Let us now consider the fundamental relationships as revealed by the Scriptures between (1) God and mankind, (2) Jesus and mankind, and (3) Jesus and God; for in their inter-connections we can discern the true significance of the Cross.
In the beginning, God created man in His own image, expressly for His own pleasure and for the manifestation of His glory.1 But through Adam, man disobeyed his Maker and sin entered into the world, with the result that man has “come short of the glory of God”2 which originally he was intended to display. God, therefore, Who cannot look upon sin nor tolerate disobedience (since that would be to compromise His own glory and omnipotence) passed condemnation of death upon man, who was in due time to return to the dust out of which he was taken. For the “wages (or consequence) of sin is death”.3 Hence there has been, and still is, a breach between God and man, which (apart from God’s mercy and Jesus’ sacrifice) cannot be healed. For Adam’s sentence passed upon all his posterity, even “over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression”.4 Owing to the planting of death in Adam’s nature, the propagation of that nature also propagated the death quality inherent in it. Hence mankind is naturally unworthy of existence, being at enmity with God; and upon His forbearance, man has not the slightest moral claim.
Like us, Jesus was man and of our nature, notwithstanding the mode of his conception through the operation of the Holy Spirit and his subsequent anointing with its power. The writer to the Hebrews particularly emphasises this basic fact. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood,5 he (Jesus) took part of the same; that through death, he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil”6—an appellation in Scripture for the power of sin in our nature which separates man from God. Jesus is further described as being “touched with the feelings of our infirmities,” that is, capable of sin and death. Moreover, he was “in all points tempted like we are” that is, Jesus was assailed by the same lusts of sin that try all mankind—but mark well, “yet without sin”.7 Since he was born of a woman, the virgin Mary (and no “clean” thing can come out of an “unclean”), Jesus was Son of Man and heir to the legacy of Adam’s transgression—temptation, tendencies to sin, and death. Hence, despite the fact that he “had not sinned after the likeness of Adam,” Jesus had to die, since he was of the nature and posterity of Adam upon all of whom “death had passed”.8 Thus, as Isaiah prophesied, “he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows”.9 Howbeit, although he was capable of, and liable to, sin during the whole of his period of probation, Jesus never submitted to the temptations of his nature, but completely resisted them. Jesus, therefore, became the first man—indeed the only man—who justified his existence in the sight of Deity, in that he lived perfectly to the glory of God; for this was the original intention of God in creating man at all. Jesus, therefore, was the most perfect representative of Adam’s sinful race, in that he completely mastered the nature he bore. For this reason, Jesus became fitted to be our leader, our mediator with God and the “Captain of our Salvation”.10
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Author: A. E. Jones
Keywords: Why did Jesus have to die, Death of Jesus, Jesus' death, Jesus die
Bible reference(s): Isaiah 53, Mat 20:28, Mar 10:45, Luk 24:26, Joh 3:14, Joh 10:11, Joh 10:15, Joh 10:17-18, Joh 12:34, Joh 15:13, Act 2:24, Romans 3:23, Romans 3:25-26, Rom 5:6, Rom 5:8, Rom 5:12, Rom 6:9-10, Romans 6:23, 1Co 15:3, 2Co 5:15, 2Co 5:19, 2Co 8:9, 2Co 13:4, Gal 1:4, Gal 3:13, Gal 4:5, Eph 1:7, Eph 5:2, Eph 5:26, Eph 5:27, Phi 2:8, Col 1:14, 1Ti 1:15, Tit 2:14, Heb 2:10, Hebrews 2:14-15, Heb 5:8, Heb 9:12, Heb 9:14, Heb 9:15, Heb 9:26, Heb 12:2, Heb 13:12, 1Pe 2:21, 1Pe 3:18, 1Jo 3:16, 1Jo 4:10, Rev 1:5, Rev 5:9
Source: “Why Did Jesus Die?,” The Testimony, Vol. 11, No. 132, December 1941, pp. 359-62.
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