Why did Jesus have to die?
Jesus' work was amazingly fruitful. He taught and healed thousands. He attracted large numbers of listeners and could have had a far greater impact. He could have healed more thousands if he had gone to the Jews and non-Jews who lived in other lands. But Jesus allowed his work to come to an abrupt end. He could have avoided arrest, but he chose to die instead of carrying his message out into the world. Although his teachings were important, he not only came to teach, but also to die, and with his death he has done more than in his life. Death was the most important part of the work of Jesus. When we think of Jesus, we think of the cross as a symbol of Christianity, of the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper. Our Redeemer is a Redeemer who died.
Born to die
The Old Testament tells us that God appeared in human form several times. If Jesus had only wanted to heal and teach, he could have simply "appeared". But he did more: he became human. Why? So that he could die. To understand Jesus, we need to understand his death. His death is a central part of the message of salvation and something that affects all Christians directly.
Jesus said that “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matth. 20,28He came to sacrifice his life, to die; his death was to "purchase" salvation for others. This was the primary reason he came to Earth. His blood was shed for others.
Jesus announced his suffering and death to his disciples, but they apparently did not believe him. “From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples how he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, and be killed and on the third day rise again. And Peter took him aside and rebuked him, saying, ‘God keep you, Lord! This must never happen to you!’”Matth. 16,21-22.)
Jesus knew he had to die because it was written. “…And how is it written about the Son of Man, that he should suffer many things and be despised?” (Mark 9:12; 9:31; 10:33-34). “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself… Thus it is written, that the Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day” (Luke 24:27 and 46).
Everything happened according to God's plan: Herod and Pilate only did what God's hand and counsel had "predestined" to happen. (Apg. 4,28)In the Garden of Gethsemane, he pleaded in prayer, asking if there was no other way; there was none (Luke 22:42). His death was necessary for our salvation.
The suffering servant
Where was it written? The clearest prophecy can be found in Jesaja 53Jesus himself Jesaja 53,12 He quotes: “For I tell you, this must be fulfilled in me: ‘He was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me will be fulfilled” (Luke 22:37). Jesus, sinless, was to be counted among the sinners.
What is in Jesaja 53 Still written? “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (verses 4-6).
He was “afflicted for the iniquity of my people...though he wronged no one...So the Lord would smite him with sickness. When he gave his life for a trespass offering...[he] bears their sins...he [has] borne the sins of many...and interceded for the evildoers" (verses 8-12). Isaiah describes a man who suffers not for his own sins but for the sins of others.
This man is to be “snatched away from the land of the living” (verse 8), but the story is not to end there. He is to “see the light and have abundance. And by his knowledge shall he, my servant, the righteous, establish righteousness among many... he shall have seed, and shall live long” (verses 11 & 10).
Jesus fulfilled what Isaiah wrote. He laid down his life for his sheep. (Joh. 10, 15)Through his death, he took our sins upon himself and suffered for our transgressions; he was punished so that we might find peace with God. Through his suffering and death, the sickness of our souls is healed; we are justified—our sins are taken away. These truths are developed and deepened in the New Testament.
A death in shame and shame
A "hanged man is cursed by God," it says in 5. Mose 21,23Because of this verse, the Jews saw God's curse upon every crucified person, viewing him, as Isaiah writes, as "smitten by God." The Jewish priests likely thought this would deter and paralyze Jesus' disciples. Indeed, the crucifixion shattered their hopes. Downcast, they confessed, "We... hoped that he was the one who would redeem Israel" (Luke 24:21). The resurrection then restored their hopes, and the miracle of Pentecost filled them with renewed courage to proclaim as their savior a hero who, according to conventional wisdom, was an absolute anti-hero: a crucified Messiah.
“The God of our fathers,” Peter proclaimed before the Sanhedrin, “has raised Jesus from the dead, whom you hung on a tree and killed.” (Apg. 5,30)In "Wood," Peter alludes to the full shame of the crucifixion. The shame, he says, does not lie upon Jesus—it lies upon those who crucified him. God blessed him because he did not deserve the curse he suffered. God reversed the stigma.
Paul pronounces the same curse in Galater 3,13 To: “But Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree’…” Jesus became a curse in our place so that we could be freed from the curse of the law. He became something he was not so that we could become something we are not. “For our sake he made him who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 11:1).
5,21).
Jesus became sin for us so that we might be declared righteous through Him. Because he suffered what we deserved, he redeemed us from the curse—the penalty—of the law. “The chastisement is upon him that we may have peace.” Because of his chastisement, we can enjoy peace with God.
The word of the cross
The disciples never forgot the shameful way Jesus died. Sometimes it was even the focus of their preaching: "...but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks." (1. Kor. 1,23)Paul even calls the gospel “the word of the cross” (verse 18). He accuses the Galatians of having lost sight of the true image of Christ: “Who bewitched you, when Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed before your eyes as the crucified one?”Gal. 3,1.) In this he saw the core message of the gospel.
Why is the cross "gospel," good news? Because we were redeemed on the cross and there our sins received the punishment they deserve. Paul focuses on the cross because it is the key to our salvation through Jesus.
We will not be resurrected to glory until the guilt of our sins has been paid, when we have been made righteous in Christ as "it is before God." Only then can we enter into glory with Jesus.
“For us,” says Paul, Jesus died. (Röm. 5,6-8; 2. Kor. 5, 14; 1. Thess. 5,10); and he died “for our sins”. (1. Kor. 15,3; Gal. 1,4)He himself “beared our sins in his body upon the tree” (1. Petr. 2,24; 3:18). Paul goes on to say that we have died with Christ. (Röm. 6,3-8)Through faith in him, we share in his death.
If we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, his death counts as ours; our sins count as his, and his death abolishes the punishment for those sins. It is as if we were hanging on the cross, as if receiving the curse our sins have us. But he did it for us, and because he did it, we can be justified, that is, considered just. He takes our sin and our death; he gives us justice and life. The prince has become a beggar boy so that we may become beggar boys princes.
Although it is said in the Bible that Jesus paid ransom (in the old sense of redemption: ransom, ransom) for us, the ransom was not paid to any specific authority - it is a figurative phrase that wants to make it clear that it is him cost us an unbelievably high price to set us free. "You were bought with a price" is how Paul describes our redemption through Jesus: this too is a metaphorical phrase. Jesus “bought” us but “paid” no one.
Some have said that Jesus died to satisfy the Father's legal claims – but one could also say that it was the Father himself who paid the price by sending out and giving up his only Son. (Joh. 3,16; Röm. 5,8)In Christ, God himself took the punishment upon himself – so that we would not have to; “for by the grace of God he should taste death for all.” (Hebr. 2,9).
Escape the wrath of God
God loves people – but he hates sin because sin harms people. That's why there will be a "day of wrath" when God judges the world (Röm. 1,18; 2,5).
Whoever rejects the truth will be punished (2:8). Whoever rejects the truth of divine grace will experience the other side of God, his wrath. God wants everyone to repent. (2. Petr. 3,9)But those who do not repent will feel the consequences of their sin.
In Jesus' death, our sins are forgiven, and through his death we escape God's wrath, the punishment for sin. This does not mean, however, that a loving Jesus appeased or somehow "bought off" an angry God. Jesus is angry with sin just as the Father is. Jesus is not only the Judge of the World, who loves sinners so much that he pays the punishment for their sins, but he is also the Judge of the World, who condemns. (Matth. 25,31-46).
When God forgives us, he does not simply wash the sin and pretend that it never existed. Throughout the New Testament, he teaches us that sin is overcome through the death of Jesus. Sin has serious consequences - consequences that we can see on the cross of Christ. It cost Jesus pain and shame and death. He bore the punishment we deserved.
The Gospel reveals that God acts justly when he forgives us. (Röm. 1,17)He does not ignore our sins, but overcomes them in Jesus Christ. “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood, to demonstrate his righteousness…” (Röm.3,25)The cross reveals that God is just; it shows that sin is too serious to be ignored. It is fitting that sin be punished, and Jesus willingly took our punishment upon himself. Besides God's justice, the cross also reveals God's love. (Röm. 5,8).
As Isaiah says: We have peace with God because Christ was punished. We were once far from God, but through Christ we have now drawn near to him. (Eph. 2,13)In other words, we are reconciled to God through the cross (verse 16). It is a fundamental Christian belief that our relationship with God depends on the death of Jesus Christ.
Christianity: it's not a list of rules. Christianity is the belief that Christ did everything we need to do to be reconciled with God – and he did it on the cross. We have been "reconciled to God... through the death of his Son, while we were still enemies." (Röm. 5,10)Through Christ, God reconciled the universe “by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.” (Kol. 1,20)If we are reconciled through him, all our sins are forgiven (verse 22) – reconciliation, forgiveness, and righteousness all mean one and the same thing: peace with God.
Victory!
Paul uses an interesting image for salvation when he writes that Jesus “disgraced the rulers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in Christ [i.e., through the cross].” (Kol. 2,15)He uses the image of a military parade: The victorious general leads enemy prisoners in a triumphal procession. They are disarmed, humiliated, put on display. What Paul wants to say here is that Jesus did this on the cross.
What appeared to be a shameful death was in truth a crowning triumph for God's plan, because only through the cross did Jesus achieve victory over the hostile powers—over Satan, sin, and death. Their demands on us have been fully satisfied through the death of the innocent victim. They cannot demand more than has already been paid. Through his death, we are told, Jesus took away the power of the one "who had the power of death, namely, the devil." (Hebr. 2,14)"...The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." (1. Joh. 3,8)The victory was won on the cross.
Victim
Jesus' death is also described as a sacrifice. The concept of sacrifice draws on the rich sacrificial tradition of the Old Testament. Isaiah calls our Creator a "sin offering" (53:10). John the Baptist calls him "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." (Joh. 1,29)Paul presents it as an atonement offering, a sin offering, a Passover lamb, and an incense offering.Röm. 3,25; 8,3; 1. Kor. 5,7; Eph. 5,2The Epistle to the Hebrews calls it a sin offering (10:12). John calls it an atonement offering “for our sins” (1. Joh. 2,2; 4,10).
Several terms are used to describe what Jesus accomplished on the cross. The various New Testament authors employ different terminology and imagery. The precise wording and the exact mechanism are not crucial. What matters is that we are saved through Jesus' death, that only his death opens the way to salvation for us. "By his wounds we are healed." He died to set us free, to atone for our sins, to suffer our punishment, to purchase our salvation. "Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (1. Joh. 4,11).
Healing: Seven key words
The riches of Christ's work are expressed in the New Testament through a whole range of linguistic imagery. We can call these pictures parables, patterns, metaphors. Each paints a part of the picture:
- Ransom (almost synonymous in meaning with “redemption”): a price paid to ransom, set someone free. The focus is on the idea of liberation, not the nature of the prize.
- Redemption: in the original sense of the word also based on the " ransom ", also e.g. B. the ransoming of slaves.
- Justification: standing before God again without guilt, as after an acquittal in court.
- Salvation (salvation): The basic idea is liberation or salvation from a dangerous situation. It also contains healing, healing and a return to wholeness.
- Reconciliation: Renewing a disturbed relationship. God reconciles us to himself. He is acting to restore a friendship and we are taking his initiative.
- Childhood: We become the legitimate children of God. Faith is changing our marital status: from the outsider to the family member.
- Forgiveness: can be seen in two ways. By law, forgiveness means the cancellation of a debt. Interpersonal means forgiveness that forgives a personal injury (According to Alister McGrath, Understanding Jesus, p. 124-135).
by Michael Morrison
