Saving Faith

So, Christians believe that Jesus is God and that He died an ATONING DEATH for our sins.

The religious leaders of the 1st century couldn’t stand Jesus. They were jealous of His popularity, so they denied His claim to be God despite His profound teaching and His undeniable miracles.

They conspired against Him, arrested Him, bribed false witnesses, intimidated the judge, gained a guilty verdict, and crucified Him.

But what they did not understand was that Jesus’ death had been predetermined from the beginning. Jesus said, “Nobody takes my life from me. I give it up of my own accord.”.

Jesus’ death was not a human tragedy. It was a divine strategy. God came to the earth to die as a payment for the sins of mankind. His was not a martyr's death. It was a vicarious death.

Isaiah 53 reads, “He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. And the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds, we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. We have each turned to our own way, but God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”.

In the movie “In The Line Of Fire”, the previews said that Clint Eastwood plays a Secret Service agent who is willing to place his body in the line of fire.

He puts his body in front of the president and is willing to take a bullet himself to protect the commander in chief.

Now that's noble. But I'll tell you something far nobler than that. It's when Jesus Christ, the Commander in Chief put His body in front of ours on the cross and He absorbed in Himself all the fiery darts of the wicked one.

And He gave life to His servants.

Paul said, “He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”.

Now when Jesus died on the cross since He was God, He could look into the future. He could look down to 2022 and say, “I see you, Chris Cuthbertson. I see the day you're born. I see all the sins you commit, and I see the day you become a Christian. And I see all the sins you commit as a Christian, and I see the day you die. And I go to the cross to die for you.”.

And on that dark day, He gathered up all my greed and lust and profanity and selfishness and complaining. And those sins were heaped on the shoulders of Jesus Christ, and He paid the price for my sin.

I love the song “It Is Well With My Soul”. The 3rd verse goes like this…

My sin O the bliss of this glorious thought.

My sin, not the part but the whole.

Is nailed to the cross.

And I bear it no more.

Praise the Lord O, my soul.

So, a Christian believes that Jesus is God in the flesh, that He died an atoning death for us on the cross, and that He rose from the grave.

Jesus had predicted repeatedly that He would come back from the grave.

He said to His enemies, “You destroy this temple and I'll rebuild it in three days.”.

He said to His friends, “I'm going up to Jerusalem where I will be handed over to wicked men and be crucified. But on the third day I will rise again.”.

His enemies remembered that claim, so when they buried Him, they stationed guards at the tomb, in case the disciples stole His body and claimed victory.