10] The nature of Christ’s death can only be understood in terms of penal substitution.

His was no ordinary anguish and pain. His was no ordinary death (Matthew 26:37; Mark 14:33-35; Luke 22:44; Hebrews 5:7). As Turretin says, “Such things can have no other adequate cause except in vindicatory justice demanding from Christ a most full satisfaction for us” (op. cited, pages 434,435). A scripture comes to mind: “Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, herewith the Lord hath afflicted
me in the day of his fierce anger” (Lamentations 1:12).

As Wesley expresses it:

For what you have done
His blood must atone:
The Father hath punished for you His dear Son:
The Lord, in the day
Of His anger did lay
Your sins on the Lamb, and He bore them away

6] The fact that His death was a “ransom” (Matthew 20:28; 1 Timothy 2:6; cf. Romans 3:24; Ephesians 1:7) shows that the sinner’s freedom has been bought by the payment of a required price. Christ paid the price, an equivalent for the sins of men (1 Peter 1:18,19; Revelation 5:9).

In his classic work, The Atonement and Intercession of Christ, William Symington concludes, “The passages, thus, without controversy, prove the fact that salvation is effected by the blood or death or the Lord Jesus Christ, which is offered to and accepted of by God, as a perfect satisfaction, a proper equivalent for the sins of such as are made partakers of redemption. They are not their own, but BOUGHT WITH A PRICE. Can anything more distinctly express the idea of satisfaction, which is just the idea of atonement?” (pages 185,186).

4] In Isaiah 53:7, it says “he was oppressed” - literally, “it was exacted”

- that is, Christ bore the penalty which the Law demanded. B.W. Newton comments, “it must be very strongly stated that the commencing Hebrew word (‘it was exacted’) indicates that the suffering was the result of judicial infliction from the hand of God; because He who so suffered stood as one who had voluntarily undertaken to bear penalties which the Law of God ‘exacted.’ The word (nagas) indicated not merely oppression, but oppression that was the result of a demand. It means to have payment of a debt sternly executed, and is thus used in Deuteronomy 15:2,3, ‘Every creditor that lendeth aught to his neighbour shall (on the seventh year) release it; he shall not EXACT it of his neighbour or his brother, because the Lord’s release hath been proclaimed. Of a foreigner thou mayest EXACT it again, etc.’” (Thoughts on the Whole Prophecy of Isaiah, pages 265,266).