Why Did Jesus Have to Die?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, Romans 3:24

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--why-did-jesus-have-to-die
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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well that's the theme of the entire Bible and so let's look at the big picture and then let me give you some scripture so God created humans to have fellowship with him he's the source of life um and when humans sinned they broke that Fellowship because God is Holy he cannot participate in sin sin is rebelling against God's plan sin is contrary to God's nature so that that sin cut them off from God well if God is a source of life and the Book of James says every good gift every perfect gift comes from God so everything we think of is good grace love joy peace God is the source God is the author we have all that from God even I would argue Sinners or atheists who do not know God to the extent that they enjoy common Grace the blessing of God in in this planet on this planet goodness or uh morality or love or joy in relationships that's really becomes from God although they don't know that God is the source so when people sin they cut themselves off from that the alternative is death or separation from God or whatever existence it is it's without God so that is not because God is trying to punish people or send them to a hell or an eternity without him it's because that's the inherent nature of the choice if God is Holy and the source of life you break off the fellowship you say I don't want to be holy I don't want to have relation with god well now you cut yourself off from life and God could say okay that's your choice you you're you're obliterated you're annihilated or you're shoved off uh into outer Darkness forever but God is also love so he says I want a relationship and so he provided a Plan of Salvation now God can do all things in the sense of being all powerful but he cannot contradict his own nature so he couldn't have fellowship with sin he cannot make uh you know somebody that doesn't want to he he respects when he created us and I would say the Angels before him he created us with freedom of choice and the reason why he did that is he wanted love but love to be love has to be freely Chosen and freely given so even God although he's omnipotent he cannot force you to love him I he could have force you to have the right feelings but that would be like a puppet or a robot okay so if he wants a a freely chosen mature relationship mutuality then he can't force that because that that's a logical inconsistency right and so so God's alternative is this okay humans have gotten themselves in predicament and by Justice they deserve to be eternally separated from they deserve Eternal death that's what they've chosen but because I love them I'm going to offer them a way out well God's justice could would not allow a sinful person to have fellowship with God that's incompatible with his nature so God did something that couldn't be done so God Came In the Flesh as a genuine human being like us like the ones who had sinned and he said I'm going to present as a man as a human Jesus Christ the son of God live a holy sinless life that restores fellowship with God so as a man he restores fellowship with God so that all those who would believe on him could be restored to Fellowship but because sin by its has consequences separation from God then Jesus had to undergo that punishment that separation and it was only temporary nature but it was had to be real so he had to die physically so in other words Romans um 323 says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God Romans 6:23 says the wages of sin is death so the very nature of Justice in the universe the Holiness and Justice of God required that sinful humans die but the only alternative is a sinless human who did not deserve to die could voluntarily take their place so Jesus as a human being has paid the price for our sins he took the punishment of our sins upon himself he paid the penalty for us he shed his blood for us these are all different inadequate ways he won the victory for us so it's not just onedimensional but it's a multiple ways of looking at that I think all are true um that when he rose from the dead he conquered death he conquered sin and so he won the victory over sin death the devil and we can now by faith share in that same Victory but let me give you um some scripture in Romans 3 uh after verse 23 says for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God New King James Romans 3:24 um says being justified freely by his grace through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God God set forth as a propitiation that's a theological word meaning a sacrifice of atonement by his blood through faith so I I will uh pause here and say here are various ways of trying to describe what Jesus Christ did for us so you see propitiation so that's the language of the temple in the Old Testament where a priest offers a sacrifice uh and that animal is slain so that Death Becomes a substitute for human death but as Hebrews explains an animal can't really take the place of a human so that was only symbolic and by faith foreshadowing what would happen so Jesus is the true sacrifice of atonement that is a true human being that is equivalent to US who can pay the price for us who can take our place so in the language of the temple he is our propitiation he's the sacrifice of atonement that fulfills the requirements of God's justice then there's another word Redemption so this is an analogy of a slave market so if you think of a slave um in the Old Testament it was not the same as slavery in modern times but uh someone for example who owed a debt they couldn't pay they could sell themselves into slavery or in really indentured servitude for a limited time and if not set uh free earlier they could be set free in seven years but in the meantime if they had a close Kinsman that says wait a minute I'll pay the price that whatever they owed that they sold themselves into slavery for I'll pay the price well then they could immediately be delivered uh so that word is redemption so the the death of Jesus another way of looking it's like redeeming us it's paying the price to set us free and then Justified means it's the language of the courtroom so justify means to be counted as righteous so even though someone is convicted as a criminal uh they could be given a pardon what does a pardon mean the pardon doesn't mean they didn't do it the part pardon doesn't mean they didn't deserve it the pardon says I choose to remove the consequences and treat you as if you'd never done it even though you did it I'm going to treat you as if you didn't it's mercy and so that's another thing that Jesus done for us so these are all not necessarily different works but different ways of looking at the same work so to summarize in God's plan we Sinners separated from God we deserve death but Jesus wanted to set us free from that death so he took our place he died for us and since he's the infinite God manifest In the Flesh his death could substitute for an infinite eternity and for an infinite number of people and his one death as so it's really God himself paying the price to satisfy the requirements of his own Justice Psalms talk about talks about Mercy um and um Justice met together they kissed each other so what seemed to be irreconcilable God's justice and God's love God's justice demanded death God's love says I don't want them to die they seemingly could not be reconciled but to through the death of Christ those two qualities of God were reconciled because Jesus as God manifest In the Flesh paid the price so God's justice could be met but God's love could be fulfilled and so the best way to explain the death of Jesus Christ it's not an Angry God punishing uh Jesus it's not not a father punishing a son um the father hates us but the son loves us you know but it's from a Oneness perspective it's God providing the sacrifice for us himself to set us free from the consequences of our own sins but the death of Christ shows this could not be done by just making it go away oh pretend you never did this no sin is so serious that there have to be consequences but God ultimately takes the consequences on himself so the death of Christ shows that sin has absolute consequences that we cannot ignore we have to deal with but it also shows the worth of each human being that God loved us so much he's willing to pay whatever it takes to redeem us so it's a beautiful uh depiction uh of both the justice of God and the love and mercy of God and so I think although it may seem strange to us who are not raised in a religious culture who were not raised with a temple or anything like that if you look at the courtroom the uh slave market the temple you know there are various ways that probably everybody can relate in essence Jesus and when we say his death we really mean his death burial and Resurrection or his blood or the cross or the atonement we mean the whole thing because it's through his resurrection that he's Vindicated he wins the Victory and so the best way to look at it is Christ death and Resurrection has set us free from the consequences of our own sins so we can be restored to fellowship with God