Jesus Christ died when he was about thirty-three years old. Other than the fact that he died as a relatively young man, on the surface there seems to be nothing unusual about that statement.
The reason why that seems to be a routine statement is because death comes to everyone. When the Irish writer, George Bernard Shaw, completed a statistical study on the subject of death, he said he came to this firm conclusion: "One out of one people dies."
Normally that is why biographers seldom spend much time on the deaths of their subjects. However, when we come to Jesus, this rule is broken because about one-third of the "gospels", which is the closest thing we have to a biography of Jesus, is devoted not to his life, but to his death.
Now we know that Jesus was totally different in his birth from every other human being, because he was born of a virgin. We also know he was totally different in his life from every other human being, because he was absolutely sinless. But I want you to learn now that Jesus was totally different in his death from every other human being, in this respect—every other human being ever born was born to live, but Jesus was born to die.
The great preacher, Dr. R. G. Lee, put it like this: "His death prearranged, prophesied, and provided by God, was no afterthought. Jesus was born with the shadow of the cross upon him. With the shadow of the cross upon his heart, he learned to walk, he learned to talk, and he learned to work. From his earliest moment upon this earth it was his burden by day, his pallet by night."
Normally, people are remembered by something they accomplished by their living. For example: When you think about George Washington, you immediately think he was the first president of the United States. When you think about Benjamin Franklin, you remember he discovered electricity. When you think about Thomas Edison, you remember he invented the light bulb.
When you think about Neil Armstrong, you know he was the first man to step foot on the moon. When you think of Sir Edmund Hillary, you know he was the first to climb Mount Everest. When you think about Walt Disney, you think about the creation of Mickey Mouse.
But according to the Bible, the most significant thing Jesus Christ ever did was to die. Two thousand years after Jesus left this earth physically, the universal symbol of the movement that he began, is not a cradle, nor a crown, but a cross, the cruelest instrument of execution known to the ancient world, and one that was banned nearly fifteen hundred years ago. The cross is God's flashing neon sign telling us that the way to a personal relationship to God is through a place called Calvary.
One half of one verse, 1 Pet. 3:18, gives us a simple, short, succinct, and yet practically exhaustive teaching on the death of Jesus Christ, for in this one-half verse we learn three crucial truths about that death.
I. It Was a Sacrificial Death for Sin
"For Christ also suffered once for sins." Now I call it a sacrificial death because as Heb. 9:26 puts it, "He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." You will never understand the death of Jesus until you understand its relationship to sin.
We all know that death is universal, and death is inevitable. Medicine cannot prevent it; it can only postpone it. What we call living we could also call dying, because at the end of the day we reach the end of the day.
Everybody, at one point or another, asks the question: "Is there life after death?" But nobody has to ask the question: "Is there death after life?" Because we already know the answer to that question.
Yet, Jesus' death was different from any and every other death that has ever occurred because of its cause. You see, basically there are four ways of dying: There is, first of all, execution (whether lawful or unlawful); secondly there is suicide; thirdly, there is accidental death; and fourthly, what we call "natural causes." Now though these explain the how of death, they do not explain the why of death.
We are told very plainly in Scripture that people die because of their own sin. The first Adam was not born to die, he was born to live. He was morally and spiritually perfect, created in the image of God.
Death was not in the picture. However, God made one thing very plain. He said, "If you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die." (Gen. 2:16-17) That was the first time man had ever heard the word "die."
As you well know, Adam and Eve did eat, and they did die. They died immediately in their spirit, and they died ultimately in their body. From the moment they sinned, their bodies became subject to disease, decay, deterioration, and death. Their spiritual death was immediate, and their physical death was inevitable.
We now know that ever since, every human being ever born has died. Now the reason what happened to Adam happens to us, is because what happened in Adam happens in us. Adam became a sinner, but you and I were born that way. We share his sin and his guilt. We are born with the seed of death because we are born with the gene of sin. Rom. 5:12 says, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned."
All who sin die. So all people die, for "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." and "the soul that sins shall die," and "the wages of sin is death." Death is God's righteous and inescapable punishment of human sin. Before man sinned, death was impossible; since he sinned, death is inevitable. Not one single sin, either of word, thought, or deed, can ever go unpunished.
But that raises a question. Jesus was sinless, and since sin is the only cause of death, he should not have died. Yet, Jesus did die. He ought not to have died, because he was innocent of any crime; He need not have died because he was innocent of any sin. Yet, he was mocked, flogged, stripped, tortured, and nailed to a cross, left to hang there until he was dead. Buy why? Well, there are really two answers to that question.
First of all, Jesus died a voluntary death. As a matter of fact, did you know that the death of Jesus Christ is the only voluntary death in the history of the world? Now you may try to argue about people who give their lives in rescuing other people, or soldiers who were killed in war, or even people who commit suicide.
But the fact of the matter is, none of those people choose to die. Some may choose to die sooner than later. Suicides may choose the day, the time, and the place, and the method of their death, but nobody chooses the whether of death. For "it is appointed unto man once to die." Death is not an option.
The last item on the agenda of every life is death. As someone has put it, "All the world is a hospital, and every person in it is a terminal patient." The only human being who voluntarily chose to die, who did not have to die, was the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why He said in John 10, "I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself." (vv.17-18)
Eccl. 8:8 says, "No one has power over the spirit to retain the spirit, and no one has power in the day of death." That is, when it is time for you to die, you're going to give up your spirit whether you want to or not. But the Bible says in Mt. 27:50 that Jesus "yielded up His spirit." He died voluntarily for our sins. That's why I call it a sacrificial death.
A chaplain was going around speaking to soldiers who had been wounded in battle. He came upon a soldier who was missing his right arm. Trying to comfort the man, he said, "Son, I just want you to know that you lost your arm fighting for a great cause."
The soldier said, "Chaplain, you're wrong. I didn't lose my arm—I gave it." Likewise, Jesus did not lose His life—He gave it. He died a sacrificial death for sin.
II. It Was A Substitutionary Death For Sinners
Peter goes on to say, "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust." (v.18) Now I want you to think about something, and it will make perfectly good sense to you. If sin is the only cause of death, yet Jesus had no sin, but Jesus still died, then there can only be one real cause of his death—our sin.
If death results from sin, and Jesus never sinned, the only explanation for his death is this: He died on behalf of sinners, and he died in their place. Now this is denied by infidels, heretics, and liberal theologians. Incredibly, the heretical president of a Baptist college here in our state says:
We have become far more consumed by what is known as the "Substitutionary theory of atonement."…In this analysis the focus shifts from satisfying the honor of God to meeting the penalties for sin. Sin brings death. Jesus serves as our "substitute" in paying the mortal penalties for sin. Assuming our guilt, Jesus accepts a punishment that he does not deserve. He is a stand-in for us in taking on sin's dreadful consequences. [So far so good. I agree with him totally. But listen to his conclusion.]
The presence of Jesus is not an event that reconciles God to people…atonement is not something God has done for us in the sense that God has made Jesus take our place so that the books would be balanced…Jesus does not come to pay off the heavy penalties for our sin…Jesus did not have to die…Jesus did not die to satisfy some abstract penalty for sin…Jesus died because people chose to kill Him.1
The Apostle Paul would call that heresy, in my opinion, and it makes a total mockery of the cross and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
So many have the attitude of the late Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, President of the World Council of Churches, who said, "I would rather go to hell than go to heaven on the back of another man."2
I like the way John R. W. Stott put it. He said: The concept of substitution may be said, then to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting Himself for man. Man asserts himself against God, and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices Himself for man and puts Himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives, which belong to God alone; God accepts penalties which belong to man.3
The great evangelist, Dwight L. Moody, was talking to someone who was trying to deny the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ, and he said: "Do not suppose God has made a law without a penalty. What an absurd thing it would be! The penalty for sin is death. For ‘the soul that sins shall die.' If I have sinned I must die or get somebody to die for me. If the Bible doesn't teach that, it doesn't teach anything. And that is where the atonement of Jesus Christ comes in."
I have studied this Bible diligently and consistently most of my life, and the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ is one of the clearest truths found in the Bible. Paul believed in it. He said, "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:8) He said, "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (11 Cor. 5:21) He said again, "For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us." (1 Thess. 5:9-10)
We already see that Peter believed in it. He went on to say, "Jesus Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree." (1 Pet. 2:24)
The Apostle John believed in it. He said, "By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us." (1 Jn. 3:16) The prophet Isaiah believed in it. He said, "But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." (Isa. 53:5-6)
You notice I refer to his death as not only a voluntary death, but also a vicarious death. The word vicarious comes from the word vicar, which has as its root meaning the word substitute. Vicarious means to take the place of another. That is exactly what Jesus Christ did.
I am reminded of a little old lady who was theologically ignorant, educationally illiterate, but she had a passionate love for Jesus Christ and the Word of God. An infidel asked her one time, "Can you even tell me what it feels like to be saved?" She thought for a moment and said, "Well, it feels to me as if the Lord stood in my shoes, and now I'm standing in His!"
III. It Was a Sufficient Death for Salvation
Peter goes on to say, "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." (v.18) Jesus died for the express purpose of bringing us back to a right relationship with the God who created us. Now we are told here what his death accomplished, but we are not told specifically how it was accomplished. Why did we need to be brought back to God?
Well again, now we get waist deep in good theology. God is not only a God of love. But as unpopular as it is to teach it, and unpleasant as it is to hear it, He is also a God of wrath. In fact, the Bible Scholar, A. W. Pink, says that in the Bible "There are more references to the anger, fury, and wrath of God than there are to His love and tenderness."4
The Bible says in Ps. 7:11, "God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day." But now why is God angry? The Bible goes on to say in Rom. 1:18, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men…" Now this does not mean that God is throwing a temper tantrum in heaven. God's wrath is his perfectly righteous and proper personal and holy reaction against sin. So now we can understand exactly what happened on the cross.
I can still remember in a science class in school when the teacher demonstrated to us the power of a magnifying glass. We were outside. He took a small pile of leaves and then he held that glass at just the right distance to form a tiny circle of brilliant light on that pile of leaves.
In a few moments it began to smoke—then they burst into flames. Somehow that glass lens was able to gather the heat from all of the rays of the sunlight striking its surface, and direct that combined sizzling intensity to one spot on those leaves.
Now I want you to picture the world, a globe covered with billions of people, and above it, like rays from the sun, comes the blinding intensity and heat of the righteous judgment and wrath of God. It is bearing down upon the human race. Then imagine a great cosmic magnifying glass—as wide as the world placed in between, gathering all of that intensity of burning wrath, and focusing it on one spot, on one individual—on Jesus Christ nailed to the cross.
Jesus Christ became the focal point of God's wrath. When the Son of God was crucified, the wrath of God was satisfied. That is why the Bible says in Rom. 8:1, "There is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."
Peter puts it this way: "The just died for the unjust." Because the just died for the unjust, the unjust are now just. When the just died for the unjust, he made it possible for the unjust to be justified and thereby become just. Put simply, God's law makes a double demand on men. As saints they must obey it perfectly, or as sinners, they must pay its penalty. Mankind has done neither one, but Jesus Christ did both.
In certain parts of the world, a merchant sells goods displayed on a counter or a table with no price tag attached. When someone wishes to buy an item, he lays down some money. If the merchant is not satisfied with a payment, he just leaves it lying on the table. But then the person wishing to buy the item adds to the money. When enough is put down to satisfy the merchant, he reaches down and takes it up. He is saying in essence, "I am satisfied with the payment." Isaiah prophesied, "He shall see the labor of his soul, and be satisfied." (Isa. 53:11)
Now what is the bottom line? Jesus Christ took on the cross for you what you will have to take for all eternity, if you don't take Jesus Christ.
If you are going to know Jesus, you must know Him in his vicarious death. He died an initial death as the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world. He died an official death, as the God-selected substitute. He died a judicial death, the judgment death for others. He died a sacrificial death, the just for the unjust that He might bring us to God.
It is said that one time Napoleon, that archangel of war, was in a conference room with some of his generals. They were discussing the world situation, the campaigns, and the conquests of the great Napoleon. On the wall was a map of the world, and the British Isles, the one country Napoleon could not conquer, were painted in red. Napoleon pointed to those BritishIslands and said, "Had it not been for that red spot, I would have conquered the world."
I want to tell you today Satan must point to Calvary and say, "Had it not been for that red spot, I would have conquered the world." But he did not, and he will not, because of the blessed cross and the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ.
1. Kirby Godsey, When We Talk About God, Let's Be Honest, pp. 141-143.
2. Dr. James T. Draper, Jr., Authority: The Issue for Southern Baptists, p. 118.
3. John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ, p. 160.
4. A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God, Cited by John Blanchard, Will the Real Jesus Please Stand UP, p. 93.