"Without Shedding Of Blood Is No Remission"  

Heb. 9:22

 

Awed as I am with reverence for my crucified Lord, there is a question which rises in my mind as I stand at the foot of the cross and behold his painful, shameful, ignominious death upon the cursed tree, a question that I cannot suppress, a question that reason and sound judgment cannot fail to ask - Why? Why did the Son of God suffer such a death? Why did God almighty so torment his beloved Son and kill him in such an horribly ignominious way?

Was it to save my soul? I know that he died so that I might live. He suffered the just for the unjust that he might bring me to God. But was there no other way for the omnipotent God to save me?

Was all this torment heaped upon Christ to show God's love for me? I know that the death of Christ upon the cross is the revelation of God's love. But surely God could have made known his love to sinners in some other way, without crucifying his darling son!

Why did God slay his Son? What necessity was there for the Son of God to suffer as he did and die upon the cursed tree?Only one answer can be found to this question - The justice of God had to be satisfied. There was no necessity for God to save anyone. Salvation is altogether the gift of free grace. But,having determined to save his elect from the ruins of fallen humanity, there was only one way to do it. The only way God could save his people and forgive their sins was by the death of Christ. Without the shedding of his blood,salvation was an impossibility. In order for God to save his people his justice had to be satisfied; and the only thing that could satisfy his justice is the blood of Christ.

Since it was the design and purpose of God to bring some of the sons of men into eternal glory and happiness as the sons of God by Christ,it was necessary for Christ to die, to suffer all that the law and justice of God required for the punishment of his people's sins. I do not suggest that the satisfaction of justice by the death of Christ procured the love of God for his people. It did not.The death of Christ is the fruit of God's love,not the cause of it. But I do affirm that it is the death of Christ and the satisfaction of justice by his death, that opens the way for sinners to enjoy the embrace of God's love. We could never have been reconciled to God without the shedding of Christ's blood.

 

 

Don Fortner