carried out the sentence of death, it would have been accomplished not
by crucifixion, but by stoning. Such an execution would not have
fulfilled prophecy or have been associated with the ignominy that marked
the Roman death-penalty. Thus the Scripture was fulfilled in Him,
"Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree."[097] There is but one
explanation that meets these facts, which is that they were directed by
the counsel and foreknowledge of God, and that holy men of God spake as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

The death of Jesus by crucifixion fulfilled in a wonderful manner the
types and figures of the Old Testament. He applied the type of the
brazen serpent to His death on the cross on which He was to be lifted
up, and from which He was to exercise His healing power on those whom
sin had bitten. The surrender of Isaac by Abraham, when he that had
received the promises offered up his only begotten son, prefigured the
unspeakable gift by the Father, who spared not His own Son, and the
self-surrender of the Son, who gave Himself for us. As Isaac went forth
bearing the wood on which he was to be offered, he was a type of Him who
went forth from Jerusalem to Calvary bearing His cross. Had His sentence
been any other than death by crucifixion, He would not have come under
the doom which required that a prisoner should bear his cross. The
Paschal Lamb, of which not a bone was to be broken, prefigured the
Antitype in His exemption from the treatment to which the two thieves
crucified with Him were subjected. In crucifixion He was numbered with
the transgressors and associated with accursed criminals, and so
prophecy received fulfilment.

It is a standing testimony at once to the reality of Christ's suffering,
and to the power which He exercises over men's minds and consciences,
that from being associated with shame and scorn, the sign of the cross