God Crucified For Us

Thesis: God, who cannot lie, die, or fail, promised to solve the debt of death that all men owe. Only through the incarnation can this promise be kept.

Death is the debt that all men owe.

Scripture is very clear that our physical death is a consequence of our spiritual death.

Genesis 3:14–19 “The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Our New Testament scriptures are quick to move from the inescapable fact of our mortality due to sin to the freedom from that crisis that Christ has wrought.

We are going to settle, at least for the first part of this morning, on the bad news.

You will die.

Romans 5:12–13 “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

1 Corinthians 15:21–22 “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”

Hebrews 9:27 “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,”

We would like to think that we will go on forever. Blood pressure pills and Botox can assist in our self-deception for a while, but there is no escaping the inevitable.

Wallace Earle Stenger, professor, conservationist, writer, and statesman said of his inevitable death, “I would like to think that one life is enough, and that when I see it coming to an end I can meet the darkness with resignation and perhaps acceptance. I have been lucky. I came from nowhere, and had no reason to expect as much from this one life as I have got. I owe God a death, and the earth a pound or so of chemical. Now let’s see if I can remember that when the time comes.”

Robert Lewis Stevenson: “Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.”

The graves of spiritual leaders

Abraham

Exterior of the mosque

His tomb

Moses, unknown location, monument.

David’s supposed grave

All dead. Their graves point to their accomplishments in life, but nothing more.

These too paid the debt that all men owe, and they paid it for themselves.

God is The Wellspring of Life.

God is the source of all life.

God creates fish, birds, and bugs (Genesis 1:20)

God creates land animals (Genesis 1:24)

Genesis 1:26–27 “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Genesis 2:7 “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”

Psalm 36:9 “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.”

John 1:5 “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

John 5:26 “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.”

As the source of all life, it is impossible for God to die.

Exodus 3:14“God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ””

1 Timothy 6:15–16 “...he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.”

All things are possible with God, but there are three things God cannot do:

He cannot lie (Numbers 23:19)

He cannot die (Rev 1:8)

He cannot fail (John 10:35)

We have a problem then:

God has promised to save (Gen 3:15).

He cannot lie or break His promise.

God cannot die for us.

God cannot fail to keep his promise.

What can He do?

If death is the debt that all men owe, and if God cannot die, then God cannot pay men’s debt as God.

The Death of God

God must add to his divinity humanity in order to keep his promise.

Classic Christmas passages showed us His plan 700 years before it was enacted.

Isaiah 7:14 “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

This is no ordinary man.

Virgin-born. This is not natural.

Isaiah 9:6–7 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.”

The coming Messiah is explicitly divine, “Mighty God, Everlasting Father.”

His kingdom will last “forevermore.”

Micah 5:2 “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.”

The coming Messiah’s personhood reaches back into eternity past.

When combined with a kingdom that reaches forever into the future, this person is eternal.

Did this expectation bear out in the person of Jesus Christ? Was He of heavenly origin?

The 27 books of the New Testament were written by 9 people. All of them wrote of the divinity of Jesus, God become Man.

Matthew 1:23 ““Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).”

Mark 1:9–11 “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.””

Luke 1:35 “And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.”

John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Paul, Colossians 1:15–17 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

James 2:1 “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.”

2 Peter 1:1 “Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:”

Jude 4–5 “For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.”

Hebrews 1:3 “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,”

How does this help the undying God, who cannot lie or be defeated, keep His word and accomplish His purpose?

Galatians 4:4–5 “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”

The Undying God wrapped his eternal divinity in humanity.

He was born of a woman.

Genesis 3:15 “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.””

He was born under the law, by which all men must die

He alone lived without sin, and so He alone, of all men born of women, did not need to die for his own sins.

1 John 3:5 “You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.”

He came to redeem those under the law.

He came to keep His promise made four thousand years before to Eve, the mother of all the living.

He came as the second Adam to undo the works of the first Adam.

A Christmas Hallelujah!

When the magnitude of the love of God as demonstrated in the length to which He went to keep His promise and accomplish His purpose is understood, it is only fitting to explode in worship.

Paul does it several times in his writings:

Romans 11:33–36 “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”

All of heaven worships Jesus because of His extravagant love shown through His humiliation and suffering in our place.

Revelation 5:1–4 “Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.”

Revelation 5:5–6 “And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.”

Revelation 5:8 “And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.”

Revelation 5:9–10 “And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.””

Revelation 5:11–12 “Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!””

Revelation 5:13–14 “And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped.”

“A Christmas Hallelujah”

We are going to conclude the service with Communion, but before I do, I am going to give you a chance to lay your life down before this amazing God who loves you enough to become human so that he can die for you.

If you have never accepted the gift of salvation that Christ offers you, if you have never allowed Him to pay your debt, now is the time.