But another question must surely press in upon one who has beheld the Son as He is mirrored in the pages of the four Gospels and who has entered into a study of His matchless, pure life with any degree of spiritual appreciation and apprehension. The question is "Why need Jesus Christ die?" Scripture is very clear in its statement of what death is and who dies.
Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death."
Romans 5:12, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men."
Ezekiel 18:20, "The soul sinneth, it shall die."
Death is the consequence of sin: it is the sinner who dies. And Jesus Christ died! The irresistible logic of these facts places before one two alternatives. Either Jesus was a sinner as all other men are and His death like theirs was the wages of His own sin, or else He died a death different from the death of all other men and for a reason entirely outside of His own life.
Was Jesus Christ a sinner? Did death come to Him as the penalty of His own sin? Even His bitterest enemies in the time in which He lived and in all succeeding ages have NEVER accused Him of sin. He said once to a group who were opposing and denying Him, "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" But not one word of accusation did they being against Him. Even Pilate said he could find no fault in Him. God testified to the absolute sinlessness and holiness of His life even before His birth in saying through the angel to Mary, "that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." After living in a world where He was continuously environed by sin and defilement God again testified through those who knew His character and conduct under all circumstances that He "did no sin" (1 Peter 2:22); "In him is no sin" (1 John 3:5); He "knew no sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21). In His character, conversation and conduct He was the holy One of God "without blemish and without spot." If then death is the wages of sin, it has NO claim upon Jesus Christ.
Why then did Jesus Christ die? How foolish and futile to look anywhere else for the answer to such a question but to God's divine revelation. There an absolutely sufficient and altogether satisfying answer is given.
1 Corinthians 15:3, "For I delivers unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture."
Isaiah 53:6, All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all ."
Isaiah 53:4, 5, "Surely he hath born our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."
1 Peter 2:24, "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed."
In every one of these passages "death" and "sin" are shown to have an inextricable relationship to each other but it is invariably the death of Christ and the sin of men.
Words could not make it clearer that Jesus Christ died not because of anything in Himself, but because of something in us; that it was not the wages of His sin but of ours that He paid on the Cross. It was our sin He put away; our sins that He bore; our iniquities which were laid upon Him. Death had no claim on Him; then the death He died was for the sake of others and to accomplish something for them which they were unable to accomplish for themselves. The death of Christ was obviously for the purpose of taking up the sin question and dealing with it in such a way as to bring salvation to mankind.
But would it also deal with it in such a way as to bring satisfaction to God? God has an unalterable, irrevocable attitude toward sin which is most clearly revealed in His judgment upon it. "The wages of sin is death." Death is the expression of God's implacable condemnation of sin. "Death is the man's liability in relation to sin." Did the death of Christ deal with this divine judgment upon sin in a way that was satisfactory to God? God says it did.
2 Corinthians 5:14, "For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that one died for all therefore all died; And he died for all that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him, who for their sakes died and rose again."
The sinner's twofold relationship to God, the divine Judge and God, the gracious Saviour, may be stated as follows,
"The wages of sin is death,"
"All have sinned,"
"So death passed upon all men."
BUT
"One died for all,"
"Therefore all died."
Death is the racial doom. In Adam all die because in Adam all sinned. Death is God's judgment upon sin and it rests equally upon all men. From the execution of this divine judgment there is no escape because it is the decree of a holy God and is therefore unalterable. Sin and death are inextricably interwoven: the sinner must die.
But the holy God is also a loving God. While He cannot change His attitude toward sin and His judgment upon it without denying His own nature yet His love with perfect consistency can make some escape for the sinner providing whatever He does maintains unity in His own divine being. This necessitates meeting in full the requirement of His holy law.
What, then, would that requirement be? That an adequate Substitute able to meet the full penalty of the law should voluntarily offer to take the sinner's place and die the sinner's death.
But where could such an adequate substitute be found? Only "a lamb without spot and blemish" could be accepted as an offering for sin. Only an absolutely sinless one could be the sinner's Substitute. It would require one who himself had fulfilled every demand of God's holy law to pay the sinner's penalty for a broken law. There was but one who had ever lived such a life on earth and He was the incarnate Son of God.
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 4)
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