Christians and non-Christians,
Atheists and theists alike,
May not know much about Christianity.
There is one thing that they all do know!
Jesus Christ died for us to have eternal life.
This is the foundation of the Christian faith.
This is well-known throughout the world; however, the reason why death was the only option, is still unclear to many people.
Why did Jesus have to die?
In today’s article,
we will be addressing the following questions:
Why is death the consequence of sin?
Why couldn’t God just forgive our sin without any payment?
He is God after all!
Why was Jesus sent to die?
All will be answered right now!
First, we address the very popular question…
Why is death the consequence of sin?
“For the wages of sin is death, …”
Romans 6:23 NKJV.
Wage is another word for…
Payment,
Compensation,
Earning,
Salary,
and reward.
This is the payment due to you in exchange for something that you give.
For example,
If you work at your job all week,
The company already agreed to exchange your hard work with financial compensation…
The wages for your hard work is money,
as your job promised you, on the day of your employment with their company.
However, if you break any part of your agreement with them, they legally can give you a termination notice.
Since you did not uphold your part of the agreement, they no longer have to give you what they agreed to pay.
Same concept with sin.
God made an agreement with man upon creation.
When He created us with a specific purpose,
He promised that in exchange for our obedience, He will pay us with LIFE!
However,
If we no longer uphold our portion of the agreement, our due compensation is not going to be life.
Sin is against God and against the way that He created us to live, so naturally God won’t give us a result that doesn’t correspond with the process.
If we go back to the first sin, we will see that there are consequences for any creation that tries to do something that God didn’t create it for.
“Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.””
Genesis 2:15-17 NKJV.
God didn’t have to write this on a contract for it to be an official law.
The Creator of everything that exists spoke what His creation was to do and was not to do; and because He spoke it, it was now the most official law.
It’s often said that it was a little cruel of God to make such a severe consequence for breaking such a small law, but we need to remember this one thing…
This will absolutely change your life if you continuously remind yourself of this…
You
and
I
Are
NOT
God.
We didn’t create us, so we don’t get to dictate what is a small or significant law.
God actually made all life and non-life that exists, on earth and throughout all of the cosmos…
So, He gets to decide what is profitable for all that He created.
We may not understand it, but again…
You and I are NOT the creators of life, this earth or even just our own selves, so we will never know what is truly profitable for all of creation.
God also gave us the option to
choose Him or reject Him.
Which means that He allowed us to choose between living as we were designed or living in a malfunctioning manner.
I am not trying to offend anyone,
Only trying to state the facts!
When a machine doesn’t operate as designed, it is malfunctioning.
Suppose that the designer of electric cars made them to function in a certain way, in order to profit the customer.
Now, suppose that the cars actually operated properly,
This means that the good and profitable outcome which the creator purposed, would be the actual result!
If the cars did not operate according to design, they would be considered malfunctioning and would not be sold, because they were not functioning in accordance with the good and profitable design of the creator.
The result would no longer be good and profitable.
If a creation is malfunctioning,
the results are unpredictable and in most cases,
unprofitable.
God allows us the choice.
Will we function as He created us to,
or will we operate out of our own desires and purposes.
He already knows the damage that we will cause if we go through life malfunctioning,
yet He still gave us free will.
God was aware that by allowing us to dictate our own direction and operate out of our own desires, it would lead to us hurting ourselves, others and all of His creation…
Yet He still didn’t force us to walk according to His purpose for us.
God gave us more choice than He gave to other things that He created.
The Lord put a boundary on the seas and they can’t disobey it.
God created an order called gravity and it has no choice but to remain consistent.
The world has so much predictability and order because God has a purpose for what He created and it has to work according to what He designed.
If we are honest with ourselves,
it is the ones with free will, that seem to cause all of the disorder in the world.
God made boundaries and order because He wanted His creation to function well together and live abundantly.
When we choose to function as we choose and live for ourselves, rather than for the benefit of all of God’s creation, we cause
disruption,
disorder
and
dysfunction.
We start affecting all that God has made, with our self-serving decisions.
This is why our sin is a big deal to God!
Death is the consequence of sin because sin harms all that God has created and distorts God’s perfect design.
If your disobedience just harmed yourself,
you wouldn’t require further repercussions;
the harm that you suffered would already be the punishment that you deserved for turning against how God created you…
However, your sin disrupts God’s design and all of His creation, as well.
That is a bigger offense because your selfish desires are now harming those around you.
You’re placing yourself in the authority seat, when God solely deserves it.
The creation trying to take authority from the Creator, thereby negatively impacting all of God’s creation.
“But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.’ Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but followed the counsels and the dictates of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.”
Jeremiah 7:23-24 NKJV.
This is why God told Adam that if he was to choose to function in a way that God didn’t design, he would die.
If anything that God designed to function according to a good purpose, chooses to malfunction, God will remove it, so it doesn’t cause a malfunction throughout the entire design.
A piece removed from a design cannot function separately…
It will cease to function in the design indefinitely.
This is why death is the consequence of sin.
Jesus helps us further understand this concept in,
““I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.”
John 15:1-7 NKJV.
Now, to tackle this question…
Why couldn’t God just forgive our sin without any payment?
He is God after all!
““God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”
Numbers 23:19 NKJV.
Something different between God and man is this…
Man is able to lie…
God is unable to lie.
Does this mean that God is not all-powerful?
Absolutely NOT!
This scripture is not saying that God has limitations on power.
On the contrary!
It is saying that God has so much power that whatever is spoken by God, exists.
God speaks and whatever once did not exist, now does…
All because God spoke it into existence.
Remember, in Genesis 1?
God spoke light to exist where only dark nothingness was.
He spoke the earth and water into existence.
The Lord created living creatures with just His words.
When God speaks,
things don’t stay the same!
God can’t lie because He is God and all that He says will come into being and forever be true.
It’s crazy to think about, huh?
Man doesn’t mean what he says most of the time and he is able to speak whatever he wants, without it altering all creation.
Our Creator is different!
God means every single word that He says!
““For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”
Isaiah 55:8-11 NKJV.
Nothing that God says is empty.
God’s word accomplishes what He purposed it to accomplish.
It is by God’s gracious permission that we have free will!
God holds the ability to make us abide in Him, yet He allows us to choose to abide in Him.
God’s word is true and stands forever.
“The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.””
Isaiah 40:8 NKJV.
This is good news because it means that God doesn’t break His promises!
If God promises life, that is surely what we will get!
This truly is a double-edged sword, because…
If God promised consequences,
We can be certain that those consequences will come.
God is not supposed to be like man.
He doesn’t change His mind or break His own rules!
Why?
Not only would He be setting a poor example and allowing man to then say, “if God can go back on His word, why can’t we?”
He would also be showing His people inconsistency, disorder and a lack of integrity.
We wouldn’t be able to rely on Him if we knew that He might break His promises.
If God went back on His word and left it unfulfilled, we wouldn’t trust Him when it came to His promises for eternal and abundant life.
God would then be like everyone else.
Unpredictable and unreliable.
Our God is different!
He actually does exactly what He says, not for the purpose of condemnation, but for the purpose of salvation.
If God holds to His word, no matter what it is, we can trust that His promises for life are concrete and final.
This gives us confidence and helps us to commit to God in the moments that would otherwise scare us into following the dictates of our own hearts.
Though we may not like how immovable God is when it comes to our sin, we sure do benefit from it when regarding our blessings.
It is similar with our parents.
We don’t like the fact that our parents won’t change their minds when it comes to our punishments.
Some might even say that It’s merciless and cruel.
However, when it comes to the good promises that they make to us, it feels great to know that they mean what they say.
I believe that it’s better to have a parent who stands their ground on a punishment, than to have a parent who never keeps their word.
When a parent doesn’t keep their word, it shows that you can’t depend on them.
When you can’t depend on your parent, you start to fear.
This is applicable with any authority!
Your boss, school principal, political leaders and even law enforcement.
If your authority never stands firm to one standard or occasionally breaks their word… you no longer can trust them and that creates fear in your heart.
This causes us to try and do things on our own!
We suppose that even if our authority fails to do what’s best for us, we can trust that our own judgements will be for our own good.
God is the ultimate authority and He proves to stand firm on every word that He says!
There is no better feeling than being able to fully trust the One who is truly in control of your life.
God refusing to relent from what He spoke may not seem merciful, but in doing so,
He fills us with the assurance that He never speaks emptily nor breaks His promises.
We need this assurance!
This confidence is something that cannot be found anywhere else in this world!
We spend our lives looking to feel comfortable and confident, but we only find that all things come with the risk of failure.
God is the only One who does exactly what He says.
He is the only One that we can depend on confidently!
This is exactly what God intended for us to acknowledge.
So, yes!
God is God and He can do anything;
including the removal of the need for payment.
Since God is God, He can choose to keep the need for atonement for sin.
He spoke it, and He will fulfill His word.
“If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.”
II Timothy 2:13 NKJV.
He has a reason for the necessity of atonement; He has a plan for it.
We will read a little about that plan while answering the final question!
Here it is!
The answer to this bewildering question…
Why was Jesus sent to die?
Since death had to be the consequence of sin….
and God shows that, because He means every word that He says,
this consequence will stand…
This means that humanity’s death sentence legally and rightfully stands.
We knew the options and we chose to do what we desired to do.
All of us have made the decision to live for what we feel is best for ourselves, instead of for the benefit and purpose of God’s kingdom.
God is faithful, that’s just who He is.
“If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.”
II Timothy 2:13 NKJV.
Faithful means,
True,
Constant,
Unwavering,
Trustworthy, and
Dependable.
We can’t have just the benefits of God’s faithfulness!
Our sin racked up a huge debt, and it needs to be paid, because God won’t just pretend like it isn’t there.
We own wages due to our choices against the One who created us, and this debt will be paid!
What God speaks, will be.
Here is the catch.
The debt had to be paid…
The sacrifices of atonement were unable to be enough to cover the heaps of felonies we have constructed, against our Creator.
God stood firm on His decision…
Win or lose…
God decided that He would be the One who would lose.
This is why Jesus had to die!
This debt had to be paid.
God may have allowed the debt to remain, but He also provided the payment that we couldn’t afford!
Jesus was sent to pay the price that we owed,
because God loves us too much to hand us over to death.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
John 3:16 NKJV.
Only the Perfect Lamb; the Son of God could be the atonement for us all and overcome the power of death.
Jesus put on our sin and wore it as if it was His own, so we no longer had any wrongs against the Lord.
Death was what we earned, but Jesus received that consequence, so we wouldn’t have to.
“He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked— But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.”
Isaiah 53:3-12 NKJV.
It’s because of Jesus that we are able to receive eternal life!
God didn’t take His word back.
Sin really is deserving of death to our Creator.
God kept His word because He also planned on giving the payment that He required.
The LORD didn’t remove the debt…
He paid it!
He showed us His love by not simply forgetting the debt, but giving what was precious to Him in order to pay the debt for us.
God gave Himself,
so we wouldn’t have to pay the fine that we deserved to pay.
This is why Jesus had to die.
Because if He hadn’t, we would have never known the depths of God’s love towards us.
I hope that these answers brought more clarity to the Christian faith and I pray that by knowing why Jesus gave His life, your heart will be filled with gratitude, in acknowledgment of how much God really loves you!
If this post was more than informative and you want to get to know Jesus more,
We have many posts to help you to better understand the heart of God!
Did this post bring you to a place of wanting to accept Jesus into your heart and fully receive what He did on that cross for you?
WE WANT TO PRAY WITH YOU!
Please pray this prayer and mean every word with all of your heart!
LORD, my God,
I have broken our covenant and have chosen my desires for my life over your purpose for me.
I have turned from you and went the way that I thought was best.
Today, I believe that Jesus Christ is the sinless Lamb that was able to bear my sin, take it to the grave and grant me eternal life.
I believe that Jesus Christ is my Savior and that He paid the price for a debt that I could never afford to pay.
Today God,
I return to You!
I turn from my way and I choose to follow You!
Thank you for your forgiveness through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Please give me a new heart and lead me to follow You with the entirety of it!
Please make me brand new!
Thank you Lord, for healing me and for saving my life!
From today, until forever,
my life is Yours, as it was created to be!
Amen.
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What’s Next?
See this post if you are not quite sure how to start getting to know Jesus!
HOW TO PRACTICALLY SEEK GOD EVERYDAY
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
