Tue 3 Mar, 2009
“Jesus did not wrestle his angry Father to the floor of heaven and take the whip out of his hand. He did not force him to be merciful to humanity. His death was not the begrudging consent of God to be lenient to sinners. But what is most astonishing about this substitution of Christ for sinners is that it was God’s idea. Christ did not intrude on God’s plan to punish sinners. God planned for him to be there. It was a breathtaking strategy, conceived even before creation, as God saw and planned the history of the world. One Old Testament prophet says, “It was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief” (Isaiah 53:10). That is why the Bible speaks of God’s “purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began” (2 Timothy 1:9).
Reflecting on this fact disturbs many people. It originally bothered me. It’s easy to rationalize this away, as many do, by saying God “allowed” it to happen rather than believing what the Bible actually says. The result is that many people today wrongfully think that Jesus death was the result of a tragic accident or a divine plan gone wrong. That rationale or teaching can be found no where in the Bible. It wasn’t until I understood that God was not just a God of “possibility” but a God of “sovereign purpose”, that I understood why God would do something like this. Jesus didn’t come to earth “hoping” to accomplish something, if all went well. He came to specifically accomplish the perfect will of His Father on schedule and according to His plan.
Questions. Have you ever considered the fact that God didn’t just “allow” or “permit” the Roman authorities to execute Jesus but that He personally ordered his death? Have you considered that the reason He ordered Jesus death was because he loved you?
Quote from “The 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die”.
Picture – The cross at Mount Erebus, Antarctica, commemorating the 1979 Air New Zealand Crash near Mount Erebus.
