Why did Jesus die? I believe there are two primary and overarching reasons, but behind even these is one truth: God is great. Jesus died, because God is great. Likewise, Jesus was resurrected because God is great.
The first reason Jesus died was to glorify God, and the other was to enable us to glorify God too. In a sense, all the other reasons are subcategories of these reasons. From the outset, however, I submit that what I have written so far is unintelligible to those who are not Christians. Most people do not appreciate that it was necessary for Jesus to become an atoning substitutionary sacrifice, so they can not get to the point of seeing the glorification of God for what it is: the normal, necessary and natural response to who God is, for those who truly know him.
Unless we see that Jesus had to die, and die in our place, having lived the perfect human life that we ought to have lived, then we are kept from seeing how glory comes into it. We have no language of glory if we do not know God.
We may not even approach the fringes of conceptualisation when it comes to the thought-category: “God and his glory”. There is no framework of reference through which we may attain to a knowledge of “God the glorious”, except that God gives it to his creatures. God is unapproachably exogenous in His glory: the very heavens declare his glory, just as the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Knowledge of Him is not a right for the creature, but a gift to the creature. In other words, we know God only if He reveals Himself to us. Through common grace, we can have a sense, vague though it may be, of God's being powerful and eternal, divine in nature, but the utter holy transcendence of God escapes us. So little does it register, that “god” does not even frighten us. “God” is not holy. “God” is domesticated in our imaginations. “God” is there? Where? I don't see him...
The story of Uzzah is an example of this. It shows what happens when we attempt to domesticate God, to thrust ourselves uncovered into the presence of the Almighty:
David and all the house of Israel were making merry before the Lord, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and he died there beside the ark of God. And David was angry because the Lord had burst forth against Uzzah. And that place is called Perez-uzzah, to this day. And David was afraid of the Lord that day...
The reason we do not see that we are lost sinners who have fallen into the hands of the living God is because we think in terms of individual sins: little things we shouldn't have done. Petty iniquities, or even manifest wrongs we certainly recognise, but are we so bad? - Surely not, we tell ourselves...
But such individual sins (of commission) are only symptoms. The real disease is the failure always to glorify the blessed God, and to make Him and Him alone the central joy of our lives. The majority of sins are sins of omission: the opportunity to commit these is endless, but a thief can only steal so much, a liar can only tell so many lies, and a murderer will soon run out of live bodies to kill.
Adam sinned by not intervening when Eve was being led astray, so God called to Adam first, to ask: “Where are you?” and “Who told you that you were naked?” Passivity is sinful: God did not create us to be neutral towards Him.
When we don't enjoy God, by giving Him glory, we act as if we are not made by and for God. We de-god God, excessively enjoying the blessings of God at the expense of the God of the blessings. We contradict God by living as if His idea of what our lives are for is wrong. He has made His views on our purpose quite clear in his law: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. When we do not love God that way, we make Him out to be a fool and a liar. If God says we are for one thing and we say we are for another, we throw God from his seat of judgement, and we thrust ourselves into his chair. We point our lives at created things, and fail to give the Creator his place.
But hang on. If we treat Him like that, won't we come up against Him in His terrible realness? Won't He have something to say about it? What will He do to us, when He finds us stealing from Him? (Since we have no life but what He gave us, we owe Him our very selves: do we pay what we owe? Can we withhold what we owe from God? Will God be cheated?)
This is the human condition, and we are so steeped in it, we can't see it. This is depravity. What does it mean? Certainly it means that where the circumstances are propitious, we will commit sins which have terrible consequences within this fallen world. (Just as a glass window will shatter, when a brick is applied.) But that is not the worst part of it. The most significant implication is that we are unable even to repent, unless God gives us the gift of repentance. The problem is this: only God can show us how far we have fallen. And even our repentance is inadequate.
But now we come to the second Adam. The one who was not passive. If we know God only if He reveals Himself to us, then we must look at Jesus as the communication that says what God wants to say. God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Jesus, the Word on the street, had to live life properly for us. Even John the baptist did not understand: “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus identifies with us in water baptism: “Let it be so now” he says, “for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Birth, bath and burial.
This is what it means that the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. We are so lost, we must be sought for before we may be saved. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down, and thrown into the fire, where it belongs. But Jesus was baptised for us, and the Father and the Spirit approved.
Then he had another baptism to undergo, and how great was his distress until it was accomplished! But he finished it, for the glory set before him.
God is great, and does wondrous things. He alone is God. The psalmist says:
Teach me your way, O Lord,
that I may walk in your truth;
unite my heart to fear your name.
I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,
and I will glorify your name forever.
For great is your steadfast love toward me;
you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.
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