Why did Jesus come? In his own words:
But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 10:26-28; cf. Mark 10:45).
Praying just before his trial, and the death he knew he would soon die, he said,
Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.
Today is Good Friday, commemorating Jesus’ death on the Cross. The question that used to bother me was, “What was good about Jesus dying?” But if he came for that purpose, there must have been something good in it, even though it troubled his soul to see it coming. Part of the answer is in 1 Peter 2:24:
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
We deserve death for our sins. We live in a kind of death, a spiritual death or separation from God, even as we walk and talk and breathe; and physical death finalizes that separation. It is because of our rebellion toward God, expressed either in apathy or in acts of outright insurrection against his good and holy character. Jesus Christ paid the penalty of death on our behalf, carrying our sins on the cross (“the tree”) to the point of death. By his woulds we are healed—those who will look to Jesus and say, “I know I needed that. Thank you. I will accept your payment on my behalf.” That’s about all it takes.
Hi Tom,
Thanks to a friend, I’ve been thinking about the significance of Jesus’ death all week. I’ve been reading Romans, but thanks to you, I see that Peter said it very succinctly. It’s not just that Jesus paid the penalty of sin. He bore our sins so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. He has united Himself to us, so that He shares in our death. Now we must unite to Him, so that we share in His death, and die to sin and live to righteousness.
And this happens at Passover, to remind us of the Exodus. The Israelites were spared because of the blood of the paschal lamb. And they were freed from bondage, so that they might be slaves to God, in Whom we are truly free. As long as we don’t go back to Egypt.
We will continue to sin, because sanctification is a lifelong process, just as the journey through the wilderness took forty years. But as long as we confess our sins, He is faithful and will forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. Only there is to be no going back to Egypt. We are to take up our cross daily, die to our willful selves, and be alive to God.
In my opinion, as image-bearers of God, we are able to experience a small snippet of what it means to ‘bear the sins of another’ when we forgive others as part of our everyday lives.
When someone wrongs us, we willingly ‘wound’ ourselves and ‘bear their sins’ by forgiving them – making it possible for the relationship to be healed. It’s obviously not the same as what Jesus did, however I think this aspect of everyday life helps us to understand and grasp the significance of Jesus’ sacrifice for all mankind. I suspect that this is why we are called to forgive one another – it’s a daily reminder of Christ.