James Fetterly's sermon, "The Death of Christ," profoundly explores the significance of Jesus' crucifixion, affirming it as the focal point of Christian faith, as highlighted by James Montgomery Boyce. Fetterly emphasizes the cross as our hope for salvation, citing Oswald Chambers who categorizes three entities in relation to the cross: heaven, which is interested; hell, which fears it; and humans, who often ignore its meaning. The sermon delves into four aspects of Christ’s death: natural, unnatural, preternatural, and supernatural.
1. **Natural Death**: Fetterly asserts that Jesus experienced a genuine physical death, as evidenced in Acts 20:28 and Philippians 2:8. This underscores the real humanity of Christ and His physical sacrifice.
2. **Unnatural Death**: Christ's death is unique as He was sinless (1 Peter 2:2, 1 John 3:5, 2 Corinthians 5:21), making His death unnatural since death is the wages of sin.
3. **Preternatural Death**: This aspect highlights the predetermined nature of Christ's death as part of God’s salvation plan, as seen in Revelation 13:8 and Romans 3:25. This preordained death was essential for the salvation of humanity.
4. **Supernatural Death**: Fetterly emphasizes the distinctiveness of Christ’s death, marked by His divine nature and authority over His own life and death, as portrayed in John 10:17-18. He had the unique authority to lay down His life and take it up again.
Fetterly further presents seven evidences of the supernatural aspect of Christ's death, including His control over His arrest (John 18:1-11), His statements on the cross (Matthew 27:46, 50), His fulfillment of Scripture (John 19:28), His declaration of completion (John 19:30), His voluntary giving up of His spirit (Luke 23:46, John 19:30), the circumstances of His death (John 19:31-33), and the miraculous events following His death (Matthew 27:51-52).
The sermon concludes with a call to recognize and appreciate the full meaning of the cross, not to ignore it as mere humans, but to embrace it as central to our faith. Fetterly urges believers to glorify Christ for the profound salvation He achieved through His unique, miraculous, and supernatural death.
