Why did God send Jesus to die on the cross? If you know the gospel, you’ll likely snap to an immediate conclusion. Jesus died for our sins, of course. He made atonement, or paid our ransom to purchase us back into the kingdom of God.
But why did He do this?
He could have left us to our own predicament, not caring about our eternal destination. After all, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. None of us seek for God and all of us turn away.
You might have a quick answer for this question, too. Jesus died because He loves us.
But let’s take a closer look at a common passage of Scripture in Romans 3.
“all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s _____________, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.”
I left a word out of the above verse. Without cheating and looking it up, what word would you put there? If you’re like me, I would assume a word like mercy, or love, or kindness, or patience.
But the missing word is righteousness.
What?
Unique to Christianity
This doctrine of justification is very unique to Christianity. Many other world religions may say that God is loving, or that God is merciful. Many other worldviews may cry out for the need of forgiveness by God. But the better part of Romans is concerned with answering one question: how can God be both just and the justifier?
Do you see the dilemma in granting forgiveness? Jesus needn’t die on the cross to prove God’s mercy. Every works-based religion has some element of mercy. God could easily look down and see man’s feeble attempts at living a righteous life and mercifully overlook sin.
But that would mean that God isn’t fair.
In order for God to be just, or fair, He must punish sin. If God is the standard of holiness and righteousness, He can’t dwell in the presence of sin. He isn’t like us, He has never sinned. He is the judge of the universe and must demonstrate righteousness as a judge, to prove His fairness. His holiness is diminished if He doesn’t provide a satisfactory punishment to wrongdoing. Much as we would gape at the sight of a judge allowing a murderer to be free because of some obligation to show mercy, we should also balk at the idea of God turning away from punishing sin. His holiness demands this.
The Gospel of the Bible
We should study the Scripture and take pains to instruct our own hearts to learn the gospel in the same way that God explains it. The above example shows how God’s Word is very clear that He sent Jesus to the cross for the purpose of demonstrating His righteousness. Here are ten verses where the Bible explains why Jesus was sent to the cross.
Romans 3:26
It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
God must be able to show His mercy without compromising His nature as a just judge of the world.
1 Timothy 2:5-6
For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.
God sent Jesus to the cross to answer the lament in Job 9:33, “There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both.” Who can both be like God and be like man in order to be a proper mediator between the two? Jesus Christ, the fully divine, fully man mediator.
2 Corinthians 5:21
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
When we place our confidence and trust and faith in Christ’s work on the cross, God looks at us seeing us clothed with the perfect righteousness of Christ, instead of the filthy rags of our own poorly lacking self-righteousness.
1 Timothy 1:15
The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.
God demonstrates patience toward us. This is an example to us and to others, telling us about God’s patient nature.
Romans 5:8
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Not only the gospel show God’s patience, it is also evidence of His love for us. Who else would go to these lengths to love? Only Christ loves perfectly, even while He perfectly understands our imperfection as sinners.
Romans 6:8-11
Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Now that we have salvation, do we continue to abound in sin, as Romans 6:1 asks? The answer is a resounding no! Jesus died on the cross to accomplish salvation, but He also accomplishes much for us in this life too. We can consider ourselves as dead to sin and alive to Christ because we are helped by the Spirit and given a new heart.
Philippians 2:8
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
God showcases His love and patience, while Christ demonstrates perfect obedience. What do we do with our new heart found in the new birth? We use it to joyfully obey God, to follow Christ’s example: “like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior.” [1 Peter 1:15]
2 Corinthians 8:9
You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.
This life doesn’t offer us much. We no longer have to seek the riches that world offers: money, fame, success. Instead, we are content to find the endless riches at the foot of the cross.
1 John 4:10, 19
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. … We love because he first loved us.
God demonstrates His love toward us even when we did not have a shred of love toward Him. In fact, He loved us to the max, to the fullest degree. [John 15:1]
Ephesians 2:4-9
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
God is kind. God is grace. God is rich in every way that we are not. God gave us the gospel so that no one may boast of his own works.
Meditate and memorize God’s gospel
Too often, we are content with describing the gospel in our own words, when God has already given us perfect descriptions of the gospel that He designed before the foundation of the world. Do you know the gospel? It is simple enough for a child to understand and yet it is used to shame the wisdom of the world (1 Cor. 3). This secret and hidden wisdom of God has been revealed to us through the Spirit (1 Cor 2:10) that we might understand the things freely given us by God (1 Cor 2:12). These things are folly to the world without the aid of the Spirit (1 Cor. 2:14) but the wisdom of the world is folly with God (1 Cor. 3:18). So how do we become a fool that we may become wise? By the revealed wisdom of the Word.
