GRACE FOR TODAY Radio Message #453
WHAT MADE THE DEATH OF CHRIST NECESSARY?
Pastor Don Fortner
Grace Baptist Church of Danville
2734 Old Stanford Road
Danville, Kentucky 40422-9438
Without question, the most
wondrous of all God’s works is the work of redemption. When we attempt to
contemplate upon what that work involved, we are lost in astonishment. When we
think of the unutterable depths of shame and sorrow into which the Lord of
glory entered to save us, we are awed and staggered.
“That the eternal Son of God
should lay aside the robes of His ineffable glory and take upon Him the form of
a servant, that the Ruler of heaven and earth should be ‘made under the law’ (Gal. 4:4), that the Creator of the universe
should tabernacle in this world and ‘have
not where to lay His head’ (Matt. 8:20), is something which no finite mind
can comprehend; but where carnal reason fails us, God-given faith believes and
worships.” (A. W. Pink)
As
we trace the path of our Savior from the throne of life to the tomb of death
and behold him who was rich, for our sakes, becoming poor, that we through his
poverty might be made rich, we cannot fathom the depths of the wonders before
us.
We know that every step in
the path of our Redeemer’s humiliation was ordained in the eternal purpose of
God. Yet, it was a path of immeasurable sorrow, unutterable anguish, ceaseless
ignominy, bitter hatred, and relentless persecution; a path that brought the
Beloved Son of God, the Darling of heaven, to suffer the painful, shameful death
of the cross!
Who ever could have imagined
such things as these? Standing at the foot of the cross, as I behold the Holy
One nailed to the cursed tree, covered with his own blood and the spit of an
enraged mob, made to be sin, forsaken and cursed of God his Father, yet,
realizing that this is the work of God’s own hand, I am lost in astonishment! I
am filled with reverence and awe (2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13).
Awed
as I am with reverence for my crucified Lord, still there is a question that I
cannot suppress, a question that reason and sound judgment cannot fail to ask.
The question is, Why? Why did the Son of
God suffer such a death? Why did God so torment his beloved Son and kill
him in such a horribly ignominious way? Surely, there must have been some great
necessity for such a sacrifice. What was that necessity? What made the death of
Christ necessary?
·
Was it to save my soul? I know that he did 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 done to
demonstrate the greatness of God’s love to me? I know it was (Rom. 5:8; 1
John 3:16; 4:9-10). But God could have revealed his love to me in some other
way. Why did he slay his Son? What necessity was there for the Son of God to
suffer and die upon the cursed tree as the object of God’s holy wrath and
justice?
Only
one answer can be found to that question - The
justice of God had to be satisfied. There was no necessity for God to save
anyone. Salvation is altogether the free gift of his grace. But, having
determined to save his elect from the ruins of fallen humanity, the only way
God could save his people and forgive their sins was by the death of Christ. “Without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb.
9:22). The justice of God had to be satisfied in order for God to save his
people; and the only thing that could ever satisfy the justice of God is the
blood of Christ. That was the necessity of Christ’s death as the sinners’
Substitute. Justice had to be satisfied. And now, because God’s justice has
been satisfied by the death of his own dear Son, God is both just and the
Justifier of all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. AMEN.