The heart of the Christian faith centres on the life, death and resurrection of its founder. There is one Person who is God Himself, Jesus Christ who had died more than 2,000 years ago. Before Good Friday, Jesus went through agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Judas betrayed Jesus and delivered Him to the Romans. Peter denied Jesus three times before Jesus was crucified on the cross. Jesus was crucified in AD 33 and hung on the cross at Calvary from 9am to 3pm.

 

 

The question to ask ourselves today is, ‘Must Jesus die at all? Could Jesus have saved us in another way without going to the cross?” In Luke 23, Jesus was taunted. In verses 35 and 37, the people challenged Jesus to save Himself.

 

 

In verse 39, the unbelieving thief challenged Jesus to save himself and the two thieves. Today, we have 3 views to answer this important question: Must Jesus die? All 3 views have the same answer, but they are for different reasons.

 

 

1. Romans’ Point of View

• The charge against Jesus is that of treason. Treason is a charge deserving of capital punishment. Jesus was accused of challenging Caesar, the Roman king. He was also accused of ‘robbing’ Caesar, by not paying taxes to the Roman government. These charges were absolutely baseless and false, for Jesus, in Matthew 22:21 said, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things which are God’s.”
• Pilate, the Roman governor, found Jesus not guilty in their trials. Due to the pressure from the people around him, and from the Pharisees and Sanhedrin and for political reasons, Pilate allowed Christ to be condemned to die on the cross under false charges. Even though the charges were not proven conclusively, Jesus was still crucified but it fulfilled the will of God for without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.

 

 

2. Jewish Leaders’ Point of View

• The Jews crucified Jesus because they said that Jesus claimed to be able to destroy the temple that took more than 10 years to build and restore it again in just 3 days. They could not accept that Jesus was the Son of God, and that He claimed to be equal with Yahweh, the Almighty God.
• This claim by Jesus was, to them, blasphemy and punishable by the worst form of punishment. The Romans devised crucifixion, which was the most brutal form of execution. It was reserved for the worst criminals, for it was a slow and agonizing death. These were false accusations. For these false accusations, they led Jesus to the cross to be crucified. However, we are interested to find out Jesus’ reasons for why He must die to save us.

 

 

3. God’s Point of View

 

a. Prophesized in the Old Testament the Death and Resurrection of Christ

• The Triune God in all His infinite wisdom devised the only acceptable divine plan to save some people, though all have sinned against Him. In 1 Peter 1:2, we see that the divine plan required death by blood and by a perfect man who had not sinned (2Cor 5:21) and there are none on earth. There are three parts to the Sovereign plan of salvation: od the Father elected some people to be saved, God the Son died on the cross to redeem them and God the Holy Spirit sanctifies them. In 1 Peter 1:19-20, we see that it is through the precious blood of Christ that we can be saved. This plan was foreordained by the Triune God before the foundation of the world. (Eph 1:4,5)

 

b. Sins of Fallen Mankind - No man can be saved except through Christ.

• Because of our sins, it necessitates a perfect substitute to pay the price on our behalf. Nothing short of God becoming man to die on the cross and redeem us can save us. In John 18:37, Jesus admits that He is King. We see Jesus’ purpose statement, “for this cause came I into the world”. The Lord Himself purposed in His Sovereign Will to come and stand in the place of man. In Philippians 2 and Eph 1:4,5, we are told that the Lord condescended to redeem some men whom He had chosen. He is the only qualified candidate to save us and none else.

 

c. The Necessity of the Atonement - Christ is needed to deliver His people from the power of sin and death.

• In Hebrews 2:14, Jesus came to destroy the power of death.
• In Romans 3:23 and 6:23, we see that we have all sinned, and the wages of sin is death. We can only have eternal life through Christ. The death must include the shedding of blood. Without blood, Christ cannot save us. Without the shedding of blood, there can be no remission of sin. There is no other option for the Triune God to save men except the sacrifice of the Son of God.
• Jesus must die in a certain way as part of the Will of God for there is no other way. His death by crucifixion with the shedding of blood is absolutely necessary and is a part of God’s Sovereign Plan. There is no plan B to the death on the cross available. If Jesus did not die for us, then sinful men will all have to die instead for our own sins. Satan tried to prevent Christ from going to the cross through his temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4. However, Satan failed to accomplish the task. Peter tried to stop Jesus, for which Jesus rebuked Peter, “Satan, get thee behind me.” We need to humbly thank God that Jesus died on our behalf and acknowledge that our greatest need is a suffering Messiah and His vicarious atonement for our sins.

 

To be continued…

 

By Rev Jack Sin

Sovereign Hope BPC, Singapore

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