Jesus Died on the Cross for You

Was the crucifixion of Jesus necessary? Did he have to die for me? 

If you want to experience eternal life as a child of God, the answer is yes.

The word Bible scholars use for what Jesus did on the cross is “Atonement.” According to Merriam-Webster, “atone” means “to make amends, to provide or serve as reparation or compensation for something bad or unwelcome.” So in theology, “atonement” means the reconciliation between God and humanity affected by the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ” (Holman Bible Dictionary).

In other words, the Atonement was what Jesus did to obtain our salvation.

This is why Jesus came into our world, to save us from our sins and restore our relationship with God. He knew exactly what he came to do, clearly understanding that his role was to fulfill Isaiah 53, as we can see in Luke 22:37.

Our sins separated us from God, and the rightful punishment for our sins is death. Jesus came to give his life to pay the penalty we deserved to pay. He died on the cross in our place, as our substitute. Jesus gave his life so that we could live. His death brought us life. Amen!

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3)

To understand why Jesus had to die, we have to comprehend the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man. 

God is perfectly holy. It’s who he is in his nature. He has always been and will always be perfectly pure and holy. He’s so holy that he cannot stand to even be in the presence of sin. He hates sin. He knows that sin hurts the people he created and damages all his creation. Because of his nature, God has to turn away from sin. 

Humans are sinful. We are guilty, sinful creatures who can’t do anything to undo our sinfulness. It’s who we are in our nature — sinners.

If we want to pay the penalty for our sins, we’ll have to experience eternal death and separation from God. There’s no way for us to come back to life and live a life of perfect holiness the second time around. We can’t undo our sinful nature, so if we’re trying to pay for our sins, we’ll do so for all eternity. 

Since we can’t atone for our sins, if we’re going to be made right with God, if atonement is going to take place, someone will have to do it for us.

Something else we should understand when we ask why Jesus had to die is the perfect love and perfect justice of God. His love for us is perfect:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

It’s impossible for us to fully comprehend God’s love for us. In his perfect justice, though, our sin must be punished. Unless the punishment for our sins is paid, we can’t even be in God’s presence because God is sickened by our sin.

That’s why the cross is the perfect picture of God’s holiness and our sinfulness, of God’s love and his justice. God’s love for us is so great that he provided a substitute who would pay our penalty. Jesus is that substitute.

Here, in two verses, is the purpose of Jesus’s death:

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” (Galatians 3:13)

And just in case we need to hear it again:

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:24)

This is the good news! It’s why we have hope for eternity! Please don’t miss this or take it for granted. Jesus Christ willingly died on the cross as our substitute, in our place, to pay the penalty for our sins so that we can have a relationship with God. Jesus, who in his nature is perfectly holy, became sin so that we, who in our nature are sinners, can be holy. 

The “great exchange” is that, on the cross, our sins were placed on Jesus, and his holiness was placed on us. We’re so sinful that we can’t become holy. Jesus never sinned, but he paid the penalty we deserved to pay. We gave him our sins, and he gave us his righteousness.

And God didn’t place the punishment on an innocent third party. Jesus is God. He’s both the Judge demanding payment for our crime and the person who served the sentence for our crime. As John Stott says, “It is the judge who passes sentence then removes his robes and goes off to serve the sentence in the defendant’s place.”

This, in theological terms, is known as “substitutionary atonement.” It’s the heart and soul of the Atonement — that Jesus bore the wrath of God for our sin in our place. In God’s holiness and justice, our sin had to be punished. In God’s love and grace, he paid the penalty for us. 

As a believer, you never have to wonder if you’ve been good enough. You don’t have to wonder if some new sin suddenly separated you from God. You never have to think, “Did I lose my salvation when I did that thing yesterday?” 

That’s because Christ paid your penalty in full. That’s why Jesus shouted “Tetelestai!” on the cross. “It is finished.” “Paid in full.”

Jesus didn’t pay for some of your sins. He didn’t pay for the harmless ones and leave the bad ones for you to take care of. He paid for them all, and he paid for them completely. Your sins have been paid for in full.

Everything that Jesus did — leaving the glories of heaven; going through all the difficulties and pain and heartbreak of being human; being beaten, mocked, and rejected; experiencing the physical pain of the cross and the emotional pain of having our sin placed on him, and being abandoned by the Father while he hung on that cross — everything he did was for you. 

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