The 5 Minute Discipleship Podcast

#1,346: Understanding Why Jesus Had to Die

Loren Hicks

If you fully understand the gospel and what Jesus has done for us, you comprehend that it was not just executed 2,000 years ago by the Romans. You recognize that He willingly laid down his life as a sacrifice for our sins. Jesus died for us. He took our place. With his death on the cross, He paid the penalty for our sins, so we would not have to.


Main Points:

1. Since God is just, he does not sweep our sins under the rug of the universe. He feels holy wrath against them. They deserve to be punished, and he has made this clear: “For the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23). To not punish us would be unjust. 

2. Imagine someone has committed a crime against you or your loved ones. You would be at the court demanding justice.

3. But here’s what is truly amazing…Jesus accepts God’s wrath on our behalf. Jesus doesn’t cancel God’s wrath; he absorbs it. He diverts it from us to himself.


Today’s Scripture Verses:

Romans 5:6-8 - “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

2 Corinthians 5:21 - “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

1 Peter 2:24 - “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”


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