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The Death of Jesus
(2nd
In a Series on the Death, Burial, Resurrection, and
Ascension of Jesus)
“For I am not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto
salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first,
and also to the Greek.”
Romans 1:16
I heard a statement
years ago that changed my life: “The only part of the
gospel that will work for you is the part you are not
ashamed of.” We cannot expect the gospel to work in our
lives if it is something that we are ashamed of. That
is why I believe that public profession of faith is so
important. Public profession shows humility-and without
humility you can’t be saved. When you are saved you are
putting down your way and picking up God’s way.
The gospel is the power of God unto salvation for
everyone who believes. The gospel will work for you
only if you believe it. If you don’t believe the Word
of God, it won’t have any effect on you. The death of
Jesus will only affect you to the degree that you
believe in it. The death, burial, resurrection and
ascension of Jesus will only work for you if you believe
it. To believe in something means to embrace it; to
wake up every morning thinking about what God has done
for you.
The gospel is the “good news.” When the scripture talks
about the gospel, it is talking about the good news of
what Jesus did for us. There are four parts of the
gospel as it concerns the redemption of man:
1. Death
2. Burial
3. Resurrection
4. Ascension
The death of Jesus was a substitutionary work in which
Jesus did something for you that you could not do for
yourself. Do you remember a time before you were saved
when you felt you could not escape from the sin in your
life? Sin is not something that is easily escaped.
When Adam sinned, sin entered in to the world. Sin
became like an incurable disease that man did not have
the answer for. Spiritually, that was what was given to
man. He could not escape from sin. The reason sin
became so rampant on the earth was due to the offense of
one man-Adam. He introduced something to mankind that
mankind could not do anything to fix. That is why we
needed a substitute. And that is what Jesus did for us.
“For he hath made him
[Jesus] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that wemight
be made the righteousness of God in him.”
2 Corinthians 5:21
In 2 Corinthians 5:21, we can clearly see the
substitutionary work of Jesus. He was made sin for
us. Most people don’t realize how badly we needed a
substitute. That could cause us to be a little
indifferent to what Jesus did. If we don’t really
realize the sacrifice that God made in giving his son
for our sins, we can’t appreciate what that means for
us. When I was a child, I used to get into trouble for
leaving my daddy’s tools out in the yard. My thought
was that it didn’t matter, it’s just a wrench.
As a child, I didn’t realize the sacrifice that our
parents made to buy those things. Children have a hard
time understanding the price that is paid for
something. When did I learn that lesson? When I had to
buy it for myself. Now my kids leave things out in the
yard and I find myself saying, “Do you know how much
that cost?” Children just do not have the ability to
appreciate the sacrifice that their parents go through,
but as they get older, they will, and recognizing that
sacrifice will eventually bring honor to the parents.
That is a natural thing.
My
question is: do you realize the sacrifice that has been
made for you? When we understand what God has done for
us through Jesus, our level of honor for Him will go
up. When we don’t realize that he was made to be sin
for us, then there is no appreciation for what he did.
He made a great sacrifice for us, and now we can be the
people God made us to be. As the scripture says, “We
love him, because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) We
love Jesus because we have a revelation that He loved us
first. The only way that we can see how much Jesus
loves us is to see that He gave his life for us.
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) We
wouldn’t have to prod people to worship and honor God if
they truly understood the love that He has for them.
We were bound by sin, and there was no way out until
Jesus came and paid the penalty for us. He took upon
Himself the guilt we deserved. That is what will make
us want to praise God.
“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows,
and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our
faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him
not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried
our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the
chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his
stripes we are healed.”
Isaiah
53:3-5
The
prophet Isaiah saw the picture of Jesus’ death, burial,
and resurrection seven hundred years before it
happened. Isaiah laid out the perfect outline for
everything Jesus did, right down to the details. He saw
the substitutionary work of Jesus; that he bore our
griefs (our sicknesses, weaknesses and distresses) and
carried them for us. Before we were ever created, Jesus
bore our distresses for us. He was wounded for our
transgressions. He did not die a death for Himself. He
did not die because his life was full of sorrow. He
died because without him our lives would be full of
sorrow. Jesus did not die because he was a sinner. He
died because without Him we were sinners. We get the
credit for what He did. To say that you don’t need His
substitution for you is to say that you never sinned
because there is no forgiveness of sin without Jesus
taking upon Himself the transgression of man. Otherwise
we would be charged for it. He took it so we would not
have to bear it.
Jesus took bruises upon his body so that we could be
healed. The chastisement of our peace was put upon Him.
There is no peace in this life except through Jesus. If
you have peace today, it is because Jesus took the
chastisement necessary to obtain peace in your life. He
paid the price for your healing when he took stripes on
his back.
The Bible says that Jesus could have opened His mouth
and called down legions of angels to deliver Him from
this death, but he didn’t. Why? Because to die for us
was His choice. Some people question why God would put
this death upon His Son. But Jesus wasn’t forced to pay
this price for us. He chose to. Who was he thinking
about when He was crucified? He was thinking about us.
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