SOME FUNDAMENTALS - THE DEATH OF CHRIST
It is an amazing fact that the Originator of life came into this scene to die. His death was a divine necessity. If ever God was to have a universe of bliss for His own eternal pleasure, and man be brought into it, sin must be removed, and that involved the death of Jesus. In the death of Christ was the solution of the whole question of good and evil. On the one hand we see the intensity of the love of Christ for God and man, and on the other the bitter hatred of man and the power of Satan. The devotion of Christ to the will of God shone out in its magnificence. He became "obedient unto death, and that the death of the cross", Phil 2: 8. We see, too, the perfection of the victim who put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. The love of God in giving His only-begotten Son was manifested in its splendour, and at the same time His intense holiness and the majesty of His throne. What a lesson book the death of Christ is! The four gospel writers set out in detail the circumstance s that surround the death of Jesus and in contemplating the infinite depths of their meaning our souls are moved to worship.
The old, old story of Jesus and His love is well known; how He was here for thirty-three and a half years as a holy babe, a child, a boy, a man, always absolutely delightful to God. Although Pilate testified that he found no fault in Him whatever He was by wicked hands crucified and slain, having been delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. As lifted up on the cross He was for three hours exposed to the taunts and hatred of men; then the sun hid its face in darkness for three hours during which God meted to the sinless One His holy wrath against sin. Those agonising words, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt 27: 46), rang from His blessed lips as His holy soul was made an offering for sin. Then, having uttered a loud cry, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, actually expired. In no other way could our sins be dealt with. He "himself bore our sins in his body on the tree", 1 Pet 2: 24. He exhausted the judgment and the believing sinner can righteously go free. Hallelujah! What a blessed Saviour!
If we thus know our sins forgiven through His sacrifice we should also see that our sinful state is not forgiven but that in the cross of Christ God condemned sin in the flesh. Indeed, "Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us, that we might become God's righteousness in him", 2 Cor 5: 21. So in the death of Christ the whole question of sin (the root) and sins (the fruit) has been fully and completely settled to the entire satisfaction of God, who has been wholly vindicated, indeed glorified, in respect of every challenge to His holy throne resulting from the incoming of sin.
W.E.Ellis