Why did Jesus die?: Good Friday

Why did Jesus die?

Google this and you’ll get lots of articles that focus their answer on one word. Sin.

You’ll be told that Jesus’ death on the cross was necessary as an substitutionary sacrifice for your sins. Humans act wickedly and we deserve punishment from God because God is just and good and wont let evil go unpunished. Jesus steps in to take it on our behalf, offering himself as a sacrifice to take on the punishment of death we deserved. In doing this he offers us a way to be forgiven of our sins. This shows God’s grace and mercy towards us. 

All of that answer is true. Romans in fact tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god and that the wages of sin is death. 

But - in that answer there is a huge chunk of the story missing. The part missing is, for me, is the most amazing part of all. 

You see, if you asked me for a one word answer to the question ‘Why did Jesus die?’ My answer would not be ‘sin.’ 

Why did Jesus die? Restoration. 

Sin is a problem because of what it destroys. 

God created humans to be with him, to know him and to help him steward the earth. In the garden of Eden Adam and Eve had eternal life with God. They were in relationship with him, fulfilling their purpose of being his representatives on the earth. Sin destroyed all of that. 

When Eve and Adam listened to Satan they forfeited all the things they were created for to pursue the things they were not. They forfeited peace for chaos and death for life, all because they wanted to set their own mandate. If you read the Old Testament and look at the world around us you’ll see that didn’t go so well.

God’s mandate for our lives is a beautiful one. When Jesus hung on that cross he did so in our place. He took all sin on himself on our behalf. Forgiveness is something we receive through this but the primary reason Jesus gave his life was so we could be restored. 

Remember, God is love and God loves you! Jesus’ self sacrifice was made so that you could be restored to him. He loves you too much to let you rot in sin. He took it away so you could be restored to the original mandate God created you for - to know him and make him known. 

Jesus didn’t just die because you’d made a mess and someone had to clean it up. He died for you so he could offer you the invitation to be restored to everything you are meant to be in him: 

Loved. Known. Whole. Full of peace. 

He died for you so he could offer you the invitation to be restored to the purpose you are created for:

Working with him. Stewarding the earth. Multiplying the image of God.

Come to Jesus. Be restored.

Good Friday is good news. 

Another word for restoration is reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 explains this good news far better and more beautifully than I ever could:

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:

The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.