Transcription
In his book *The Twilight of the Idols*, Friedrich Nietzsche, history's most overrated philosopher, said, "He who has a why in life can withstand almost any how."
How am I going to get through this horrible tragedy? Well, if you know the why—if you understand the purpose—you'll find a way to endure.
In the Book of Genesis, Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery in order to get rid of him. The next time they saw Joseph, he was very rich and very powerful, and they were terrified that he was going to kill them. But Joseph could eventually say, in an effort to comfort his brothers, "What you meant for evil, God meant for good." Joseph saw that even though there was a malicious human cause for his suffering, there was a Divine Purpose using that malicious human intent to achieve something that would save countless lives.
Many centuries later, a Jewish carpenter was executed by Roman soldiers with the support of the Jewish religious leaders. They wanted to get rid of him, and they did. For three days, the message of Christianity, in a nutshell, is that what they meant for evil, God meant for good.
Think about what happened on the cross. Jesus of Nazareth was mocked, beaten, tortured, and killed. The flogging would have left the skin on his back hanging like ribbons. His veins and arteries would have been exposed. His wrists and feet were pierced with large nails. Because of the way he was positioned on the cross, he had to push himself up on his pierced feet in order to exhale. Our word "excruciating" is derived from Latin words meaning "out of the cross." But we should also think about the why—the purpose—why did Jesus die on the cross?
As it turns out, the answer goes far beyond the malicious human cause. The Bible offers dozens of reasons Jesus came to die. Let's go through ten of them.
**Reason One: To Fulfill Old Testament Prophecy**
Seven hundred years before Jesus walked the shores of the Sea of Galilee, the prophet Isaiah wrote about someone who would die for our sins and rise from the dead. In Isaiah 53:4-6, the prophet says this: "Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray; each of us has turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." The crucifixion of the Messiah wasn't something that caught God off guard; it was part of an eternal plan.
**Reason Two: To Establish a Covenant**
There are several covenants in the Bible—agreements between God and men. God established a covenant with the children of Israel, which we read about in the Old Testament. But even in the Old Testament, there were prophecies about a future covenant, a new covenant. In Jeremiah 31, for instance, we read, "The days are coming," declares the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them," declares the Lord. "This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time," declares the Lord. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor or say to one another, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the Lord, "for I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." God said that a new covenant was coming—a covenant that would bring forgiveness of sins.
More than six centuries later, Jesus sat down for the Last Supper with his disciples. In Matthew 26, while they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body." Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." The new covenant was established through the blood of Christ.
**Reason Three: To Become a Ransom for Many**
Remember that new covenant we were just talking about and how it's connected to forgiveness of sins? The letter to the Hebrews compares the old covenant and the new covenant. The author quotes the passage we read from Jeremiah and argues that while the old covenant was outward and temporary, the new covenant is inward and eternal. In chapter nine, he writes: "The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God? For this reason, Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant." A ransom is a payment to set someone free. Christ died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant, and this echoes what Jesus said in Mark 10:45: "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
**Reason Four: To Demonstrate God's Love**
The God of the Bible is perfect in His attributes. Since God's justice is perfect, all sin must be punished. If God let some sin slide, He wouldn't be perfect in His justice. But God's love is also perfect, which means that He's vastly more loving than we are—so much so that He's willing to take the punishment that we deserve upon Himself. God loves sinners so much that the second person of the Trinity entered into creation as Jesus of Nazareth in order to pay the price for our sins.
In Romans 5, the Apostle Paul writes: "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person; though for a good person, someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." As the most famous verse of any book in the history of the world, John 3:16 puts it: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
**Reason Five: To Give Us His Righteousness**
Some people can be described as righteous, even in the Bible, but that's a comparative righteousness; so-and-so is righteous compared to other people. When we compare ourselves to God, however, all we can say is what the prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 64:6: "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind, our sins sweep us away." Let me tell you something you should already know: you might be good compared to me; I might be good compared to someone else. But we aren't good enough to spend eternity with a perfect being, and there's nothing we can do to make ourselves good enough.
So, if we're going to spend eternity with a perfect being, we need a righteousness that comes from someone other than ourselves. How are we going to get this righteousness? In Romans 3, we read: "But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the law and the prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." And in 2 Corinthians 5:21, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." The Greek word for gospel means good news. The good news is that God gives the righteousness of Christ to people who did absolutely nothing to earn it.
**Reason Six: To Transform Us into God's Temples**
Since we have the righteousness of Christ, we can be what we were created to be. In John 6:38, Jesus tells his followers that he came down from heaven. But where was he going when he left heaven and came to Earth as Jesus of Nazareth? Was he going to Bethlehem? Was he going to Nazareth? Was he going to the cross? Was he going to the tomb? Jesus went to all of these places, but he had a particular destination in mind. He tells us exactly where he was going in the last two verses of John 17, where the divine Son, shortly before his crucifixion, says to the Father: "Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known, in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."
Where was Jesus going when he left heaven and came to Earth? Right here. Right there. We were Jesus' destination when he left heaven. In 1 Corinthians 6:19, the Apostle Paul says, "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?" Jesus died on the cross to cleanse new temples for God's glory. Christians are the walking, talking, living, breathing temples of our Creator because of Jesus.
**Reason Seven: To Clear a Path for Genuine Morality**
A common atheist misunderstanding of Christian ethics is that Christians only do the right thing because we don't want to be punished in hell. According to this view, atheists who do the right thing are better because they do it just because it's right—not because they’re trying to avoid hell. Well, this is a pretty ridiculous caricature of Christian morality.
There is an underlying valid point here: What if someone only does what's right because of how it's going to benefit him? Is he really doing what's right if he only does it for selfish reasons? In other words, you can help an old lady cross the street because it's a good thing to do. But what if you help her cross the street because someone pays you to help her? If I say to you, "Hey, help that old lady across the street and I'll give you 50 bucks," and you do it to get the 50 bucks, have you done anything morally praiseworthy? True morality isn't just doing the right thing; it's doing the right thing for the right reason.
There are two main obstacles to doing the right thing for the right reason.
1. What if there isn't really a right thing to do? That's the atheist threat to morality. If there's no real foundation for right and wrong in atheism, then morality comes down to how you're wired and how you're conditioned by society, thus thinking that something is objectively right or wrong becomes a kind of delusion.
2. If you only do the right thing to receive some reward or to avoid being punished, then everything you do is done out of selfishness. That's the Islamic threat to morality.
But in Christianity, your good deeds don't get you to heaven; Jesus does. Ephesians 2 tells us: "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
Since God is real, there's a real right and wrong, thus avoiding the atheist obstacle to morality. And even though we do good works, we're not doing these good works because we think they'll earn us a trip to heaven, thus avoiding the Islamic obstacle to morality. Christians do what's right because it's right, because we honor God, and because we're grateful—not much room for selfishness in Christian ethics.
**Reason Eight: To Set an Example**
In Luke 9, Jesus says, "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law. He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life." Then he said to them all, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." By laying down his life for the sake of others, Jesus set an example for his followers, and his followers definitely got that message.
In Ephesians 5, the Apostle Paul writes: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." Husbands should love their wives enough to be ready to be crucified for them. Why? Well, look at what Jesus did for his bride, the church.
In Philippians 2, Paul applies the example set by Jesus to relationships in general: "In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
**Reason Nine: To Shatter Dividing Walls Based on Race, Class, and Gender**
Unfortunately, human beings usually don't have the same mindset as Jesus in our relationships, which is why we have endless division and hostility. We divide up the world, and then we treat people from different groups as enemies. But Jesus said in Matthew 5: "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even the pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
All those people you view as your enemies—God loves them too, not just you. When we realize that we have not only the same Creator but also the same Savior, the walls that divide us come tumbling down.
In Galatians 3, we read: "So in Christ Jesus, you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise."
There are rich people and poor people in the world; there are men and women; there are different races. But there shouldn't be hostility, because we're all one in Christ.
**Reason Ten: To Show Us That God Can Turn the Greatest Evil Into the Greatest Good**
What's the worst thing that could possibly happen? You might think about something that would be worst to you personally—maybe your child dying or something like that. But if we leave all of our personal views out of it, I think we might conclude that the worst thing that could possibly happen would be the Creator of the universe, who gave us life and everything else we've ever had, who sustains us for every moment of our existence, miraculously entering into creation, healing people, feeding people, telling people to love each other, and then getting brutally tortured and executed like the world's most depraved criminal. That's the worst thing that could possibly happen.
And yet it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened, which means that God can turn the greatest evil into the greatest good. This should always be embedded in your thinking: there's what's happening in the world according to appearances, and there's what's really happening in the world according to God's purposes.
We can see how this thinking impacted the earliest Christian community. In Acts 4, persecution against Christians is starting to warm up, and they gather together and pray: "Sovereign Lord," they said, "you made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: 'Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed one.' Indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen."
These Christians acknowledge that Herod and Pilate and the Romans and the Jewish leaders conspired against Jesus, but they also know that it was all part of God's plan to bring salvation to the world. How do you think that knowledge helped them endure persecution? If God can take the worst thing that could ever happen and turn it into the greatest thing that could ever happen, what do you think he can do with whatever problems you're facing?
So, why did Jesus have to die?
- To fulfill Old Testament prophecy.
- To establish a covenant.
- To become a ransom for many.
- To demonstrate God's love.
- To give us his righteousness.
- To transform us into God's temples.
- To clear a path for genuine morality.
- To set an example.
- To shatter dividing walls based on race, class, and gender.
- To show us that God can turn the greatest evil into the greatest good.
Since you now know the why, you can endure the how—as in, how am I going to get through this? Or how can I forgive that person? Or how is the world going to recover when so many people are going completely insane?
Of course, the Bible gives more reasons for Jesus' death. If you'd like to dig deeper, John Piper wrote a short book titled *50 Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die*, covering several of the same points I discussed here along with many, many more. So if you'd like a few dozen additional whys, the link is in the description box.
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