop the death angel was the lamb’s blood smeared and smudged all over the doorpost. When God places the Lamb’s blood over the doorpost of your heart, death, danger, despair, and desperation will bounce over your house because you are protected by the sovereign blood of Jesus Christ.

The blood continues to flow across the chasm of the Old Testament to the New Testament, from the old covenant to the new covenant. How was Jesus Christ introduced? “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The only thing that the Lamb could do was to die. The sinless, spotless Lamb of God—pure and holy, destined from the foundations of the earth—was to die. The Jews did not kill Jesus; your sin killed Jesus. Who delivered Jesus to die? Not Pilate for fear! Not Judas for money! Not the Jews for envy! But the Father for love!

Mary, a Jew, gave birth to Jesus! Peter, a Jew, did not kill Jesus! Saul, who became Paul—a Jew of all Jews—did not kill Jesus! John, the beloved, a Jew, did not kill Jesus! Doubting Thomas, a Jew, did not kill Jesus! Most of these people—Jews—died, were murdered, and martyred for the Jewish Son of God. The Jew, Jesus Christ, died for those Jews, and then those Jews turned around and were martyred for the Jew, Jesus Christ. Most of you antisemite Gentiles can’t even carry the weight of your cross, much less be martyred and shed blood for Jesus Christ. Let’s be clear on one thing: Jesus Christ is very much alive! No one killed Jesus! He laid down His own life to fulfill the will of the Father—the shedding of blood for the remission of sin.

The blood continues to the cross of Calvary as the blood trickles down the Calvary cross and onto the skull of Golgotha and the Mercy Seat. From Acts to Revelation, the mouth of the Word of God opens up and says, “Unto Him that loved us and washed us of our sins in His own precious blood.” The blood of Jesus Christ speaks better in silence and speaks louder than the blood of Abel and overthrows every accusation of Satan. When Cain killed Abel, his blood cried out to God from the ground, and that blood said vengeance. For every person who is murdered, their blood is screaming out to God for justice; but when Jesus Christ’s blood spilled before the throne of God, His blood screamed out for mercy and grace, not justice. From the cross, God will extend His mercy to everyone who will receive it. God is in a hurry to dump the inkwell over our record, crumble the black pages of iniquity, and cast them into the fire.

That scarlet stream of blood keeps rolling through the ages of the dispensation of the Middle Ages and through the 1990s and 2000s, as it pierced and penetrated through the back door of my soul—a sinner’s soul. The blood of Jesus Christ changed me instantaneously, totally, and completely. It redeemed me and transformed me. His death certificate became my birth certificate. For me, when He bowed His blood-soaked head on His blood-soaked chest and said, “It is finished,” He wrote me a scarlet love letter written in crimson that says, “Saved by amazing grace!” He took my crown of thorns and gave me a crown of life. He took my robe of corruption and clothed me with the robe of righteousness. The blood of Calvary is upon my brow.

You do not know what the atomic power of God is until the blood is applied and applicable in your life. One drop of the blood of Jesus Christ has the power to forgive and remove every stain of sin from every soul on planet Earth. When one drop of the blood of Jesus Christ is applied to the sin in your life, instantly you become white as snow. God is saying, “Your sins are like scarlet; they shall become white as snow. I will forgive your sins, and I will forget your sins.” Sins that are crimson will be washed white as snow. The crimson stream of blood flows from Calvary and bathes every sinner who plunges beneath it.

How powerful God is—the one thing He cannot do is remember sin once it has been washed in the crimson-red blood of Jesus Christ. You are as pure as the blood of the Lamb of God can make you, which means you are absolutely pure. No one can supersede the pure whiteness of Jesus Christ. The blood that was spilled out from the hands, feet, and riven side of Christ is not to be confused with other blood-splattered pages of history.

• It is not to be confused with the blood of the first plague of Egypt, when the river Nile, from its source to the Red Sea, became caked with blood; or when the water in the Ivory bathtubs of Pharaoh became red like the drain pipes of a slaughter pen—not that blood!

• It’s not to be confused with the blood of sacrifices, when Solomon dedicated the temple and slaughtered 2000 oxen and 120,000 sheep—not that blood!

• It’s not to be confused with the precious babies that Herod slaughtered down in Rama, trying to prevent the birth of Christ, and the world was bathed in blood—not that blood!

• It’s not to be confused when Joseph’s brothers took his coat of many colors and baptized it in goat’s blood to deceive their aged father Jacob—not that blood!

• It’s not to be confused with the blood that was shed when Titus and the Tenth legion surrounded the Jews, and millions died defending the temple—not that blood!

• It’s not to be confused with the blood that was spilled and splattered by ten thousand soldiers on ten thousand battlefronts—as precious as that is, it’s not that blood!

• It’s not to be confused with the blood of Paul, the apostles, and the early Christians who were maimed by lions and screamed out of their last breath, “Maranatha!”—not that blood!

It is the wonder-working blood of the Lamb of God, the Passover Lamb; that blood, and only that blood, will save you. Every drop of this blood terrorizes every demon in hell. By this blood, you went from a commoner to a priest unto God. By this blood, you are healed. By this blood, your soul thunderously rejoices. By this blood, you have all the power over the adder. By this blood, you have been made a citizen of heaven and a foreigner to this world. By this blood, you are removed from the ignorant horde. By this blood, your burned-out life is transformed into a blossoming rose, a rock garden into a rose garden. By this blood, your sin-stained soul, once twisted, has become whiter than snow.

By this blood, it will transform the hole in the soul. By this blood, you are delivered from the grave of death. When everyone else is stumbling into the lake of fire, you will say, “By this blood! This blood has saved me!” By this blood, you are a child of the King. By this blood, He has ransomed you from the debtor’s prison. The remedy for sin is the exemplified blood of Jesus Christ. We need to be encircled by the ring of the blood of Jesus. Cults can’t save you! Crystals can’t save you! The clergy can’t save you! Only Christ can save you! Your only justification to get into heaven is the blood of Jesus Christ—the blood of the virgin-born Son, that blood. Thank You, Father, for the atomic blood of Your Son! By His blood, He has made us kings and priests unto God. Kings rule, and priests pray!

To deny the blood is to deny the totality of the Word of God. People ask, “Is God’s heart so hard that when He sees me cry on the day of judgment, would He not have mercy on me?” “When I weep and prevail, would God not have mercy on me through my tears?” “If I kiss the floor at the feet of the golden rule, will I not be saved?” The one who makes the gold makes the rules. “If I gave cheerfully and vigorously, would God not have mercy on me?” “With fraternal good works, would I have redemption?” Absolutely not! Without the blood, there is no remission of sin! If crocodile tears could save, every star and starlet of hell’s Hollywood would be as good as Mother Teresa. If you are not covered by the blood of Christ, you are nothing; you have nothing, and you will be reduced to nothing.

The blood of Christ places all people on the same level. The blood puts the queen in her palace on the same level as her servant in the washroom. The blood puts the man who eats rats on the same level as the millionaire who eats canvasback duck at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. The blood puts the Eskimo eating whale blubber on the same level as a culture professor teaching higher mathematics at Harvard. The blood puts the savage with his whoop on the same level as the operatic performer who sings solos for fifty thousand per performance. The blood puts the CEO of Tesla, Microsoft, and Amazon on the same level as the prostitutes and tweakers on the street. The blood puts the trillionaire, billionaire, and millionaire on the same level as the drunk begging on the street with a tin cup.

People love the shedding of blood in John 3:16—until the end. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world (clap, clap), that He gave His only Begotten Son (clap, clap), that whoever believes in Him shall not perish (no, no, no!).” If you ignore this, you will be thinking and screaming, lost forever because you refused to splash through the crimson blood of Christ and sailed through the gates of hell. If you fall into the enlarged mouth of hell, the Father will sob because you ignored the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and rejected His life.