"I can't understand why Jesus died?
Why did Jesus die and how did that save us?
God could have saved us anyway He wanted, He can do anything, so why did we need Jesus to die?
And how did His blood give us life?
God didn't need blood to forgive us... if He did, surely that is limiting His power?
These are my questions at the moment, so basic but fundamental."
These are some thoughts and questions from one friend to another :)
Meale, this one is for you! :)
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So all these questions got me thinking...and I am NO expert on the subject, most of this is just random ideas - and I don't have any scriptures to back it up (enter Bazza) - but I had a few thoughts about it and wondered if anyone else could shed some light on these questions :)
I have 2 thoughts:
Firstly, I'm not totally sure why Christ had to die...Maybe Christ didn't necessarily HAVE to die...is it possible that God knew that the world could not accept and hold such perfect love and He knew Christ would be rejected and crucified because of it?
Im not sure that it was the ONLY way God could save us...but its the way that things panned out maybe? Im not sure that God NEEDED BLOOD! I think God knew that WE needed blood! Because we are such crazy brutal people, maybe we were the ones who required Jesus' blood, not God. Is it possible that God just knew from the beginning of time what would eventuate and He worked through that and used Christ's suffering as a portal for our Salvation? Just like He works through all the suffering in our lives for the greater good? "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28.
OR....
Secondly, if God did require Christ to die, was it because the fear of death is something us mere mortals can relate to? After all, giving your life up for someone else is the ultimate sacrifice! "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13.
And does the way Christ died have something to do with it? Because if Christ NEEDED to die...if God NEEDED blood, then it might not have had so much impact if Christ just died in a natural manner and not such a brutal manner? The way He died was severe and shocking...and if He had not been so brutally killed...how much of a sacrifice would His life have been? If Christ just died in a natural manner, surely there would be far less impact and reason for us to acknowledge what He actually did for us? Like there is beauty in the pain He suffered.
Isn't that what its about? That Christ was a living sacrifice?
The Lamb to the slaughter?
"For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins.... Lo, I have come to do thy will... And every priest stands at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifice, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God ... For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified" - Hebrews 10:11-18.
So maybe thats why God needed Christ to die! Because we can see time and time again in the Old Testament how God required perfect and spotless, living sacrifices and spilt blood as a sacrifice to Him, and after all, it is the blood that runs through our veins that keeps us alive...its where the life is...so is that where the symbology lies? Thats why we "eat His flesh and drink His blood" to remember Him and what He did for us!
Life in the blood = Life in Christ?
We also know that Jesus was perfect, and that the wages of sin is death, so the grave could not hold Him. Our death would therefore not be sufficient to atone for sin because atonement requires a perfect, spotless sacrifice, offered in just the right way. Jesus, the one perfect man, came to offer the pure, complete and everlasting sacrifice to remove, atone, and make eternal payment for our sin.
I guess the other thing to consider is that we all know its not about Christ's death...it's also about Christ's resurrection and His life, and what the resurrection represents. Maybe its about the physical representation of a new life in Christ, of second chances and of baptism, and how we can see that there is a new life in Him after baptism?
Maybe it all started with Adam and Eve, and the fall of man, and how sin came into the world, and how because of sin, we live and die and because death reigns in this world, God chose for Christ to die, so that we could draw comparisons by His death, in our daily dealings and daily lives.
Death is rife in our lives...its everywhere and it is mans ultimate fear! Maybe God knew that we as imperfect creatures would find value in Christ's death...maybe no other way would be as impactful or hold such sacred power in our hearts!
"He has also set eternity in the hearts of men" Ecclesiastes 3:11
Maybe its about showing us how fragile our earthly lives are, and that death is real and even though we are all destined to die one day, we too can be raised into perfection with Christ in the kingdom! Maybe if Christ didn't die...maybe if there was no physical representation, we would not have all these comparisons in our daily lives to draw inspiration from? And maybe if Christ didn't die, we wouldn't see Him in everything around us, like how animals must die brutal deaths to sustain us and nourish us, through their death comes life in us, and how every tree that grows, eventually dies, and when it dies, it gives back to the earth to provide more nourishment for new growth. Think about how hopeless our lives would be without the hope that Christ has put in our lives through the representation of His death and resurrection!
I guess these are good questions to ask...but when you really think about it, we are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed our sins away, and that by dying He disabled death itself. I guess the truth of the matter is Christ DID die...and he died the way He died, for US, and I suppose its secondary weather or not that was because the world could not hold such perfection or because God needed Jesus' blood for a specific reason for our salvation.
Any thoughts?
The point is...we have salvation through Christ's death! Which is the greatest gift in itself!
So lets remember Him today! Lets remember what He did for us!
Behold The Man!
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The Cup Of Life Outpoured
by Jim Cowan
Who am I, that I should receive
The cup of life outpoured?
The bread of life, the blood of Christ
The body of my Lord
Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief
Cause me to see You as You are
The King of glory, the Lord of love
The Shepherd of my heart
Lamb of God, Holy God
I come to receive You now
Come into my heart, fill my life
With Your very presence, Lord
To great for me
This wisdom of the Lord
To hold the Savior in my hand
And greater still, the gift of God
That I should be one with Him
Due to technical difficulties Bazza could not post his comments...so i will do so for him....
ReplyDeleteWhy did Jesus have to die?
Let’s start with the best known, best loved, best memorized verse in all of the Bible…. ‘for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life’. (John 3:16).
Now, let’s focus on some of the key words:
God. Love. Only begotten Son. Belief. Everlasting life.
God
The God of all creation is the only God. He alone is God. There is none besides him (Isa 45:5).
Love
Besides being the only God, He is also a God of love. For God is love (1 Jn 4:8). To remain alone in His creation would negate the very definition of love because love cannot exist in a vacuum. Love by its very nature must be shared. And this God did, by sharing His creation with those that He created in His own image and likeness (Gen 1:26). From the very cradle of human kind, God hovered (like a mother hen) over the face of the waters’. He didn’t just move on to His next creation. After Adam decided to do his own thing, God could easily have packed His bags and left for another galaxy … but He didn’t. He stuck around revealed the way for sinners to come back home into harmony with Him. That way, was by destroying the very cause of the separation….sin. Because, sin is about self – self-centered, selfish. It’s about ego, pride, lust that satisfies self. Sin is the great giant killer … sin shuts God out, behind closed doors in dark rooms or just simple open rebellion!
At all costs, sin had to be destroyed in a very real, tangible way. Sin had to be destroyed on home ground – it had to be destroyed at it’s very source … the human heart. ‘For the heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked …’ (Jer 17:9). Long before our first parents blew it, the God of all creation had already devised a way for sinners to find their way back to paradise, a paradise where human beings could experience true love … without pain, or fear, or death.
Only begotten Son
ReplyDeleteGod’s master plan involved the creation of a member of the human race, a special person, a special creation, an only begotten son (the seed of the woman Gen 3:15). And so, ‘ when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law…’ (Gal 4:4-5) who would know from experience the reality that sin was like poison flowing through his veins (Num 21:9), and the only way to destroy sin was to destroy it ‘in the flesh’ … in His own flesh. So, ‘God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh’… (Rom 8:3). In other words, Jesus had to ‘put away sin by the sacrifice of himself…. (Heb 9:26)
This is fundamental to our understanding of why Jesus had to die.
He had to die in order to destroy the very cause of alienation from God … the very cause death itself, and that is sin… in himself!
And so the war between ‘the flesh’ and ‘the spirit’ was fought every moment of His mortal life. Every day He had to choose between self-service or self-sacrifice. He had to choose between His Father’s will or His own will. Do we think that Jesus never had testosterone flowing through his veins? How could he say, “whosoever looks at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. (Matt 5:28)” if that was not part of his human experience? Jesus shared our human nature in every way. He was “tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin!’ (Heb 4:15)
The writer to the Hebrews goes to great lengths to tell us that Jesus was like us in every way. He says: “Forasmuch then as the children (that’s us) are partakers of flesh and blood, he (that’s Jesus) also himself likewise took part of the same nature; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For He did not take upon Himself the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brothers, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to help those that are tempted. (Heb 2:14-18).
So, although the three hour ordeal of crucifixion was the final act of self-sacrifice, of pouring out His life …. the three and a half years of his ministry was dedicated to self-sacrifice and service to his fellows … every minute of every day, of every hour, of every year … so that by the time he uttered his last mortal words …”it is finished!” it could be said of Him, “He did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth …’ (1 Pet 2:22)
Belief
ReplyDeleteHere is the wonder of it all. All (true) believers of every age were chosen ‘in him before the foundation of the world, that they should be holy and without blame before him in love …’ (Eph 1:4).
In other words, it was not a plan that was hatched up after our first parents went astray. It was not as if God lost control and came up with ‘plan B’. God intended to share His creation with all those He has chosen in Him (that is in Christ) … from before He said ‘let there be light’ … before the foundation of the world!.
Everlasting Life
Jesus says: ‘Truly I say to you, He that hears my word, and believes on him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life’. John 5:24 … and again ‘Truly I say unto you, He that believes on me has everlasting life’. John 6:47
Here are some additional points to consider:
• Sin causes death.
Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death …
• Jesus died to take away sin.
John 1:29 “Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world”.
• Jesus destroyed sin by sacrificing himself.
Rom 8:3 …God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the (His own) flesh…
• Jesus conquered self-will
Lk 22:41-42 Jesus prayed … “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but yours be done”.
• Crucifixion is the most humiliating way of dying.
Philip 2:8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Heb 12:2 … He endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
• Pouring out his blood was the ultimate act
of pouring out His life.
Lev 17: 13-14 … he shall even pour out the blood thereof …
for it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof …
for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof …
• His flesh (body) His blood (life).
John 6:54 Whoever eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, has eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day…
John 6:56 He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me, and I in him.