07/04/19 Easter – The perfect Man born in order to die on the cross for mankind.
John 18:37 – Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.
With Easter coming up soon, it’s important to look at why Jesus came in the first place. After all, if someone is your enemy, then why kill yourself to save him? But that’s exactly what Jesus did: He died for His enemies.
Romans 5:8, 10 – 8But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
10For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
If God could create the universe in 6 days, then surely it would be simple for Him to create just the earth again, giving mankind a fresh new start to the mess he’s in now. Why fix the old earth when you can easily make a new one? It’s the same question that has to be answered when you have an old pet with a health problem, a pet that can be replaced with a new one that has a much longer life-span. Sometimes it costs more to cure an old pet than just going out and buying a new pet. Why fix the old for limited years left when the new one will last much longer, often for much less cost?
Why do you put so much time, effort and money into the old if a new replacement will be much more cost-effective? But you do, anyway!
Or, look at it a different way: Why did God decide to die for mankind when He could have replaced mankind with a new cleaner model for much less expenditure?
The answer is in Romans 5:8, 10 – 8But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
10For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
It was God demonstrating His love for us that caused Him to take the path of greater cost to Him in order to fix up (called “redeem” or buy back again what was His) the terminal disease of sin that all mankind had. (This is often called the redeeming of mankind, the payment to buy back His possession which had been put under bondage to satan.)
What was it that caused such a problem in the first place? Of course, we know that Adam and Eve sinned in the garden of Eden by eating the fruit of that forbidden tree. But that’s not my fault, is it? After all, I didn’t eat that fruit. And God does say that it is the soul that sins that shall die.
Ezekiel 18:19-21 – 19Yet say ye, Why? doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father? When the son hath done that which is lawful and right, [and] hath kept all my statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live. 20The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. 21But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die.
That is, you don’t die for the sins of someone else. So why must we die for the sins of Adam and Eve? Note that Vs 19 above says that if one can keep all God’s statutes (laws) and do them, he shall live. But who can keep all God’s law? The law is impossible to obey all the time, and therefore, if the only way we can live is to keep the law 100%, then we will still fail.
And, note that while a person will not be judged for the sins of his father, all mankind is still condemned to death for sin.
Romans 3:23 – For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Romans 6:23a – For the wages of sin [is] death;
Adam’s sin was like a deadly disease for mankind. No matter how good you were, this disease made sure that you could never be perfect according to God’s law. It was Adam’s sin that infected all mankind, and none can escape the death that this sin brings to all mankind. All who are descended from Adam will die because of the sin of Adam. Sin entered the world through Adam’s sin, and because the penalty for sin is death, then all mankind had to die because of Adam’s sin.
Romans 5:12 – Wherefore, as by one man (Adam) sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
And this death is not talking about physical death. Even though all will die because of Adam, all can live because of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:22). This is clearly talking about what happens after we physically die: do we go to heaven (life) or hell (death)? One day all the physically dead people will rise again, some to life, and some to death (eternal damnation in hell).
John 5:28-29 – 28Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, 29And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.
When Adam sinned, he was obeying satan, not God.
Romans 6:16 – Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
(Also note Matthew 6:24 – No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.)
And whoever you obey, that is the one you are serving. If Adam had always obeyed God, then he would have always served God, and God would have always been his master. But he served satan by eating the forbidden fruit, and satan became his master. Satan now ruled mankind. Adam had served satan and now satan had taken control of all mankind who would be born from Adam. This disease (called sin) effectively prevented all Adam’s descendants from being able to approach holy God who would have absolutely no sin in His presence.
It was Adam’s sin that caused the spiritual death of all mankind (and made man a slave to satan), and only the payment of death could allow anyone to be able to spiritually live. But how can you live if you have to die before you can live? And if our physical death could pay for sin, then all could live spiritually once they had died physically. But many who die physically will never live forever in heaven.The problem is that such a death also has to be of a perfect offering without blemish, without sin! And that is impossible for all mankind because of sin.
But the Bible does say that even if all are going to die spiritually because of Adam’s sin, it is also possible for all to be made alive again spiritually because of Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:22 – For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
The Bible clearly teaches that the sacrifice of a perfect unblemished animal would be acceptable for the atonement of sins. The words “without blemish” occur 46 times in the KJV Bible. Sin was a blemish, so a perfect sacrifice had to be one without blemish or without sin. Christ was the sinless Son of God, and therefore was the only one who could pay the penalty for sin and rise to life again afterward. Because of the sin disease, not one single human could ever pay the penalty for sin and still live. God’s law demanded a perfect sacrifice without blemish.
In the Old Testament (OT) the Passover lamb had to be one without blemish.
Exodus 12:5a – Your lamb shall be without blemish
It had to die so that God would pass over their houses when He saw the blood of that lamb on the doorways. Any household without the blood on the doorway would have all its first-born die. In the same way, the blood of an innocent animal had to be spilled so that God would pass over their sin on the yearly Day of Atonement.
In the same way, Christ is our perfect Passover Lamb whose blood had to be spilled for our sin.
1 Corinthians 5:7b – For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
In the OT the blood simply covered over their sin, and this was acceptable to God at that time. But the blood of animals could only cover up their sin. It couldn’t actually take away their sin.
Hebrews 10:4 – For [it is] not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
Only the blood of Christ could effectively pay for sins and buy mankind back from bondage. Once Christ died for our sins, His blood became the actual payment to buy back mankind from bondage under satan.
Hebrews 9:22 – And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. (remission is the putting aside of a penalty through such as a pardon or a forgiving)
By the blood of Christ we are redeemed, that is, bought back from bondage.
Matthew 26:28 – For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Christ paid the ransom demanded of mankind who had been kidnapped by satan.
The Son of man came to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28). Jesus was the perfect, sinless, “without blemish” Passover Lamb. So the death of Christ on the cross was the only way possible for man to return to God.
John 14:6 – Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
So Jesus had to die to pay the penalty demanded for the sin of all mankind (or else mankind could never be forgiven). And this He did, according to 1 John 2:2 – And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for [the sins of] the whole world.
But how do you kill God? Can God actually die? God must take on the form of a person in order to die the death of a person. That is, Jesus must be born as a man in the flesh before He can die as a man in the flesh. This was why Jesus was born: to live a life of example for us, yes, but mainly so that He could suffer and die on the cross. He came as a baby to grow up and die the death of a man.
Let’s look again at John 18:37 – Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.
Pilate enquires, perhaps scornfully, if Jesus is a king, then. That is, Pilate wants Jesus to justify His claims of authority by proving somehow that He is really a king. Jesus replies that Pilate says He is a king (and possibly agreeing with the statement that Jesus is King). But the key is really that Jesus didn’t come into the world to rule with the authority of earthly kings, but was born into this world in order that He should bear witness to the truth, and that those who recognised His truth would hear His voice (and would know what He was talking about, what He was teaching).
And what was that truth? That Jesus came into this world to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10), not to wear a kingly crown. When He returns again at the end of this age, He will come then as Christ the Messiah, ruler of the universe, come to set up His millennial reign over the earth. But when He was born in Bethlehem, He came as a man to die as a man in the place of all mankind so that any who would hear His voice and would believe in Him as their redeemer should be saved. Christmas had to happen simply because without Christmas there could have been no Easter.
Of course, Easter is really a worldly term related to an Old English goddess Eostre, the goddess of fertility and new life. (The easter rabbit was actually a hare, symbolising fertility and new life.) But Easter is held around the time of the Passover feast, and so is actually around the proper time of the year for the Christian Easter anyway. However, Christ is our Passover Lamb, not our Easter Lamb!
This Easter we remember the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem in order to die later as a man for the sins of all mankind, that whosoever should call upon the name of the Lord should be saved. (Romans 10:13)
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