Why Did Christ Die On The Cross?

Some years ago I shared some of the gospel with the wife of a business associate. She was Jewish, an intellectual, and a psychologist. Her question to me was; Why is Christianity so bloody? Interestingly, if she was a real Jew, a believing Jew she would recognize the value of ‘innocent shed blood’ in God’s eyes. In Israel this was the only way the sins of the people and sins of the nation could be covered in Israel.

Today Christ’s shed blood and death is the only acceptable payment for our sins; so as to make us accepted by God… by faith in Christ’s sin-offering of innocent blood.

Consider these Pauline verses. Three times in Romans 5 we read that Christ died for us.

  • Verse 6 tells us that He died for us in our weakness.
  • Verse 8 that He died for us in our sin.
  • Verse 10 that He died for us in our rebellion.

First, Verse 6 says: “For when we were yet WITHOUT STRENGTH, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”

Men sometimes try to make themselves acceptable to God by human effort, but they never succeed. We can’t walk or run to heaven, we can’t even fly there, and we certainly can’t climb there — not even by doing good works, for good works is what we simply ought to do, and we should not expect them to counter-balance our sinful thoughts and deeds.

Anyway, heaven is God’s and He says we cannot gain it by works. He through the Apostle Paul does tell us How we can be saved and gain heaven as our eternal home.

“For by grace are ye saved, through faith (in Christ) , and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; NOT of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph.2:8-9).

Next, Romans 5:8 says:

“God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet SINNERS, Christ died for us.”

Many people feel shut out of heaven, not merely because of a sense of helplessness, but because of a sense of sinfulness and condemnation. To such God proclaims the good news that “Christ died for sinners,” and “came into the world to save sinners” (ITim.1:15).

At Calvary He paid the just penalty for sin — for the sins of all mankind — so that we, by faith in Christ’s cross, might be “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom.3:24).

But Romans 5:10 goes even further, offering hope and grace to those who have resisted God’s grace and rejected His Son, for here the greatest Christ-rejecter of all time, now gloriously saved and changed, declares:

“When we were ENEMIES, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son” (Rom. 5:10).

And so the helpless, the sinful, yes, and the rebellious, can find acceptance with God… if only they will turn to Him from their sin and failure.

BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AND THOU SHALT BE SAVED…” (Acts 16:31).