By Rev. Michael Mwangi
Senior Pastor, Fedha Church KAG
Video link: https://web.facebook.com/watch/?v=3122691504624897
Jesus did not just die on the cross but he had to die for our salvation to be accomplished
His death on the cross accomplished the following:
1. The death of Jesus was for his enemies
God’s love is different than natural human love. God loves us when we’re utterly unlovable. When Jesus died, he died for the ungodly, for sinners, and for his enemies. Paul gets at how contrary this is to human nature when he writes,
Romans 5:7–8
“For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare to die, but God shows his love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us”
2. The death of Jesus accomplished our salvation
The death of Christ was effective in its purpose. It completely and sufficiently secured our salvation. When he said it is finished it was complete. His death paid for all of our sins, the full penalty of sin and our redemption. we can add nothing to make it more complete, we just believe and we are saved.
Acts 16:30-31
[30]He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” [31]They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”
Hebrews 10:12-14
[12]But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, [13]and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. [14]For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
3.The death of Jesus is on our behalf
Jesus’s death was substitutionary. That is, he died in our place. He died the death that we deserved. He bore the punishment that was justly ours. For everyone who believes in him, Christ took the wrath of God on their behalf.
1 Peter 2:24
He himself bore our sin in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed”
4. The death of Jesus defines love
John 15:13
[13]Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
Jesus’s death wasn’t just an act of love, it defines love. His substitutionary death is the ultimate example of what love means, and Jesus calls those who follow him to walk in the same kind of life-laying-down love.
1 John 3:16-18
“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth”
John Piper explains: “Jesus’s death is both guilt-bearing and guidance-giving. His death forgives sin and models love.
5. The death of Jesus reconciles us to God
Justification, propitiation, and redemption — all benefits of Christ’s death — have one great purpose: reconciliation. Jesus’s death enables us to have a joy-filled relationship with God, which is the highest good of the cross.
Colossians 1:21–2
“And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him”
Think about how this works in our relationships with other people. When we sin, not only do we hurt the person we sin against, we harm the relationship. It will never be the same until we seek forgiveness. So it is with our relationship with God. We enter this world sinful, and as a result, we’re alienated from God. Only forgiveness — forgiveness which was purchased at the cross — can heal the relationship so that we are able to enjoy fellowship with God.
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