Why Did Jesus Have to Die?

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Topical Scripture: Romans 5:6–11

Kyle Froelich needed a kidney. None of his family or close friends was a match. A woman named Chelsea heard about Kyle from a mutual friend and agreed to be tested. They were a match. She donated a kidney to Kyle in 2010.

The two started dating after the transplant was complete. Kyle’s health returned, and they got married three years later.

Now they are back in the news: the kidney Chelsea donated is failing. If Kyle doesn’t get a new one within the next year, he says, he’ll be forced to go on dialysis.

More than 100,000 Americans are in need of kidneys, so the wait time for Kyle is between three and six years—time he doesn’t have. Imagine a scenario by which Chelsea donated her other kidney to him. Now he could live, but she would die.

If she did that, would Kyle ever have reason to doubt her love for him?

The “whys” of Easter

We know the “whats” and the “whos” of Easter. We’re familiar with Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Resurrection Sunday. We know about Pilate, Caiaphas, Judas, and the rest.

So we’re traveling toward Easter this year by asking the “whys.” Last week: why was Jesus born? Next week: why did he have to die on a cross? On Easter: why did he have to be raised from the dead?

Today, our question is: Why did Jesus have to die? We know he died for our sins, but why did he have to do so? Why couldn’t God simply forgive us the way we can forgive each other? The answer offers a profound message of hope and joy every one of us needs today.

Why did Jesus die?

Think of the last sin you committed. Why should a holy God be so gracious to such a sinner as you?

For this reason: “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (v. 6). “At the right time” points to the specific moment in history when Jesus came. Everything was ready for his appearance (cf. Galatians 4:4): there was a universal hunger for truth, a universal language (koine or “common” Greek) to communicate God’s answer to that hunger, a universal peace to make possible the global expansion of Christianity, and universal roads to carry the first missionaries across the known world.

But it was “at the right time” in another sense as well. Just before we died, Christ died for us. Just before it was too late, when we had no hope of forgiveness and salvation, “Christ died for the ungodly.”

All the ungodly, with no specifications or conditions. All sinners and all sins are included. You have been “died for.” Jesus went to your cross, taking your punishment, bearing your pain, paying your debt, earning your salvation.

Only rarely will someone die for a good man (v. 7), as when a Secret Service agent dies to protect the president or a soldier dies to save the soldier at his side. But we deserved no such consideration: “God shows us love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (v. 8).

“Shows” (sunistesin) means “to bring together, to marshal the evidence.” As lawyers used their evidence to prove their case, so God uses the death of his Son to prove his love for us. “While we were still sinners,” this happened. All of us have sinned and come short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23). All of us deserved death (Romans 6:23). All of us have instead been granted peace with God through Christ.

We are now “justified” by his blood (v. 9a), declared righteous in his sight as a criminal whose record is wiped clean. If God has done this for us in the past, “how much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God” (v. 9b). The rabbis were fond of the “lesser to greater” argument: if A is true, how much more is B the case. Jesus used this teaching technique often, as with the parable of the persistent widow: if an unjust judge would grant her request, how much more will God answer our prayers (Luke 18:1-8).

In the same way, Paul reasons that if Jesus has already saved us from the sins of our past, how much more will he save us from God’s wrath in the future. Before Jesus’ atonement, we were “God’s enemies”; now that we have been reconciled with him, “much more . . . shall we be saved by his life” (v. 10, italics added). And so “we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (v. 11).

Paul’s thesis is simple: we are at peace with God and can be at peace with each other and with ourselves. Why? Because we have been given access to the Father by the Son.

Since Jesus’ death has paid for our past sins, he guarantees our future reward. Now the Spirit redeems our present sufferings by using them to produce persevering character which gives us hope that we will continue to be victorious in the days to come. We can be at peace with our past, our present, and our future.

Why did Jesus have to die?

So, we know that Jesus died to pay for our sins so that we could be made right with God. Here’s the question behind the text: Why did he have to do so? Why couldn’t God simply have declared us forgiven? Why did his Son have to die for us?

If I hit your car while leaving the parking lot after chapel, I assume you can forgive me without someone having to die in my place. I have forgiven people for things they have done to me without requiring someone to die first.

If “God is love” (1 John 4:8), why couldn’t he do the same?

Here’s the problem: God is also “holy, holy, holy” (Isaiah 6:3). As Scripture declares, “There is none holy like the LORD” (1 Samuel 2:2). His heaven is perfect, a place where “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

For us to be granted entrance into God’s perfect presence, our sins must first be removed. The debt we owe for them must be paid.

However, the punishment for sin is death: “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23); “The soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:20). This is because death separates us from the holy God who is the source of life. It’s like cutting off a flower at the roots. It may look healthy, but it is dying and will soon be dead.

The consequence of sin is death. That’s why the payment for sin must be death. That’s why sinners are separated from God for all eternity in hell, a place of living death.

And it’s why we cannot pay this debt for each other. Because I have committed sins, I cannot die for yours. It’s as if I owe the hundred dollars in my pocket to the bank; I cannot use it to pay your debt and mine.

The only person who could pay the debt of our sins would be someone who never committed sins of his own. And only one person in all of human history has lived a sinless life. Not Muhammad, or Confucius, or Buddha, or anyone else. Only Jesus.

That’s why Jesus could die on the cross for our sins. It’s why he had to die on the cross for us to be forgiven for our sins.

Visited by the Prince of Peace

What does his death for us mean for us?

First, it means that we can be forgiven and granted eternal life if we will receive the gift of salvation he offers. A gift must be opened. We must receive by faith the gift he offers by grace.

Second, it means that we should value ourselves as he values us. Our Father decided that we were worth the death of his Son. No greater valuation could be placed on us than that.

Third, it means that we should serve him in gratitude for such grace. Not so he will love us, but because he already does.

We are taking the Lord’s Supper today, a meal first shared by Jesus and his disciples in the upper room. A thousand years ago, the Crusaders constructed a space in the vicinity of the first upper room to commemorate that event. We take our group there whenever we visit Israel.

One reason the Crusaders located the structure where they did is that they found a first-century sculpture in the immediate vicinity. It depicts two baby pelicans eating from their mother’s body. The tradition in the day was that in times of extreme drought and famine, the mother would allow her babies to eat her flesh and drink her blood. This became one of the first symbols for the Lord’s Supper and Jesus’ offer of the bread and cup to symbolize his body and blood given for us.

This sculpture is displayed by the exit of the Upper Room to remind visitors of the significance of the place. As we take the Supper of our Lord today, let’s return to the cross it signifies. Let’s remember his death for us. And let’s receive and share his grace with gratitude for such love.

Where do you need his grace most today?

Why Did Jesus Rise from the Grave?

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Topic Scripture: 28:1-10

Easter last fell on April Fools’ Day in 1956. We’ve waited sixty-two years to see the irony in their alignment.

On this day in 1996, Taco Bell announced it had agreed to purchase Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell and rename it the Taco Liberty Bell. The company boasted, “Taco Bell’s heritage and imagery have revolved around the symbolism of the bell. Now we’ve got the crown jewel of bells.”

In 1998, Burger King advertised a “Left-Handed Whopper” designed for the 1.4 million left-handed customers that visit their restaurants every day. Scores of customers requested the fake sandwich.

Of all the surprises on April Fools’ Day, none could be greater than the event we will celebrate today: the resurrection of a Galilean carpenter from the grave. Here’s the question we’ll ask today: why Easter?

Why Easter?

This is my thirty-fourth year to preach an Easter sermon. In all those years, I’ve never thought to ask the question: Why did Jesus have to rise from the dead?

We understand why he had to die on the cross—to pay for our sins and purchase our salvation. But why was it important that he rise physically from the grave on the third day? Why couldn’t he go to Heaven like everyone else who has eternal life?

Jesus promised the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43), but the thief didn’t have to rise physically to rise eternally. My mother went to Heaven ten years ago, but she didn’t have to rise from the grave physically to rise into God’s presence.

My first answer was: Jesus had to be resurrected because the Bible promised he would be. And that’s true: David predicted that God would not “let your holy one see corruption” (Psalm 16:10). The prophet said of the Suffering Servant, “when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days” (Isaiah 53:10).

Jesus promised repeatedly that he would be raised from the dead. For instance, he told his disciples that “he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Matthew 16:21).

But why were these promises made? The Spirit didn’t have to inspire the Old Testament writers to make them or lead Jesus to affirm them. Why did his physical resurrection matter?

What’s unique about Easter?

Here’s the answer that came to me: everything Jesus did in his public ministry was something others had done before him. Nothing he did proved that he was God.

Jesus was a great teacher, but Moses gave us the Ten Commandments and the first five books of the Bible. Jesus controlled nature, calming stormy seas and walking on water, but Moses parted the Red Sea and Joshua’s people stepped into the flooded Jordan River as it stopped miraculously.

Jesus fed the five thousand, but Moses promised the people manna from heaven and Elijah provided for the widow with oil that was miraculously sustained during a drought (1 Kings 17:8–16). Jesus healed the sick, but Elisha healed the leprous Naaman (2 Kings 5). Jesus raised Lazarus and the widow’s son from the dead, but Elijah and Elisha raised the dead as well (1 Kings 17; 2 Kings 4).

None of Jesus’ miracles by themselves proved that he was God. But his resurrection did.

When the women met the risen Christ on Easter Sunday, “they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him” (Matthew 28:9). When Doubting Thomas met the risen Christ, he exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).

What about Lazarus and others raised from the dead in Scripture? They all died again. They were resuscitated, not resurrected.

Jesus is the only person in history to die and then be resurrected, never to die again. His resurrection proves that he is God. If he had simply gone from the cross to heaven, we would not know that. We would not have proof that he is who he says he is: our Lord and King.

The problem of the empty tomb

You see, there’s no way around the empty tomb.

If the disciples stole the body, they then convinced five hundred eyewitnesses that a corpse was alive (1 Corinthians 15:6), somehow got it to make breakfast beside the Sea of Galilee (John 21:9–14) and appear through locked doors (John 20:19–20), then threw the corpse into heaven at the ascension (Acts 1:9). Then they died for a lie they kept so well that their secret never got out.

If the women stole the body, they faced the same problems.

If the authorities stole the body, they would have produced it. If the disciples went to the wrong tomb, the authorities and owner would have shown them the right tomb.

The “swoon theory” is my favorite: Jesus “swooned” on the cross but didn’t actually die. He then survived a spear thrust that pierced the pericardial sac around his heart and being wrapped in an air-tight mummified shroud for three days before shoving aside the stone, overpowering the Roman guards, appearing through locked doors, and doing the greatest high jump in history at the ascension.

His empty tomb shows that he was resurrected, and his resurrection shows that he is God.

Four Easter facts

Now, what does the fact of Jesus’ divinity mean for you today?

One: He is present in your pain.

David said to God, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (Psalm 23:4). God promised his people, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” (Isaiah 43:2–3).

God is with us in our greatest pain. Easter proves that Jesus is God. Therefore, Jesus is present in your pain. He suffered the worst torture known to man in his crucifixion. He wept at the grave of Lazarus. He has been tempted in every way we are (Hebrews 4:15).

When you wonder if Jesus is with you in your sufferings, challenges, and temptations, remember Easter.

Two: He hears your every prayer.

Jesus promised, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:8). The psalmist testified, “Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice” (Psalm 55:17).

God hears our prayers. Easter proves that Jesus is God. Therefore, Jesus hears your every prayer. The next time you wonder if Jesus is listening to you, remember Easter.

Three: He is more powerful than your greatest problems.

The Bible says of God, “It is you who made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you” (Jeremiah 32:17). God is omnipotent. Easter proves that Jesus is God. Therefore, Jesus is more powerful than your greatest problems.

The next time you wonder if Jesus has the power to help you with your challenges and struggles, remember Easter.

Four: He loves you where you are, as you are.

The Bible says that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Easter proves that Jesus is God. Therefore, Jesus loves you where you are, as you are.

The next time you wonder if Jesus will forgive your sins, if he loves you no matter where you’ve been or what you’ve done, remember Easter.

Conclusion

Can the risen Christ change any life? Can he heal any pain, hear anyone’s prayer, address anyone’s problem, and love any soul?

Alice Cooper is one of the most notorious “shock rockers” in America. Known for his heavy metal concerts, he was infamous for stage acts too horrific for me to describe. He was also known for his years of alcoholism and heavy drug use.

This week, Fox News carried a story that caught my eye: “Alice Cooper believes his faith saved him from alcoholism, temptations of rock star lifestyle.” It turns out Cooper is the son and grandson of ministers.

When he nearly died from drugs and alcohol, he says, “I grew up in the church, went as far away as I could from it—almost died—and then came back to the church.” He says that his faith saved his life and is the basis for his marriage of forty-one years.

He’s not the only surprising story of conversion in our day. David Berkowitz, the “Son of Sam” murderer and devil worshipper, is a sold-out Christian who ministers to his fellow prisoners every day.

Dr. Francis Collins is director of the National Institutes of Health and arguably the best-known scientist in America today. He was a staunch atheist before C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity helped lead him to faith in Jesus.

Lee Strobel graduated from Yale Law School and worked as a journalist for the Chicago Tribune for fourteen years. A staunch atheist, he was shocked when his wife became a Christian. Investigating her faith, he became a Christian. He has since published bestsellers The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, The Case for a Creator, and The Case for the Real Jesus. His life story has been made into a movie; The Case for Miracles was just published.

Here’s my point: if Jesus could change Alice Cooper and David Berkowitz and Francis Collins and Lee Strobel, what can the risen Christ do in your life today?

Because of Easter, Thomas called Jesus “my Lord and my God.” Now it’s our turn.

Why Was Jesus Born?

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Topical Scripture: Hebrews 4:14–16

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I’m not sure that’s always true. Here are some examples:

  • “You know you’re old when you go to bed at the time you used to go out.”
  • “If by ‘crunches’ you mean the sound potato chips make when you chew them, then yes, I do crunches.”
  • This image comes close, however: “Apparently there’s a third option between burial and cremation.”

We’re now in the Easter season, and the images are clear and powerful. Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Our Lord driving the moneychangers from the temple, debating the authorities, eating the Last Supper, praying while he sweated drops of blood in Gethsemane, hanging from a cross, rising from the grave.

These images changed our world.

We know the what and the who of Easter. But we don’t always know the why. Why did Jesus have to be born to die? Why couldn’t he simply have appeared as a thirty-three-year-old man to die for us? Why did he have to die? Why on a cross? Why did he have to rise from the dead?

These questions require words. Their answers, as we will see during this Easter season, are life-transforming.

We begin at the beginning: Why was Jesus born? We’re going to discover that the answer offers us hope and help we can find nowhere else on earth.

Why was Jesus born?

Let’s begin by exploring the question. If I ask you why Jesus came to earth, you’d probably answer, “To die for our sins.” And you’d be right.

But the God who created the universe and could enter it as a man could have come in any way he wanted. He could have come as a child, an adult, or an elderly man. He could have come as a woman. He could have come as a Jew or a Gentile, a Roman or an Asian. He could have come in any way at all. If his only purpose in coming to earth was to die, why did he come as he did?

The facts of his incarnation are clear. The only baby who chose his parents chose a teenage girl from a town so small it’s not mentioned even once in the entire Old Testament. Her fiancée was a carpenter so poor he could not provide more than the most basic sacrifice when Jesus was born.

When time came for him to be born, his mother brought him to Bethlehem, where they arrived so late there was room only in a stable. And so, the Son of God, the King of kings and Lord of lords, was born in a stable and laid in a feed trough. The cave where it happened was and is dark, dingy, anything but attractive.

He then grew up in obscurity in Nazareth before beginning his movement in Galilee, far from the temple, the rabbis, the Sanhedrin, the power structures of the day. His disciples, while successful businessmen, were not recognized as scholars or religious authorities.

He spent time with tax collectors, lepers, demoniacs, exiles and outcasts. Then he came to the one city where he knew he would be arrested, illegally tried, and executed.

Why did he do all of this?

The Incarnation fulfills prophecy

One answer is that Jesus’ incarnation fulfills prophecy. Micah predicted seven centuries before Christmas: “You, Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days” (Micah 5:2).

Scripture also predicted that he would be born of a virgin: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).

Jesus fulfilled many more prophecies with his death and resurrection, as we will see in coming weeks. So, we know that Jesus had to be born to fulfill God’s word.

But why did God make these predictions? Why did the Spirit inspire these prophecies?

The Incarnation shows Jesus’ solidarity with us

If Jesus had simply come to earth to die for us, what would we miss?

  • We would miss his healing ministry, as he touched leprous bodies, opened blind eyes, and raised dead bodies.
  • We would miss his feeding ministry, as he nourished thousands of hungry people.
  • We would miss his teaching ministry. The four gospels are filled with wisdom we would not have apart from his incarnational ministry.
  • We would not have the apostles and the movement they led. Who would know that Jesus died for us? Who would tell the story?

Jesus’ earthly life shows his solidarity with us. He was hungry in the wilderness, tired at the Samaritan well, and thirsty on the cross. He wept at the grave of Lazarus. He felt everything we feel.

Jesus was also tempted in every way we are: “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). He was tempted by possessions in the wilderness as Satan tried to entice him to turn stones into bread. He was tempted by popularity at the pinnacle of the temple as Satan tried to entice him to jump off and impress the crowds. He was tempted by power when Satan offered him the kingdoms of the world in exchange for his worship.

In short, he was tempted in every way we are, but without sin.

Jesus is now praying for us: “He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25).

We might think that Jesus’ incarnational life enables him to do this more powerfully. Those who have been through what you have been through can pray for you as others cannot.

However, Jesus was and is omniscient, as is his Father. If he had to come to earth to understand us so he could pray for us, what of those who lived before Christmas? Does this mean the Father cannot understand us?

Here’s the point: Jesus did not come to earth to learn something he didn’t know, but to teach us something we didn’t know. Namely, that all he did, he can still do. What he was, he still is.

Max Lucado: “Why did God leave us one tale after another of wounded lives being restored? It isn’t to tell us what Jesus did. It’s to tell us what Jesus does. Paul says in Romans 15:4: ‘Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us. The Scripture gives us patience and encouragement so that we can have hope.'”

Scripture is clear: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). All he has ever done, he can still do. Now he wants to do it for you.

What does the Incarnation mean for us?

After testifying to Jesus’ defeat of all temptation, the author of Hebrews invites us: “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

The Incarnation proves that Jesus understands us. We now have proof that he knows what it is to grieve, to hunger, to thirst, to grow weary. We have proof that he knows what it is to be tempted and tested.

As a result, when we are grieving, hungry, thirsty, or tired; when we are tempted and tested; we know where to turn. We know who to trust. We can “draw near to the throne of grace” and know that “we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Conclusion

Perhaps you know the story of Joseph Damien. A Belgian priest, he was sent in 1873 to minister to lepers in Hawaii. As soon as he arrived on Molokai, he began trying to build friendships with the residents of the leper colony there, but they rejected him. He built a small chapel and held regular services. But hardly anyone came.

After twelve long years, Father Damien gave up. While standing on the pier about to board the ship that would take him home to Belgium, he looked down at his hands. The white spots he saw there could mean only one thing: he had contracted leprosy. So instead of going home, he returned to his work in the leper colony.

News of the missionary’s disease spread through the community within hours, and soon hundreds of lepers had rushed outside his hut. They understood his pain and despair. The following Sunday, when Father Damien arrived at the chapel, the building was filled to overflowing. Thus began a long and fruitful ministry.

What made the difference? Now the lepers knew that the minister knew their condition. They knew that he cared about them, that he could identify with them, that he was one of them.

His love for them had not changed. But their belief in his love had.

This is the story of the Incarnation. It is the story of Jesus’ love for you, right now.

Why do you need his grace today?