What Jesus Did By David M.

Battle
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Why do Christians celebrate such a horrendous event as the crucifixion of a man by the Romans over two-thousand years ago? The Romans designed crucifixion as a most cruel form of execution reserved for the vilest of convicts. Christian sensibilities of humanitarianism and mercy are appalled at the clear inhumanity of the crucifixion. Yet, we celebrate the crucifixion of our Saving Lord, Jesus the Christ. A friend in graduate school was confronted with this question one day when she was counseling at a psychiatric hospital. She went to conduct a clinical session with a man who was deeply disturbed. In the middle of the session, the man looked up at her and asked, Why do we call Good Friday good? She was caught off guard with the question and did not know how to answer. She began to think about the question and realized the point. On Good Friday, Christians celebrate the arrest, the trials, the beatings, the condemnation, and the execution of the Good Shepherd. Those who have seen Mel Gibsons move, The Passion of Christ, have a vivid understanding of the Microsoft Office Clip Art gruesome irony to which I am referring. I am glad that I saw that movie, but I did not enjoy it. So why do we celebrate the crucifixion? Believers celebrate Jesus triumph over death and sin. Jesus suffered to purchase our forgiveness, to clean us from sin, and to glorify us. He gave His life so that we might have life and have it more abundantly. Just as America and Britain celebrate the Normandy Invasion which marks the final drive to end Nazi Germany, so Christians celebrate Easter because that is when Jesus secured our salvation. Now we must ask ourselves, Why did Jesus have to secure our salvation in the first place? Why did He have to suffer and die in order to purchase our forgiveness, to clean believers, and to glorify the redeemed? Why did Jesus have to pay for our salvation? John 1:10-11 provides a clue by telling us that Jesus . . . was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him (NIV). This passage confronts us with a strange reality. The Creator was in the world, and the world did not recognize Him. He came to His own, and they did not receive Him. I am reminded of Homers epic The Odyssey. When Odysseus returned home,

he walked into a palace in chaos. No one recognized him. Only his old dog realized his old master had returned. Everybody ells were too concerned with their own problems to recognize the status of the unassuming guest. Christ was in the world and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. How could the world not know its own Creator? How did the world not recognize the very source of its life, the very origin of its existence? For this we must go back to Genesis 3. As you know, this is where the Scriptures narrate the fall of mankind into moral and natural corruption. You may remember that in the beginning, God created humanity, male and female, in His image. He created them both individually in His image (Gen 1:27). He placed mankind in a garden to cultivate it. God had great plans for humanity. He had chosen even before the foundation of the world to nurture humanity into a more glorious reflection of Himself. Unfortunately, mankind reached for what was not theirs before realizing Gods plan for them. The serpent deceived Adam and Eve into disobeying God with a promise. The devil assured Eve that she would not die if she disobeyed God and then said, For God knows that when you eat of [the fruit of the tree] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil (NIV, Gen 3:4). When mankind ate of this fruit, they reached for something that was not theirs. They reached for godhood, for divinity, and for independent selfdetermination. They no longer recognized the Creator and Sustainer of life. They became their own gods, determining their own destiny and their own morality, their own ethics, their own values. No longer were they going to depend or wait on the Almighty. The world was theirs for the taking. In short, they stole their lives and those of their posterity from the Maker. They would live life by their own rules and not by the owners manual. Some of you may remember the television series called the Night Rider. You may remember that the hero is a man and his car. I do not remember the name of the main character, but if I remember correctly the car was called, Kit. Let us say that a company did make a car like Kit which they wanted to use for law enforcement. Let us say that instead of doing what it was designed for Kit decided that it was going to do its own thing. He drove down to a beach and frolicked in the waves. Do you think that the Knight Rider Cooperation would allow their investment to spend its time rusting on the beach? Of course

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not! They would want their car back and would probably dismantle it and reprogram it. Their demands would be just. The concept of justice is hard for us to understand because we have been insulated from the harsh demands of justice. If someone were to steal a car from our parking lot and was later caught, our criminal justice system would seek to arbitrate some punishment for the breaking of state law. The car thieves may spend some time in jail, but the car owner would not be compensated for the loss of the vehicle. The car owner is lucky if he gets the car back. In many cases, the car has been chopped up or wreaked. In those cases, the car owner hopes that he has comprehensive insurance which covers auto theft. My point is this. The car owner who does not have insurance is left out in our judicial system. The owners only recourse for justice is civil court, but most car thieves are not worth suing. We meet the demands of justice through a complex interplay of our penal system and liability insurance. Therefore, we have a hard time understanding what simple justice would require. In order to understand the basic concept of justice, we must go back to a less complex and sophisticated society. Iron Age Israel provides a good example of basic justice. Exodus 22 gives various laws regarding stolen property. If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he must pay back five head of cattle for the ox and four sheep for the sheep. . . . If the stolen animal is found alive in his possession-- whether ox or donkey or sheep he must payback double. (Exod 22:1,4, NIV) What this law, from a simpler time, reveals about justice in the case of theft is that the stolen item must first be restored and then a punitive fine added. The liability was not given to the state but to the owner or victim of the theft. The thief had to return the stolen property plus payment for use of the property. Yes, they would have to pay for the use of the car not just replacement of the car. When we apply this principle of simple Microsoft Clip Art justice to the relationship between humanity and God, we discover the plight of mankind. Humanity has stolen its very life from the Creator! We have made ourselves like God. We decide how we are going to live our lives. In many cases, we decide for ourselves what is right and wrong. We conduct our lives independent from God. For though we know God, we do not glorify Him as God nor give him thanks (Rom 1:21). We do not glorify Him by living according to the purposes for which He designed us. We are like that high priced car with artificial intelligence splashing in the waves on Kiawah Beach and rusting away. We have stolen ourselves from the Creator. Justice demands that we return our lives to Him and that we reimburse

Him for his lost usage and for any damage, rust, or corruption that we have brought upon ourselves. We do not have the means of meeting the demands of justice. We cannot go back in time and undue our theft. If we begin to live according to His purposes today, we still owe for the loss of usage. God designed us to live a righteous and holy life; therefore, we would only be doing what our present duty requires of us if we lived a righteous and holy life from this point onward. We could not apply our present goodness to cover our past debt because we would be only doing that which is required for the present. We have nothing by which to remit for our disobedience. God knows that we are unable to meet the demands of justice. He knows that we do not have the resources or the means to pay restitution for our theft. Thus, Jesus came to this world and lived in perfect harmony with Gods purposes. He only did that which the Father told him. Paul tells us that though he was of the very nature of God, He did not Microsoft Clip Art consider equality with God as something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross (Phil 2:6-9, NIV). Though He is God, He lived the life of obedience to the Father as a man. He came and lived life according to the will God and not according to His own desires. We see this most clearly in the crucifixion. When the soldiers came to arrest Jesus, Peter pulled out his sword to fight. His flashing blade slashed of the ear of High Priests servant. Jesus rebuked Peter saying, Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me? (John 18:11, KJV). Jesus was not here to fight with earthly weapons. He came here to redeem humanity. Remember Jesus praying in the garden, My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will (Matt 26:39, NIV). He understood that in order to fully meet the demands of justice, he had to live a life fully submitted to the will of the Father. His full obedience is demonstrated throughout His earthly life and was finally affirmed when He gave His life on the cross. Jesus told his disciples that the Father loves Him because He lays down His lifeonly to take it up again. He said, No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father (John 10:17-18, NIV). The evidence that Jesus willing lay down His life down is found in the very narrative of the crucifixion. Turn with me to John 19. The Roman soldiers hung

Jesus on the cross in John 19:17-18. The Gospel of John wants to emphasize how quickly Jesus died because he does not elaborate upon the actual crucifixion which he recounts with less than thirteen verses. Jesus takes a drink and then say, It is finished before giving up His spirit in John 19:30. Jesus death was by crucifixion standards was very quick. Because it was the preparation day for the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders did not want the execution to linger and defile a holy day. So they asked Pilate to speed up the process. The Romans had designed crucifixion to prolong the suffering of the condemned. I know you have heard that the victim died of suffocation. That is only true for those whose legs were broken. The Romans designed crucifixion to keep the convict alive as long as he had the will and strength to live. We know from history that a few men suffered for three weeks on crosses before dying. If the pain and lack of food did not kill the condemned, the infections in the open and irritated wounds would. The very manner in which Jesus gave up the spirit led one soldier to realize that Jesus was not a vicious criminal. The centurion looked up at Jesus and said, Surly, this is the son of God (Matt 27:54). Since, they did not expect Jesus to die so soon, they verified that he was dead by piercing his side with a spear and made sure he was dead. Christ cried out saying, It is finished (John 19:30) and thus willing gave His life in obedience to the Fathers command. He died. They prepared his body for burial with spices wrapped in strips of linen and then placed it in the tomb. By the way, the spices would have been mixed in a lime past which was used to help the corps to decompose quickly and cleanly. In order for Jesus to show Himself to be the very source of life, He had to take His life back from death. He did so on the morning of the third day. He arose showing that He is the source of life. By His obedience He brought life back to humanity.
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When mankind reached for divinity, he separated himself from the Creator and Sustainer of life. Thus, death came into the world. Paul tells us that by the disobedience or trespass of one death rained through him (Rom 5:17). Adam had chosen the way of death when he chose to be his own god because the life force of man is not able to sustain itself. We have batteries but those batteries will be drained of power over time. And until we pay our electric bill, the power company will not turn on electricity again.

Praise be to God because He has paid the price! He has paid the electric bill. He has paid our liability of our thievery by willingly offering His own life as restitution for ours. Not only did He restore that which was taken but he paid for the loss of use. By the obedience of one man, the resurrected Jesus Christ, many will be made righteous (Rom 5:19, NIV). His obedience purchased our forgiveness in full. Though humanity is marred and corrupted by our own misguided reach for personal godhood, God still purposes to complete His plans. He planned to perfect and glorify Adam and Eve. Though man is fallen, God will accomplish His purpose in those who believe in the Saving Lord. The believer acknowledges that God owns his life and that the source of life is Jesus Christ. All that we have and all that we are belong to God. We are not our own gods, determining our own destinies and our own values. We are not out to control everything. We know that we are finite created creatures. We do not fear Gods ownership of our lives because we know that He is a loving God who seeks to give us abundant life in this age and the age to come. While we return our lives to Him, He remakes us into the image of His son. He begins to clean our lives from the rebellion and corruption of this world. He makes us pure and holy. That is not all. We will one day have glorified bodies like that of our resurrected, Saving Lord. A body that is physical and heavenly. God will accomplish His original plan for humanity in the glorification of the believers. He has made this possible by the purchase of our forgiveness through the death and resurrection of our Saving Lord. Today the Spirit calls out to each of us. Those of us who have acknowledged Gods ownership of our lives celebrate this day. He calls us to celebrate that our forgiveness is fully paid and that we are restored to the source of life! Celebrate that God is cleaning our lives from all sin! And of course, celebrate our blessed hope that one day we will be glorified as He is glorified. The Spirit calls to those who are still their own gods. He calls to you to repent and acknowledge Gods ownership of your life. He calls you back to the source of life and away from the road to death. Your way may seem right to you, but it leads to death. God calls you to turn from the path of death and to seek the path of life. Acknowledge His ownership and accept His forgiveness. Live your life in the cleansing power of the Spirit and look forward to the hope of glorification. Come if you so desire this.