WHY DID JESUS HAVE TO DIE? Sent by Robert Jakes Mar 20, 2004
Often we are drawn to the question, "Why did Jesus have to die ... and why such a horrible death?" Lev 17:11 answers ... For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it for you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement, by reason of the life. Heb 9:23 adds ... Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. So the short answer is this --- Jesus had to die to satisfy the just requirement of a Holy God, who cannot just pretend sin away as if it never happened, and who will not forgive based on nothing. There is a limit to what we can understand about this - God is the one who must be satisfied; we only glimpse what holiness requires. We fall short. But we were created in the image of God, and so we partly see the magnitude of the problem. God wants to rescue us. But how? Rom 3:26 says God is both just and justifier in Jesus. This is the genius of the cross. God's wrath and love meet at the cross. Satan labors to confuse the issue. He peddles the lie that God is the monster here because He required this bloody sacrifice. But the truth is that God is the one who did the suffering. God is the one who made the sacrifice. God is the one who hung on the cross. What God paid was required, not arbitrary. Do we dare insult God by insinuating that His remedy was excessive? Do we claim to understand better than God what the cost of redemption is? Will we actually let Satan maneuver us into sitting in judgment on God over the the price of salvation? This is a monstrous conceit. Sometime when we ask the question of why Jesus had to die on the cross, we forget who we are. We act as if we had no personal experience of guilt or shame. The knowledge of good and evil is not a mental exercise thrown open for intellectual debate. It is a moral problem. We continually underestimate the depth, power, and evil of sin. We feel more righteous than we are. We are easily deceived. But we understand viscerally what evil is when it is done to us. When sinned against, we feel ample outrage. Why is it hard to forgive? Why is is hard to receive forgiveness? Because we know in our bones that sin must be paid for. "I'm sorry", alone, is not even enough for us, much less God. And I keep waiting for you to forgive me And you keep saying you can't even start And I feel like a stone you have picked up and thrown To the hard rock bottom of your heart But it is finished. The debt is paid. We are freed. We have a God who loves us with an intensity we cannot fathom. And as Heb 9:14 says, our conscience will finally let us alone. You see, God is not the only one who requires the cross. We require it ourselves, to forgive ourselves, and one another. [Sojappan Devasia] May the Peace of Lord be with you all. much love n prayres. sojan.. ----------------------------------------------------- This mail is generated from http://www.jesusyouth.org To subscribe to this mailing list send a mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from the list send a mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----------------------------------------------------
