Episode 396 - Show Notes
- As people who read and understand the Bible, we believe it’s true that Jesus Christ was crucified some 2,000 years ago for the sins of the world. Jesus died in our place. He took our sins upon himself and became our substitute. His death on the cross satisfied the justice of a righteous and holy God. Jesus death on the cross was motivated by his love, but it was necessitated by his justice.
- Our salvation came at a great cost. What Jesus has done for us was no small thing. Jesus was condemned by the Jews and executed by the Romans. It’s believe that the form of execution called crucifixion was invented by the Persians, but history tell us it was perfected by the Romans.
- But why? Why did Jesus have to die? What does Jesus’ death on the cross have to do with me? Jesus seems to take my sin personally, as if it were directed toward him. We must understand that when we sin, we don’t just sin against ourselves, or even against others. All sin is against God.
- Jesus came to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. There is nothing lovely in us. We are not worthy or deserving of God’s salvation. Motivated by grace and mercy we will never fully understand, Jesus steps in our place and takes our death.
- There was simply no other way. Jesus’ death on the cross satisfied God’s justice and purchased mercy. Justice demands that sin be paid for. Dying on our behalf, Jesus died the death we deserve so that we could have mercy we don’t deserve.
- Here’s the good news. Not only did Jesus die for us, but on the third day he rose from the dead. Today he offers you and I mercy, forgiveness, and a relationship with the living God.
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.”
Isaiah 53:3-6 - “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. 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.”
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