To some this truth seems repugnant; to the Greeks it is foolishness, and to the Jews a stumbling-block, but “to us who are saved, it is the power of God.” For bear in mind that it was our sins that He bore in His own body—not His own sins. The same scripture that tells us that He was made to be sin for us, assures us that He “knew no sin.” The same text that tells us that He carried our sins “in His own body,” is careful to let us know that He “did no sin.” The fact that He could carry our sin about with Him, and in Him, being actually made to be sin for us, and yet not do any sin, is to His everlasting glory and our eternal salvation from sin. All the sins of all men were on Him, yet no person ever discovered the trace of sin upon Him. No sin was ever manifested in His life, although He took all sin upon Himself. He received it and swallowed it up by the power of the endless life in which He swallows up death. He can bear sin, and yet be untainted by it. It is by this marvelous life that He redeems us. He gives us His life, so that we may be freed from every taint of the sin that is in our flesh. Christ, “in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death,” “was heard in that He feared.” Heb. 5:7. But He died! Yes; but no one took His life from Him; He laid it down, that He might take it again. John 10:17, 18. The pangs of death were loosed, “because it was not possible that He should be holden of it.” Acts 2:24. Why was it not possible for death to hold Him, even though He voluntarily put Himself in its power?—Because He “knew no sin;” He took sin upon Himself, but was saved from its power. He was “in all things” “made like unto His brethren,” “in all points tempted like as we are” (Heb: 2:17; 4:15), and since He could of Himself do nothing (John 5:30), He prayed to the Father to keep Him from being overcome and thereby falling under the power of death. And He was heard. In His case these words were fulfilled: “The Lord God will help Me; therefore shall I not be confounded; therefore have I set My face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is near that justifieth Me; who will contend with Me?” Isa. 50:7, 8.