Transcript
Speaker: Hey, welcome back to Grove Hill Church and to our podcast. We're excited to have you back here weekly joining us for all the cool conversations regarding God, His Word, and how it applies to our lives. Got my friends Kyle Hess and John Ballard with me. Good to have John back after he'd been playing hooky for a little while. ah Good to have him back for the conversation. We're going to dig into some pretty deep ones today. A good conversation about the question of why did Jesus have to die? That question gets framed a whole lot of different ways. um you know I've had people ask me before, if God's all powerful, then why couldn't he have just snapped his fingers and made everything right? um couldn't he have come up with a different plan ah just a just a lot of different ways of expressing that and i get it because it's a question i've asked myself uh growing up as a a young believer questions of um where does god's love end where does his justice kick in those kinds of things so uh start there with that question
Speaker: um what Why did Jesus have to die for us? Couldn't there have some other way? I mean, I guess if you frame it like that, yeah, he could have come up with a different way. yeah um But I think he's bridging the gap between humanity and his divinity. um And he put something in place from the beginning that because of the fall, there needed to be um a blood sacrifice in order to make the payment for that fall.
Speaker: and We see it very early on in Scripture, and I'll read it later, but in the story of Adam and Eve starts the story of the cross. yeah yeah no Yeah, so in God's all-powerful being, of course there could have been something else. And that's the the beauty that God's exponential power beyond our fathom, yeah, there could be anything. But I think, as Kyle pointed out, and I like to think about it like this, and I would encourage you to think of it like this. If we see Jesus trying to break down, go look at the Sermon on the Mount, as he breaks down very complex, very big things into bite-sized, hey, this is how you replicate this in life. I think that's what scripture does. He applicates his, to your point, divinity into humanity and says, this is what it looks like to just get a taste. yeah And so a revelation of how he does that, sometimes even the the hard concept of why he does certain things comes out.
Speaker: So let's back up a little bit because one of the things that we, i think whether you're a strong believer or even just a curious investigator of the faith, everybody understands that God has this incredible capacity for love, right? And because of that love, he gave every human being, starting with Adam and Eve, the ability to choose whether or not to follow him or not to follow him. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: could Could God have possibly just gone, hey, no, you're not going to have a choice. This is how it's going to be. not do that? That takes his love out of it. Because when you remove that choice, then it's just ah a dictator, demander. you know There's no genuine love. If I force my wife to love me, that's not real love, is it? um But if my wife comes to me on her own accord and loves me, ah then I genuinely that.
Speaker: genuinely feel that And so by God giving us the free will is actually the biggest act of love he could have done for us. And in return, he now gets people who either willingly follow him or willingly reject him. so yeah yeah and Everybody wants to talk about the love aspect because we really love that, but the part that the Bible really emphasizes as much as God's love is his holiness. so How do those two interact together in relationship between God and his people?
Speaker: He's a holy God, which requires justice. He's a loving God, which gives us grace and mercy. so How do those two have to interact? oh that's a complex That's a complex question. So they interact, and I believe they do brush up ah shoulders often in Scripture. there's There's not a point to where there's not, at at the end of we seeing God's justice in certain instances in Scripture, there's we see his love. And although it may be masked in the the writer that's writing something, and we see for chapters upon chapters where it's like, man, this is God? this is
Speaker: He seems kind of harsh, but when we look at the big, the the meta narrative, like you see God's love that is always interacting with that at at moments and times with peoples, with individuals, with nations. So yes, God's love is never, um there's there's never a void of justice in it. And God's justice doesn't have a void of love. That's right.
Speaker: I think if you as you look at it, the way everything started, ah he did everything out of love. yeah He created the perfect place for Adam and Eve. He created them and declared them very good. He created man, saw that it was not good for him to be alone, so he created woman. And he did everything out of love. But with that structure of love, and we all know it, um by the fact that we love our kids, there's certain things we have to put in place in our household for organization and to create a place that is not chaotic, right? And so with that love naturally comes being just or having justice. And like you said,
Speaker: when God relays his justice, it's all out of a situation of love. And so they really complement each other um in the fact that, you know, a lot of people will look at God and say, oh, he's mean, wrath, just, all these things, the heavy parts of him. um But this is a character that is fully enveloped in him wanting the best for us.
Speaker: And justice matters to us because we are made in the image of God. So we have the a rational brain that understands those things. That's why when we are harmed by someone, someone does something wrong to us, the first thing we say is someone's going have to pay for this. That's right. that's our That's our sense of justice. Well, if we can't ignore it when somebody sins against us, why would we expect a holy God to do anything like that? And if he were to ignore it, then he couldn't declare himself a just God or holy. So that again, the two have to work together. now there's
Speaker: levels of betrayal there, levels of rebellion. What do I mean by that, um if if I were to come and to do something wrong to you, it would be one thing. If I were to do the same thing to the governor of Tennessee, that would be something different. If I were to do it to the president of the United States, that would be something entirely different. right So when we talk about sinning against one another, that's bad enough, but rebellion against a holy God elevates everything. to this this point of, you know how how does God respond to those things? yeah
Speaker: Well, being an awesome, all-powerful, all-knowing God, he has the right to exterminate us and start over. right Every bit of right to. But instead, this is the awe-inspiring part of the gospel, he says, I i love you enough to send my son to die for you. that's right um So talk about this. if justice is what he requires, and we know that's something we need, then what was the Old Testament all about?
Speaker: All these rules about animal sacrifices, you know, ah just all that kind of stuff. yeah All these rituals, those kinds of things. Yeah. um How many hours do we have? um I'll go back to what I referred to ah earlier in the podcast, starting in Genesis. So like I said, God created the perfect place for Adam and Eve. He gave them a free will.
Speaker: um Really, they had the ideal living conditions. They were men and women. They were naked. They had the garden. They had fruit. They had food. They had the animals. It was amazing. um And in that free will, he said, hey, you can do you could eat of any tree.
Speaker: except for this tree. yeah So there had to be a choice. Otherwise they wouldn't have a free will. So there had to be a choice. So he puts this tree there and says, don't eat the tree. After the influence of Satan, um they ended up eating from the tree. So Adam and Eve hid, and then they try to clothe themselves with fig leaves. So they try to cover their iniquities. They try to cover their sins with something... um that didn't mean anything, and they were trying to hide. And so it says in Genesis 3, 21, it says, the lord god made garments of skin for adam And his wife and clothed them and so their attempt to cover their sin
Speaker: wasn't good enough and by providing the skin of an animal means there had to have been shed blood of an animal in order to cover the iniquities of adam and eve so that was the first indication that there was going to be need to be a death on a cross by by a savior to cover our sins then you get into all the old testament stuff where there's these animal sacrifices to cover the sins and it wasn't to remove the sins it wasn't to set freedom from the sins it was literally a temporary thing yeah to ah pay atonement, to cover temporarily for these sins.
Speaker: So what we see at the cross then on Calvary is not just Jesus paying for our sins but is the place where God's perfect holiness and righteousness and justice meets up with God's perfect love and mercy and grace all right there at the cross God did not this is something that kind of bothers me a little bit we talk about this in church God did not overlook our sin right God did not even forget our sin yeah he actually put our sin on Christ Jesus yeah And that's that's a radically different way of looking at it because then it means our sin wasn't excused.
Speaker: It was paid for. yeah Right? Yep. So then you get to the resurrection. Resurrection is God's way of saying, okay, the payment you made, that was enough. You've covered for them.
Speaker: The debt's been paid. In fact, that's what that word, tetelestai, that he says at the cross, that's what it's all about. It says, hey, this is over with. So let me go back to the original question.
Speaker: Could God have forgiven us without the cross?
Speaker: According to his design, no um But that's the way he designed it. So if he would have designed it a different way, then the answer is yes. But what he put in motion at the beginning of time when he created Adam and Eve and he had the plan, the plan was that there was going to have to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins. And so as you go through this book, that's what this whole book is about. And we covered it last year in the sermon series that Everything behind the cross points to the cross. Everything past the cross points back to the cross. So when we see the story of adamy Adam and Eve, it directly relates to the cross of Jesus Christ. And so when we get into the New Testament, we start hearing the things like the Romans road, for all have sin and fall short of the glory of God. We've all broken that fellowship with God. Romans 6.23, for the wages of sin is death.
Speaker: but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And then the famous John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. And so could he have done it another way like you asked? Yes, but his design was this way. And I think it makes sense because we all know love, just, and punishment. If you did something wrong legally, you know that there's going to be a court case against you. You know that there's going to be a punishment assigned and potentially jail time. And in this case, death was assigned to us for our sin. And we had someone who stepped in and said, I'll take that punishment from you. And he went to the cross. Yeah. All right. So let's deal with this just a little bit.
Speaker: One of the things you hear coming out in secular culture a lot today, those who are absolutely not followers of Christ, their claim is that God is a murderer and a baby killer because he sent Jesus to die for us. So question, did God kill Jesus?
Speaker: God allowed the shouldering of sin to be on the back of his son. He allowed it because i go back to the the explanation again. He saw this as the best design and tailor fit message for us to get it. He didn't even have to design it to where we would. He could have just said to your point earlier, hey, this is going to do you're like it. And in some ways, God did it his way, but he was gracious enough and kind enough to say, I'm going to get
Speaker: to the point to where it's so beautifully written and the meta narrative is put together so well that you taste and see who I am. In Ephesians 1, 9 through 10, I love what this says, making known in us or making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him. So all these things are to glorify and to bring recognition to who God is. And yeah, it's sometimes a it's always going to be complex. There's going to be things that we will fight against because people will take the one piece that they see as, oh well that...
Speaker: That's like me saying, I saw you for five seconds and I saw you make the mistake as a 10-year-old kid. Man, you stole some bubble gum in the store. And then I tell you, man, Ridley, you're a horrible person. like ah But that's what we do to God. We we go and identify And thank goodness god God never even made the one mistake. but But we don't understand the concepts of why God is choosing justice and love yeah in these increments of time over humanity. I think honestly it was it was probably the greatest display of love. yeah You can come up with other ways of how you can love somebody, um but to actually give of yourself in that way displays the greatest amount of love. We understand the phrase freedom isn't free, right? We have freedoms in this country. It didn't come free. It came on the backs of men and women who went overseas and lost their lives for our freedom. And so when there's a when there's a cost to it, there's so much of a higher value to it.
Speaker: And so Jesus willingly gave up his seat in heaven. He willingly came to earth to live as a human being, and then he willingly went to the cross. um There was a point in the garden where he's like, Father...
Speaker: Take this cup from me, but not my will, your be done, right? And so he ah he sought the Lord in obedience. He sought the Father in obedience. And then he went forward and gave the greatest display of love ah that the human mind can fathom. I think we have to also go back to this one point. You mentioned murder as something that people go and say, hey, God did this. Let's redraw the definition.
Speaker: ah Sometimes people say, oh, that's murder. Well, we've gotten in a really skewed sense of, because there are differences. Someone may die, but is it always murder? No. you know there There are some instances to where there are different things, and we associate the wrong definition of what God has done versus who God has shown himself to be. And I think there's just a lot of misappropriated definitions because we have a world that likes to twist it. Oh, yeah. Well, and if there's a murderer involved, it's mankind. It's us. yeah We're the one who put him on the cross. Well, the the answer to me, i mean, did God kill Jesus? Absolutely not. There's two different places in Scripture that I would point to. One of them is in the book of Acts where Peter's sermon, where he calls them out. He calls out the religious leaders. He says it was you guys who put him to death.
Speaker: You know, your choices, the things that you did, it was you who put him to death. yeah But then in Philippians 2, which is probably one of the earliest hymns there is in Scripture, where it says that Jesus did not consider equality with God to him to be grasped, but he humbly gave himself up in obedience to the cross. It was Jesus's choice to do what his father asked.
Speaker: So God didn't force him, so therefore it's not murder. any more than a man going and dying overseas for his country's murder. It's a sacrifice that he willingly gives. So what the cross tells us is that we are very, very sinful people. There was no way we could save ourselves.
Speaker: We're probably far worse than we imagined. And what we needed was a sacrifice that was big enough to take care of it. And because God loves us deeply, incredibly,
Speaker: he offered this plan from the very beginning of time and his son Jesus, because he loves us equally said, I'm willing to do that. Um, I think deep down inside, we all are very, very thankful without knowing it that we have a just God who is as holy as he is, because without him, we lose all sense of right and wrong ourselves yeah because he is the moral code that we apply everything to. so i think I think a lot of times people are looking for an excuse of why not to follow the Lord. right yeah And so if you see something like this, you get the questions of, oh, he's a murderer, he's this or that, he's ah all full of wrath and not full of love. People are looking for an excuse not to follow him, but you know at your core, you know deep down that someone who would give their life for you in that manner is someone worthy to follow, and that terrifies people sometimes, because that means they have to give up self. and follow him and i think you're exactly right kyle because because people don't want to follow him they have to work hard to find a chink in his armor and if they can then they're right he's not worth following that's right but that's why it's important we have these conversations to help people understand the necessity of the way things have played out in the meta-narrative of god and the story of what he's done for us so bottom line jesus had to die for us
Speaker: Could God have done something else? Maybe, possibly, but that's not the question. This is the way He chose. um And that's amazing testimony of love for all of Yep. All right.
Speaker: Kyle, you want to pray for us today? I sure do. Let me wrap things up. Thank you, sir. Father, thank you. Thank you for your design. Sometimes our brain has a hard time understanding it or...
Speaker: um Thank you. are almighty and you know everything ah you put things in place to take our place lord ah your whole goal was just to to show the greatest display of love that has ever been seen ah lord we can deny it but it's still factual it's still truth And so, Lord, I just pray that if someone's listening to this that hasn't fully submitted to you because of these hesitations, Lord, that they would just trust in you, that you are here to love us and provide goodness for us.
Speaker: Father, we thank you for your holiness and your worthiness and the fact that you had the ability to give your life for us. We thank you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Come back and join us next week. We'll be back to talk about something else deep, really deep, because we're such deep guys. So deep. So deep. ah Come join us on the journey. We would appreciate you following us and listening to the show. If you have any questions or comments you'd like to add, please do that.
Speaker: And while you're there, hit the like button and share with your friends as we continue to grow our listeners. i Hope you'll come join us sometime, 8, 9, 30, 11 here in Chapel Hill, Tennessee, Grove Hill Church. In the meantime, we'll be praying for you and look forward to having you back with us.
Speaker: Bye.
