A dear pastor friend of mine in Mount Vernon, Washington, recently posted the following on Facebook: I am taking a theology class, and one of my assignments this week is to ask the following question in the “public square”: What was the purpose of the life and death of Jesus Christ?
The moment I read this, the gears started upstairs and I began wondering what we would say if someone simply proposed, the same question to any Christian at random. Have you considered that such a scenario is not only highly possible but, as we grow nearer our Lord’s return I am strongly convicted it will become highly probable. Folks, right now there is a growing population (many of whom who profess to be believers) all around us who are desperately searching for help and answers and eventually one of them will cross paths with one of us. The Bible says, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and [be] ready always to [give] an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: 16. Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. 17. For [it is] better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.” (1Pe. 3:15-17)
The following was my response to John. According to the Scriptures, Jesus supplied that which God requires in order for us to be pleasing to Him in this life and throughout eternity – perfection. All of humanity’s blood was and still is, tainted with sin since, consequently, the time when Adam and Eve became earth’s first two sinners. Thus, since all lineages reach back through one of Noah’s sons and eventually back to Adam and Eve through the lineage of Seth, each earthly human being is in a fix – i.e. we are all sinners and no earth-born citizen can change their condition nor do the same for another. The Scripture states in Romans 3:19-26, “ Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law [is] the knowledge of sin. 21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; 22 Even the righteousness of God [which is] by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: 23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth [to be] a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26 To declare, [I say], at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” God never intended the Old Testament law to provide the where-with-all to redeem anyone. At best, the law could only provide a temporal covering of sins, if obeyed. (Heb.10:1-10) “ For the law having a shadow of good things to come, [and] not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. 2. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. 3. But in those [sacrifices there is] a remembrance again [made] of sins every year. 4. For [it is] not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. 5. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: 6. In burnt offerings and [sacrifices] for sin thou hast had no pleasure. 7. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. 8. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and [offering] for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure [therein]; which are offered by the law; 9. Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. 10. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once [for all]. The law was and forever will remain God’s continual reminder that all are sinners in desperate need of miraculous intervention from Him.
In conclusion, by personally repenting of our sins and accepting The Lord Jesus Christ as our Savor, God instantaneously cleanses us from all sins, equips us with His type of life (eternal), and then adopts us into His heavenly family! That is the reason Jesus went to the cross, shed His blood, suffered and died, and then arose early on Sunday morning. The Word of God says it best – (Jn. 3:16) “ For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
