WHY DID CHRIST DIE? by A. J. F. Behrends

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 4, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 31.

WHY DID CHRIST DIE?

By A. J. F. Behrends

THE answer to the question, “Why did Christ die?” will depend upon the reply which is given to the question, “Who is Jesus Christ?” If Christ was only a man, tho the greatest and best of men, His death can have only a human meaning. It can not outrank that of a patriot who dies for his country, or that of a martyr who surrenders his life in the cause of truth. And, upon such an estimate of Him, His death was inevitable. Had He escaped violence, old age would have enfeebled His powers, and He could not have escaped the grave. His death would have been a tragedy, an unfortunate and undeserved calamity; but in it He could only be regarded as sharing the fate which falls upon many who fall at the very beginning of their career.

The question assumes an entirely different aspect when the truth of the incarnation is granted. And this truth I assume. Jesus Christ was the Word become flesh. He was the eternal Son of God before He was born. He was the eternal Son of God during the entire period of His life on earth. He remains forever the eternal Son of God in His exalted and glorified humanity. Of course, this implies the mystery of the Trinity; and the Trinity of God is ingrained in the New Testament. Jesus Christ is God in the form of man—God in every fiber of His being, man in every fiber of his being; as completely God as if He were not man, and as completely man as if He were not God. We can not divide Him. He is always divine, and He is always human. The truly human experiences were also divine experiences. The truly human acts were also divine acts. The personality was human from center to circumference, and it was divine from center to circumference. The one soul was human to the core, and it was divine to the core. It follows from this that whatever is affirmed of Jesus Christ is as true of his deity as it is of His humanity. The infirmities and pains of the body touched and pierced His divine nature. The sufferings and death were those of the eternal Son of God. He was buffeted and bruised; He rose from the sepulcher and ascended into the heavens. And this gives to His death a unique and startling meaning.

For, in the first place, it could not have been inevitable. He could die; He needed not to die. His life was in His own hands, as ours is not. So He declared that no man could take it, and that He had power to lay it down and power to resume it. Not all the armies of earth, not all the devils in hell, could have dragged Him to the cross. He died because He had come to die, because He had made up His mind to die. And if death was the eternal and voluntary choice of Jesus Christ, to which He marched with deliberate and eager steps, then we must call it either suicide or sacrifice. It is only necessary to state the alternatives to make it plain that the death of Jesus Christ was a divine sacrifice. Such the New Testament always represents it to have been.

But why did Christ sacrifice Himself upon the altar of death? Sacrifice for its own sake has nothing to commend it. We do not praise the spendthrift. We do not regard foolhardiness or recklessness as courage. Wise men do not burn up their money. Good men do not throw their lives away. The word “sacrifice” is a religious term. It defines a sacred act. It means the destruction or surrender of one thing for another regarded as more desirable. The death of Jesus Christ was a divine sacrifice. It must, therefore, have had an adequate purpose. That purpose the New Testament declares to have been our salvation from sin and our eternal redemption. That we might not perish, He died and rose again. He died for our sins, and rose again for our justification.

This crowds another question to the front. It is this: “Why was it necessary for the eternal Son of God to die that we might be saved?” The fact that this is the result which His death secured is a fact beyond all question for every one who believes the New Testament. But why was such a death necessary? One answer is that in the death of Christ God condemned sin—that is, destroyed its power. And to this is added the statement that the strength of sin is the law of God, and the law of God is simply the expression of His eternal justice. In death Christ grappled with sin; in grappling with sin He encountered the law of God, of which sin is the violation; and in encountering the law of God, Christ undertook to vindicate and satisfy the eternal righteousness of God—that eternal righteousness which was and remains His personal attribute as much as the Father’s. It was the lawgiver who died for the transgressor. This removes all appearance of antagonism or conflict between Christ and the Father in the atonement. It was not an angry God whom Christ appeased, and the fires of whose wrath were quenched in blood. Whatever anger or wrath there is in God is also in Jesus Christ. So that, when we speak of the death of Christ as demanded by the law of God, and by the righteousness of God, which that law embodies or enforces, we must remember that this demand is not laid upon Christ from without, but proceeds from within Himself. It is the righteousness of God in Him, it is the law of God in Him, which makes His death necessary to our salvation. So much is plainly demanded by the teaching of the New Testament. Whether we can probe the mystery any deeper admits of serious doubt.

And yet our question is not fully answered unless we add one thing more. If the necessity of the death of Christ was such as has been indicated, we must join in what the Scriptures declare and thrust into the foreground, that the love which moved the eternal Son of God to suffer and die for our salvation passes understanding and is unspeakable. Love can do no more than to die for its enemies. Every doubt is silenced by such a sacrifice. Fears vanish under such a revelation of the heart of our God. If that does not make us penitent, nothing will. If that does not make us hate sin, nothing will. If that does not make us patient, nothing will. If that does not give us a song, nothing will. Let us rejoice with trembling. —Rev. A. J. F. Behrends, D.D., in the Examiner.