A Willing Sacrifice - NCC 24
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Generally, the word substitute carries a negative connotation with it.
Substitute teacher (not the same as the main teacher)
Substitute on a ball team (not quite as good as the starting players)
Sugar substitute (what is this anyway?)
But sometimes a substitute is a good thing:
When a you have a teacher that’s super strict and you get a sub who is a little more laid back
When a player is injured, instead of playing with less, you get to sub in another
When there is an ingredient you don’t have, or don’t like, you sub in something you do
When it comes to our catechism for this week, there is a positive reality with it.
Let’s review as we build up to this week’s question:
Question 21 What sort of Redeemer is needed to bring us back to God?
One who is truly human and also truly God.
Which breaks down in the NCC into two subsequent questions:
Question 22 Why must the Redeemer be truly human?
That in human nature he might on our behalf perfectly obey the whole law and suffer the punishment for human sin.
Question 23 Why must the Redeemer be truly God?
That because of his divine nature his obedience and suffering would be perfect and effective.
Which leads us to this week’s q&a which reads:
Question 24 Why was it necessary for Christ, the Redeemer, to die?
Christ died willingly in our place to deliver us from the power and penalty of sin and bring us back to God.
In this question lies the weight of the world, and the answer is the key to the purpose of Gospel that we gather for.
Why was it necessary for Christ, the Redeemer, to die?
We will break down our weekly answer into smaller pieces to better understand it.
1. Christ died willingly
17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
v. 17 - Jesus did not gain the Father’s approval by sacrificing his life. Instead, his sacrifice was in obedience to the Father.
v. 18 - In verse 18, Jesus highlights his deity in two ways:
In the reality that He is going to lay down his life. No one takes it from him. These words also remind readers that Jesus’s death was not the result of events that got out of hand.
In fact, This was the reason he came
“Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.
Also, we see in this language that His deity is shown through His connection with the Father and his willing obedience to fulfill the Father’s plan.
So, did Jesus die by the hands of men?
Yes, Peter addressed this in his sermon at Pentecost:
22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know—
23 Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death;
24 whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.
But was this crucifixion outside of God’s plan?
No!
23 Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death;
Peter’s declaration articulates a major paradox of the Christian life: Jesus’s death occurred as a result of the plan and foreknowledge of God, but it was the free (and sinful) acts of human beings that executed that plan.
The Bible often affirms the reality of both divine sovereignty and genuine human choice without explaining how the two can possibly work together without conflict.
Antinomy - a contradiction between two beliefs or conclusions that are in themselves reasonable
2. In our place
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
This means that God the Father made Christ to be regarded and treated as “sin” even though Christ himself never sinned
15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”),
Further, we see that God did this for our sake—that is, God regarded and treated “our” sin (the sin of all who would believe in Christ) as if our sin belonged not to us but to Christ himself. Thus Christ “died for all” (2 Cor. 5:14) and, as Peter wrote:
24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.
Christ became “sin” for those who believe in him, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. This means that just as God imputed our sin and guilt to Christ (“he made him to be sin”) so God also imputes the righteousness of Christ—a righteousness that is not our own—to all who believe in Christ.
Because Christ bore the sins of those who believe, God regards and treats believers as having the legal status of “righteousness” (Gk. dikaiosynē).
This righteousness belongs to believers because they are “in him,” that is, “in Christ”
This then is the heart of the doctrine of justification: God regards (or counts) believers as forgiven and God declares and treats them as forgiven, because God the Father has imputed the believer’s sin to Christ and because God the Father likewise imputes Christ’s righteousness to the believer.
3. To deliver us from the power and penalty of sin and bring us back to God
And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled
in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight—
Scripture is clear on what we truly deserve because of our sin. But Christ came to deliver us from the
Power of sin
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.
10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
Penalty of sin
10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
and to bring us back to God!