Communion 1706/2018

The Question: Why did Jesus have to die on the Cross?

I was asked recently to explain why it is exactly that Jesus had to die in the way that He did. Why did Jesus have to die the death He did on Calvary?

Before you can begin to answer such a question, you need to understand how that question is constructed, because in the asking of the question, there is a presupposition.

The supposition is this: “God had to”. Now this may seem like a pedantic point, but it isn't, it is a crucial point. You see God did not have to do anything, He simply could have let us go on our way, letting us fall over the cliff of our own destruction. But God did not. He is, after all completely powerful, and Holy and would have been completely justified in wiping us out, just as we deserved, but this was not what He did.

No, God chose, and that is an extremely important concept to understand, God chose. He was not compelled, He was not forced, or co-opted, or manipulated, or had His arm twisted in to doing something that He ultimately had no desire to do, God chose.

Why is this distinction so important? Because this distinction goes to the very heart of the motivation and the character of the God that we serve, but more on that in a minute.

Now that we have dealt with the choice of God, the question then presupposses the importance of legality. There must have been some technical reason as to why the death on the cross was so necessary, that that would be correct there was a technical reason why Jesus death had to be so gruesome, so bloody.

Hebrews 9:22 ESV

Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

Leviticus 17:11 ESV

For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.

(ASV 1901)

The life of the flesh is in the blood, and God established that there should be a quid pro quo, that life should be given for life. This is why capital punishment was established through Torah, so that the fundamental principal of giving up of ones life for another life should be established and central to the concept of The Law itself.

11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh atonement by reason of the life.

Now all of these things are true, but God could have accomplished all of this through an alternative means, He was, after all God, and He was able to create another system, but God chose this system? Why?

The Garden: The fundamental mistrust of the Character of God.

If we go back to the very beginning, we see, in the garden, not only the Genesis of sin, but we also see the genesis of its motivation. Why is it that Adam and Eve fundamentally sinned?

The answer to that question can be seenin the allurmant of the Temptation. The serpents entire premise to Adam and Eve was predicated on this one fundamental deception.

God hasn't told you everything.

God is holding out on you.

God doesn't want you to have the good stuff.

God fundamentally doesn't care about you.

God, therefore, cannot be trusted.

The Nation: Gods persistence in the revelation of His Character.

Even, if we look at Israels relationship with God from the very foundation of the nation, even from the very inception of the covenant from the mount of Sinai, God was very clear with them:

Deuteronomy 7:6–9 ESV

“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,

God loved them, and it was on the basis of that love for them that He asked them to obey Him, to do as He asked them to do.

Yet Israel failed, and what where the images that God invoked when they failed?

The jilted Husband, the rejected Father, and the despised Mother, all imagery of intimately, loving relationships.

God loved Israel, and Israel rejected God.

The Cross: God’s ultimate revealing of the true nature of His Character.

So, in the fullness of time, God sent His Son, and by dying for us on the cross, God revealed to us the very pinnacle of His love.

Romans 8:8 ESV

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Romans 8:5 ESV

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

Romans 5:5 ESV

and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Romans 5:8 ESV

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 8:

It is through the demonstration of the Cross that the ultimate revelation of the depth of Gods love, and therefore His character is revealed.

The Response: God possess the character of the one who can be fundamentally trusted.

In a way we have soemthing that Adama nd Eve never possessed

Prayer: