Why did Jesus have to die on the cross?

Why the Cross Was Necessary for God to Be Just and the Justifier

All right, well, we are back in our study of apologetics, and we have been asking some questions every week. We ask a question and we seek to give an answer. The very first question was what week one.

OK, Courtney, give us week one. What was the question week one? Yeah. Does God exist or why do you believe God exists? And what was our answer? I'm looking at you. What was the answer? Why do you believe God exists?

Because the Bible says so. OK, what else? What was the reason we gave that for that answer? Come on, if you want to see that you guys are retaining some of this information. Why do we believe God exists?

Because creation is evidence of a what? Creation is evidence of a creator, right? OK, what was week number two? What was the question in week two? Quit drawing. Look at me. What's the question in week two?

Go ahead, Courtney. How do you know that your God is the right one? And what did we say? We have the Bible and we have Christ, which are the which is a twofold witness to the truth of who God is. The Bible itself having evidence of divine inspiration.

Christ having evidence of being divine himself through the resurrection. All right. Week number three. What was the question? We said, number one, why do you believe God exists? Number two, why do you believe your God's the right one?

Number three was what? Why does God allow Satan to exist? Right. Very good, Christelle. And the answer to that question was a little bit more difficult. We said that God has chosen to allow Satan to exist because he has a purpose for his existence, even though we don't always understand what that purpose is.

We know that ultimately it's to glorify himself. OK, that's a little harder. All right. What was the one that we did after that last week? Yes. Why do bad things happen to good people? And what was the answer?

What was the first thing we did? Yes. Yeah, we took out the good people part because there's no we just had to ask, why do bad things happen? And what's the simple answer? Why do bad things happen? Everybody's done something wrong, but more specifically, why do bad things happen?

Because sin entered the world. That's the that's the answer. Because the world was created good. Everything that God created was good. Only when sin entered the world did badness also enter the world.

So that was the answer. A very good answer. All right. So we get to the question today. The question today, if you want to write on the top, I hope you haven't written all over your papers. Some of you have.

I want you to lay your paper out in what we call the landscape. I want you to lay it out this way, not up and down. This is called portrait and landscape. I want you to lay out in the landscape. OK. And at the top, I'm going to ask you a question.

Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? And we are going to make a diagram in just a moment. But before we do, I want to address one part of this question, because this is how the question was worded as it was given to me.

Remember, I'm answering the questions you've given. This is how it was worded as it was given to me. So I want to address a very important word in this sentence. Does anybody want to guess what that word is?

Die? That's an important word, but not quite the one I'm looking for. Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? What's the word there that's important? Yes. Yes, it's the word have, because here's something we need to address right off the bat.

God chose to save. He didn't have to save. Jesus chose to go to the cross to save us. He didn't have to go to the cross to save us. Everybody understand that if God had simply seen that we were all sinners, that we all deserve punishment and God would have said, you know what?

Everybody's a sinner. Everybody deserves punishment. If so facto, I'm just going to punish everybody. God would have been totally just because we deserve that. Right. God wouldn't be unjust. He wouldn't be unfair.

If everybody in prison deserves to be in prison, then nobody's there unjustly. Right. Right. If everybody that's in prison is there because they have done something wrong, then prison is not an unjust place.

Prison is a just place. It's righteous. So, too. So when we ask the question, why did Jesus have to die on the cross? The first thing we need to recognize is that we're assuming something to be true. We're assuming that he had to do it.

But the reality is God is not obligated to say God chooses to save. Now, I'm not going to change the question, though, because there is a point at which this becomes a proper question. And here's when.

When we say this, can God save sinners and at the same time be righteous? That he can be just and at the same time give guilty people like us freedom to give us pardon, to give us what we don't deserve, which is heaven, and not give us what we do deserve, which is hell.

How is it that God can do that? When he does that, yes, because he's God, but to remain just, how can he do it? By requiring a sacrifice. In that sense, Jesus has to die. In that sense, Jesus has to become the sacrifice.

So the question is, why did Jesus have to die on the cross? The answer is this. I'm going to give the answer first and then we're going to see the diagram. The answer is so that God could be both just and the justifier of sinners.

Romans 3:23-26 and the Need for Propitiation

Now, I'm going to have you open up your Bibles. Give me just one second here. We're going to open up our Bibles to Romans 3 .26. Now, most of you probably know Romans 3 .23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Right. Everybody know that? You've heard that for Romans 3 .23. 3 .24 says, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. OK, 25, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by him.

We're going to look at these big words in a minute, but just just follow along. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

All right, so let's break this down. God is righteous. Right. Or just God is just. Everybody agree? God has chosen to call unjust people just. Let me say this. Let me say it a different way. God has chosen to call sinful people righteous.

Is he lying? Is he is he providing some kind of a false statement? Well, hey, I know Carly's a sinner, but I'm going to call her just. But don't nobody say nothing. We know what the truth is. You know what I mean?

You know what I mean? It's like it's like we're going to call her a sinner. We know she's a sinner. I know I'm a sinner, but God has called me just and he called me righteous if I know that I am a sinner.

And that's why Jesus had to die on the cross. That's the answer. The reason why he had to die on the cross is so God could remain just and justify sinners. That God is righteous, forgiving. He is both merciful and gracious and at the same time completely and absolutely just.

That is why Jesus had to go to the cross. Now comes the diagram. Everybody got the answer written down? Did you write it down? Did you, Tamara, write it down? OK, just making sure because you look at it.

All right, everyone, I want you to draw a shape. It's a very odd shape. I hope you can draw it. It's got a line like this, a line like this, and then a line like that. It's a triangle. OK, sort of a pyramid like triangle.

Right. That's pyramid style. OK, it's not a pyramid because we didn't have one of these. They're not pyramids, right? OK. All right. Yes. OK, so we have the triangle. What I want you to do, we're going to write three names on this triangle.

At the top, we're going to write the name of God. And if you want to put in parentheses underneath, you can put father. And this is when we speak of God in this sense, we're talking about God the father.

We know Jesus is God the son and the Holy Spirit is God, the Holy Spirit. But we just say for now, God the father. Now, on the left corner, you're going to write Christ. So you've got God the father at the top.

You have Christ on the bottom left. Now, what do you think is going to go over here? Cupid wrong. Not the Holy Spirit. It is man. And the reason for that, you'll see why in a minute. The Holy Spirit is active in this, but it's not part of that.

He is not part of the diagram. Will he make application of everything that happens in the diagram? God the father is at the top of the of the triangle. Christ is on the bottom left hand of the triangle.

Man is on the right hand of the triangle. Everybody got that written down. They got it drawn out. Everybody understands what you're going to do. OK, now we are going to switch colors just so you can see.

You are going to write some big words between Christ and God on this line. You are going to write the word propitiation in his thumb. P-R-O-P-I-T-I-A-T-I-O-N. Propitiation. If you remember the verses we just read, it was there, right?

The word propitiation was in verse 25. All right. Now, from Christ to man on this line, you are going to write redemption. Now, you have one more line to fill. From God to man on that line, you are going to write justification.

That is J-U-S-T-I-F-I-C-A-T-I-O-N. Justification. Switch colors. Now, I'm switching. You don't have to switch. I'm switching. This helps me because what we have here is we have three persons involved.

God the Father is a person. God the Son is a person separate but equal with the Father, of one essence with the Father. We always say God is one in essence, but three in persons. So God the Father, God the Son, and then you have man.

Here is how this diagram works. Christ's work on the cross provides propitiation for the Father and provides redemption for us. Everyone see that? Christ's work on the cross appeases the Father and purchases us.

That's two other words that mean the same thing. If you think about the word propitiation, if you want to write above it, it means to appease. What does it mean to appease someone? To make them happy, to satisfy them.

That's the, let's put the word satisfy because that might be one you guys may be a little bit more familiar with the word satisfy. Here's satisfy, S-A-T-I-S-F-Y. So propitiation means to appease or to satisfy.

Let us paint a picture, shall we? We've been painting pictures. Let me paint a picture in your mind, in your brain. Let us say while your mother was away at the store, you had a jar of paint sitting on your dining room table.

Actually, this happened to me when I was a kid, so I'll show you what happened. I came in with a jar of paint and I threw it down on the table thinking it would just hit and stop. Well, it did not. It hit and slid off, fell, turned over, all over a brand new mauve carpet.

Brand new. I mean, it was it wasn't even old enough to have been vacuumed once. It was so new. Brand new black paint, too. It wasn't like I painted it, you know, a little red to do the walk. Oh, no, it was terrible.

Now, my parents came home. My mom and dad came home. Do you think that they were angry? Do you think that they were livid? Do you think that they wanted my head on a stick? Absolutely they did. I'm not going to lie.

They were not pleased with me. And I was thinking, how could I hide this? So like Adam and Eve, maybe I could throw a blanket over it or something. Maybe they'll never see the large slot of black paint that I've just put on their brand new mauve carpet.

Oh, no, no. I knew I had to give in. I knew they were not going to not notice it. Right. So here I am. I have two parents that are angry with me. I have done something wrong. I totally deserve their punishment.

Right. What do I want more than anything in the world? More than anything in the world, what I want is their wrath to be appeased. I want their wrath to be satisfied. I want their wrath to be propitiated.

I want them to not be angry because I know that their anger is going to bring about my punishment. Right. See, that's the whole thing about understanding this view of the cross, which is the biblical view of the cross.

And that is this, that God the Father is actually angry over sin. I think people forget that God gets angry about sin. I think people forget that God actually punishes people because of sin. I think people forget that God hates sin.

I heard a guy one time, I had a guy in my youth group back when I used to do youth group. And this guy was 15 years old. I said, God hates sin. And he said, I don't think God hated anything. I don't think God hated anything.

Would that be better for you if I make it? OK. But that was him. But I don't think God hated anything. And I had to show him in the Bible where it says there are six things that God hates. He hates heaven or an abomination to him.

And there are all these things. God hates divorce. God hates haughty spirits. God hates lying. All these things throughout the Bible. God hates them. God hates sin. He cannot have it in his presence, says the book of Habakkuk, that it cannot enter into his presence.

This is the sin. This is why we have this divide between us and God is because of sin. Right. So God is angry over sin. When Christ died on the cross, he died on the cross to appease the wrath of God.

He died on the cross to satisfy the wrath of God. How? How did the wrath of God, how was the wrath of God satisfied when Christ died on the cross? That's kind of a deeper question. Yes. OK, well, but further than that, a little further than that, how is it that when Christ died on the cross, he appeased the wrath of God because he took the wrath of God?

God's wrath was poured out on him. So God was able to pour out all of his wrath on Jesus. By the way, how many of you ever heard Jesus say from the cross, Eli, Eli, Eli, Abba, Abba, what does that mean?

My God, my God, why have thou forsaken me? Right. We've all heard that term. Right. What about the night before Jesus went to the cross? What did he say to God? Lord, if there be another way, take this cup for me.

Right. It was not the physical torture being put on the cross that Christ did not want to bear. It was the wrath of God poured out upon him that he did not want to bear. That is so important that when Christ is on the cross, Christ is experiencing the punishment that every one of us deserves.

He is experiencing God's wrath on that cross. Understand? So that God is just because he has poured out the wrath that is deserved to be poured out. But he has poured it out on a substitute. It's the substitute.

He has taken our punishment by way of being our substitute. It is what we call a PSA, not a public service. Now, PSA stands for Penal Substitutionary Atonement, that Christ took the penalty penal by being our substitute and created an atonement.

OK, so God the Father, angry over sin, his anger is satisfied. It is appeased. It is propitiated because of the work of Christ. So we understand how this line connects. Right, right. Now, before we get to what God does for us, let's talk about what Christ does for us.

Not only does Christ propitiate the father, appease and satisfy, Christ also redeems us. What does that mean? What's word redemption mean? We talked about it last Wednesday night, I think. Yes. To buy back.

It was actually two weeks ago, we were talking about Ruth, the book of Ruth, to buy something back. You see, we had been sold into what? What does the Bible say? You were there. You say slavery? We were sold into sin, which is like slavery.

We were sold into the slavery of sin. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. We were sold into that. And Christ, when he dies on the cross, not only does he appease the father, he also purchases us back.

Owners. It's a picture he brings, takes us back from that which had us held captive. Now we are in him. And here's the last part, the part that is the beautiful part. Not only are we redeemed by Christ, purchased back, taken out of death.

But also God justifies us. Now, here's what the term justify means. Remember, we said God is just. Why is he just? Because his wrath has been poured out. But he's also the justifier. Why is he the justifier?

Because now he can look at us and he can say, I know that Keith Foskey is a sinner and I am. I've been one all my life and I deserve the punishment of God. But because all of my sin was taken and it was put on to Christ and God's wrath was put on to Christ to punish that sin, God can now look at me and say he is righteous because my sin has been paid for by my substitute.

I understand. So that is how God can justify us. He can only justify us because of the work of Christ. Now, from this flows many other beautiful things like regeneration. Forgiveness, spiritual gifts, all of those things flow out of that.

But the very first thing that we experience as a believer is we experience the fact that Christ has redeemed us and God has justified us. He has declared us no longer sinner, but just or righteous. But why are we righteous?

Not because we have done good. But why are we righteous? Because Christ took our sins. But guess what? And I'm just adding something here. If Christ takes our sins only. Do we stand righteous or do we just stand with a clean slate?

Think this is kind of this is getting a little further than I wanted to go, but it's important if I leave it out, I'll feel bad. If Christ takes away our sin, do we stand with positive righteousness or do we stand with a clean slate, but nothing to add?

Yeah, we don't have any positive righteousness of our own. The Bible even says all of our righteousness is as filthy rags. We don't have anything positive. So not only does Christ take our sin, but the Bible also says that we receive his righteousness.

We receive his righteousness. Christ takes the wrath of God. By the way, was Christ righteous? Was Christ righteous? Everybody, huh? Do you like this? OK, everybody, Christ is righteous, right? He fulfilled God's law in every way, right?

He was perfect, never sinned. But not only did he never sin, he was the positive, righteous one, the only righteous one. So guess what? When I stand before God one day, just like every one of us will, when we stand before God one day.

And God says, why should I let you into heaven? I can't say, well, God, I was a preacher. I can't say, well, God, I paid my tithes. I can't say, well, God, I went to church every Sunday, sometimes twice a week.

All I can say is I am not righteous, but Christ was righteous in my place and he has taken my sin from me. And I stand not having a righteousness of my own, but a righteousness that comes from Jesus Christ.

The Righteousness from God Through Faith in Christ

Now, let's look at that verse, and that'll be the verse that we end with. Give me just one second to look it up. Philippians 3, 9, Philippians 3, 9, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, OK, Philippians, remember General Electric Power Company, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, that's the easier way to remember it.

All right, Philippians 3, 9, let's start at verse 8. Indeed, this is the Apostle Paul speaking. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ.

The righteousness from God that depends on faith. Beloved kids, guys, that is what we have when we stand before God. We don't have positive righteousness on our own. What we have is the righteousness of God, which comes to us through the work of Christ Jesus.

So when God calls us righteous, he's not lying. He's telling the truth. Remember, I asked that question. How can God say that we're righteous and not be lying, knowing that we are sinners? Because God has taken our sin from us.

He's put it on Christ. God has taken Christ's righteousness and he's given it to us. And now God can call us righteous. It is why the term for believer, you know what the biblical term for believer is in Greek.

It is hagios or hagiosmos. Anybody want to take a guess what that word means? Hagiosmos. Hagios. Doesn't sound anything like it does in English. What is a believer referred to as? Close. Righteous. Holy.

That's exactly right. Or a saint. To the saints at the church. A speech to us as saints. You know, in the Roman Catholic Church, they say that you have to have some special type of merit to be awarded the title of saint.

But in the Bible, everyone who is born again is called a saint because God's righteousness, the righteousness of Christ has been applied to your life. And as such, you are holy. Everybody understand? And that's the answer to the question.

Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? So that God could be both just and a justifier of sinners. God is just and he justifies the ones who draw to him through Christ. Understand? Good. All right. Lesson is concluded and you guys can move to your time of fellowship.

God bless.