Christ Died for God

Viewing the cross from the perspective of God is not the usual way of thinking about it. We almost exclusively think of the cross in regard to our own loves, to its impact on us who believe. "Christ died for us," we say. "Christ died for us," we fit. He died to rescue us from judgment and hell. That is absolutely true, and certainly we should celebrate what the cross means to us, but that is only secondary to the fact that Christ died for God. Just to hear the statement, "Christ died for God,"" may cause wonder in our minds. That's only cause we haven't understood the glory of God in the death of Christ. Romans 11 end with a great doxology: "Oh, the depth of the riches both of wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomably His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord or who became His counselor? Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen" (Romans 11:33-36.)

My mind attaches itself to that phrase, "From Him, through Him, to Him are all things,” What things does the apostle have in mind here? Paul's specific emphasis here is on things related to salvation as revealed in the previous 11 chapters of Romans, things that he says are from God, accomplished through God and ultimately intended to be to God. God is the source, the means and the object of all redemptive work. Everything is for Him. Paul goes on to say in Romans 1:5 that we have been given the ministry to preach the Gospel so that people can obey it in faith for His Name's sake. The Apostle John says in 3 John 7, Jude's Epistle we hear the benediction, "To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now forever. Amen"

Everything points to God, And from Jesus' own perspective, He came into the world, He says in John 17:4, to glorify God. He came seeing on the glory of the One who sent Him. (John 7:18). Everything He did was for God. It was not without a struggle that He did these things to the glory of God. In John 12:27-28, as Christ anticipates the cross He says, "Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, 'Father, glorify your name' He looks at the cross as the consummate way in which He will glorify the Father. Jesus knew that His life was to be lived to the glory of God and that His death was likewise for the glory of God. We think so much of what the cross means to us and so little of what it meant to God. In order for the cross to mean anything to us, it must mean everything to God. As we understand this, we understand the cross.


The Death Of Christ Was A Sacrifice To God. As the Old Testament reminds us of the divinely ordered and carefully detailed system of sacrifice and offerings to God. To no other gods or persons was any sacrifice ever to be offered. God alone was to be the recipient of every single sacrifice, every offering. They were all for Him. They were to rise to His nostrils as sweet smelling savor, as incense to please Him. The offerer was guilty of sin before a holy God and was, therefore, subject to God's wrath. God had been offended and dishonored, as He is by every sin committed by every person who has ever lived. In the Old Testament God provided a way in which the sinner could come before Him and temporarily have his sin death with, The offered would bring an animal to the priest at the tabernacle or at the temple and the offerer himself would lay his hands upon the animal as a symbol of transferring his sin and guilt to that animal (Leviticus1: 1-4)


The animal was then killed because God requires death for sin. The wages of sin is death. A soul that sins, dies. The blood of the animal was poured out all over the altar, and the offerer would be temporarily cleared by God But that animal could offer no permanent sacrifice, so the practice had to be repeated again and again and again and again. What the people were learning was that God's wrath is deterred by the sacrifice offered to Him. Sometimes I think we miss this point: Jesus was a sacrifice to God for sin. Every other sacrifice merely pointed toward His full and final sacrifice. Jesus was the only offering to God that would really take away sin, and He was also the priest. He was the true High Priest, and His offering of Himself -- a sinless, perfect life was the full and final and acceptable blood sacrifice to God. Jesus died as a sacrifice to God, as a sweet-smelling savor, finally, once for all. The atonement never needs to be repeated God was pleased.


The Death Of Christ Was A Submission To God. As Christ speaks about the sacrifice that pleases God, He borrows language from the Old Testament: "Sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have taken no pleasure... Behold, I have come... to do your will, O God" (Hebrews 10:5-7). Sacrifices and burnt offerings for sin from the past are not what God desires, but instead, as seen in Hebrews 10:10, "We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." The death of Christ was an act of obedience to God. He did everything the Father wanted Him to do. He repeats that again and again, particularly in the Gospel of John. Always, at all levels, even in childhood, He obeyed God. His delight was to do the will of God. And it is this perfect, flawless righteousness in all its fullness that we receive through salvation. That is the righteousness credited to us. Christ's entire life, every single moment of it was perfect, unbroken obedience that is therefore the standard of perfection that puts us into a right relationship with God when that perfect life is credited to our account.

But that was very different than receiving the wrath of God. In all of His life of obedience, never was there agony of obedience wrought in His perfect soul that could match the agony of the cross. Never had e had to receive a curse from the Father in order to bear all the weight of God's wrath on sin. The level of submission, which Jesus offered to His father on the cross, is inconceivable. So in His living as well as in His dying there was saving power for us. His perfect life is credited to our account as righteousness, just as His obedience in death is credited to our account as payment for our sin. God had to be satisfied with both Christ's submission and His sacrifice before it could eve be applied to us.


The Death Of Christ Was A Substitution Offered To God. The New Testament is rich with the language of substitution. Christ was offered once to ear the sings of many. He didn't die for His own sins; He had none. He offered as a substitute for us. One died for all (2Corinththians 5:14) God made Him sin for us. (2Corinthians 5:21). "He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed" (1 Peter 2:24) and borrows language from Isaiah 53, which says that He was oppressed and afflicted. And for whom? Our grief’s He Himself bore. Our sorrows He carried. He was smitten of God and afflicted, pierced through for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our sin fell on Him By His scourging, we are healed. The Lord caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. That's substitution. He takes our place. 1 Peter 3:18 says it this way: "Christ...died... the just for the unjust." Christ died as a penal substitute. Understand, God is absolutely holy. Sin is by definition a violation of God's law, which is perfect expression of His holiness. Any violation of His law must be dealt with. All sin must be punished. No sin ever committed by anybody who has ever lived in the history of this world will go unpunished.


With the cross, God acts as a just lawgiver, giving a proper punishment for violation of His law. God determined that the penalty for sin, the just and the right penalty for sin is death. That's what is required. We live in a therapeutic society where we sometimes struggle with that. We tend to think the remedy for sin ought to be therapy rather than punishment. We even tend to look at prison as an environment where criminals can get better, as a place to rehabilitate people. We think about personal vengeance and we think about therapy. But we don't understand penalty. Society as a whole has begun to regard the idea of penalty for wrongdoing as outmoded thinking. We've lost the concept of law and justice. The exception, of course, is when we are personally victimized by wrongdoing. Then we tend to want justice. We don't object to the idea of punishment so much when the idea is to get back at someone for what he or she did to cause us pain. People who've had a family member murdered may say,” I hope that guys goes to prison, I hope he rots in hell! I hope they electrocute him,” We want vengeance when the offense is against us.


The truth is, justice demands a penalty for wrongdoing that is commensurate with the seriousness of the crime committed. Since all sin is an affront to the Almighty Himself and a violation of His infinite holiness, every sin is very serious, requiring an equally serious penalty. That’s why the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23)
Jesus died on the cross because a just penalty was required. God, the Lawgiver, executed that penalty on His son. A death was owned to divine justice. What is staggering is that Christ suffered on the cross for only about three hours, and then he died. How is it possible that He could bear the full penalty for sin for all who will ever believe in just three hours when, if we had to bear it, we would all spend eternity in hell and it would never be enough? Because he was the perfect sacrifice. But these truths also remind us of the severity of the pain Christ suffered on our behalf. Jesus endured an infinite punishment. He took the full guilt of all our sins and the full fury of God’s wrath as our penal substitute. All the horrors of hell that all redeemed should have collectively suffered were endured instead by Christ as the fury of God spent in itself in three hours. It is an amazing thought that He bore so much for us and that He did it willingly!



Christ’s Death Was A Satisfaction To God. When the Bible says in 1 John 2:2, 1John 4:10 and Romans 3:25 that Christ was the propitiation for our sins, it basically means satisfaction. The offering of Christ was enough and God was satisfied. God could never be satisfied with us until He was satisfied with His son. He could never be satisfied with us until he was satisfied with His son being alienated. He couldn’t reconcile us until He had alienated Him. But Christ placated the wrath of God fully, and He was satisfied. How do we know that God was satisfied? Because He raised Christ from the dead and because He took Him into glory and seated Him at His right hand. (Hebrews1: 3). This is not a loving son trying to appease an angry father. This is a loving God offering Himself as a sacrifice. When we talk about being saved, when we talked about being delivered, it’s important to know what we are being saved from. You many then might ask, “Aren’t we saved from sin? Aren’t we saved from hell? In a sense, we are, of course. But even more importantly, we are being saved from God, by God, through God. A loving, gracious, merciful, compassionate God provided Himself as the substitute to bear the full fury of God’s judgment so that we can be saved from Him. Christ died as God, sent from God to satisfy God that sin had been paid for.


Christ’s Death Was Our Salvation To God. When we were rescued, when we were delivered, it was to take us out of the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of God’s dear Son. This salvation can best be understood by understanding two words. The word redeemed means to buy back, to purchase. Ransom is the price that is paid for the release of a person. In Matthew 20:28 we read that Jesus came to give His life as ransom. To whom is the ransom paid? Some people think its paid to the devil. It’s not paid to the devil. God destroys both soul and body in hell. God is the final judge for every life. The ransom price has to be paid to God. The redemption price is paid to God. And yet it’s God Himself, in Acts 20:28, who purchases us with His own blood. We recall these wonderful words from 1 Peter 1:18-19, “You were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood as of a Lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ”

Romans 3:24 says that we have redemption in Christ, and 1 Timothy 2:6 says that Christ came as a ransom for all. God set the price for our redemption, the price to ransom us, to buy us back. What was the price? Death. Through death Christ paid the ransom and bore the curse (Galatians 3:13) He took the curse to remove us from the curse. His death was a sacrifice to God, an act of submission to God, A substitution that satisfied God, a salvation that paid the full ransom price to deliver us from sin to God.



Christ’s Death Was The Means Of Our Sonship With God. Christ reconciles us to God and provides all that is necessary for us to become sons of God. God take this into His most intimate relationship and fellow-ship as family. “While we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son” (Romans 5:10). We put a lot of emphasis today on the sinner’s hostility to God and talk about how sinners need to stop being at odds with God. I think sometimes people picture God as a happy, loving, benign deity sitting up in heaven just hoping people will stop hating Him, hoping they’ll stop being angry with Him or indifferent to Him and that they’ll start liking Him and loving Him.


That’s not the good news. The good news isn’t that God is really a lot nicer than you think and that He would really like it if you’d like Him. The good News is not that you don’t need to be angry with God. The good news is that God is no longer angry with you. The good news is that God’s wrath has been satisfied by the death of Christ and that all who believe are now welcomed to come into His family. What Christ did on the cross was not designed to remove our hostility toward God, but to remove God’s hostility toward us. The only reason we can even come to Him by faith is because in a decisive act on the cross, God’s hostility was ended toward all who believe. The cross can’t be anything to us until it’s everything to God. With all that said, I hope this has given you a clear true, solid, understanding, about the Death Of Christ.