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The “why” of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection is much discussed, often misunderstood, and sometimes dismissed as unimportant.
Today we focus on why a death was necessary for salvation and specifically why Jesus. Hint: it wasn’t because God was vindictive or needed to take out His wrath on someone.
Plus, we’ll discover the two things God did for people. Those two goals are really the big picture focus of the entire Bible. In many ways, the entire story of God working in the lives of His people comes down to two big ideas. And they are big!
Pastor Rick Stevens can be heard Saturday and Sunday at 8 AM ET on the iHeart Radio Network. Find all the Faith is…with Pastor Rick Stevens episodes also available on the America Out Loud Podcast Network.
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I listened to much of your podcast. In the fullness of time God sent His Son. His death was part of fullfillment of all prophecy. Hebrews 9:16, ‘for where a testament is, there must of necessity be the death of the testator’. Issue in the Age of the Spirit, a new Covenant of the Spirit, the death of the letter of the law. ‘This is that which was spoken of by Joel the prophet……I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh’, Acts 2:16,17. If He did not die and ascend into Heaven, the Spirit would not come. Luke 24:49 ‘tarry until you be endued with power from on high’. His death and resurrection and ascension is God’s salvation plan, and part of God’s power sharing plan for mankind. You see the power sharing when Jesus sent the twelve, then the seventy, and extended power sharing on the day of Pentecost, and the gifts of the early church, until today He died to set captivity free, those of old times who were obedient to the letter of the law, Matthew 27:52.
But even in light of Calvary, you must be born again, you must be born of water and the Spirit, John 3:5. John 19:34 says ‘blood and water came out’ of Jesus. Mark 16:16 ‘he that believeth and is baptized’. The water baptism that is ordained of God, sets the stage for the working of Jesus’s blood. The blood cleanses, but the Holy baptismal water is more than symbolic and ritualistic, with it the old man of sin is supposed to die, we are supposed to be resurrected anew. Unfortunately, many are baptized as sinners, and come out of the water bigger sinners. And many of the baptizers were never ordained of God.
Jesus’s death and resurrection issues in the dispensation of limited atonement. Those who don’t believe that Jesus is their Lord and Savior, are not covered by the blood of Jesus. And he who ‘sins willfully after we receive knowledge of the truth, hath no more sacrifice for sin’, Hebrews 10:26. ‘No more sacrifice for sin’, then limited atonement, not universal, and no eternal assurance. Romans 3:25,26 ‘declare his righteousness for remission of sins that are past…. Declare, I say at this time his righteousness…..justifier of him that believeth in Jesus’. If the declaration of remission of past sins, for those that ‘believe in Jesus’ is universal salvation, then kiss my grits. For the wages of sin is still eternal death, for habitual sinners/believers.
It is the blood that atones in the Old and New Testaments, which speaks of the spiritual significance of blood in Heaven above. Jesus’s life, death and resurrection was suppose to free the Jews from ritualistic religion, they killed thousands of sheep, oxen rams yearly for atonement purposes. Atone redeem reconcile Colossians 1:20 reconciled all things on earth and in heaven to himself. Cosmic implications.
I did not mean to say ‘we are supposed to be resurrected anew’, in the above comment. I meant to say ‘we are supposed to be born anew, give our mind, soul and heart to God and Jesus, and walk and live in His Spirit’.