Week 8 - Friday

Jesus Died For God

This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:25b-26)

God hates sin. In fact it's the only thing God does hate. God hates sin so much that the penalty for sin is death. Since all people are guilty of sin, they are all under God's condemnation. Therefore man's single greatest need is salvation from sin. Jesus Christ's dying on the cross, to save sinners, is the greatest thing to ever happen to man. As marvelous as that truth may be, it only tells us part of the reason why Jesus died on the cross. It isn't the main reason either. The main reason Jesus died was not to save man, but to glorify God. God has every right to be glorified because God is the Creator of all things. God's purpose for creating everything was to give Himself glory. Creation itself glorifies God by demonstrating His eternal power and divine nature (Rom. 1:20). By observing all the things God has made, people can know there is a God who is both powerful and good. The reason Jesus died on the cross was to demonstrate another one of God's attributes. He did it to demonstrate God's righteousness. Had God wanted to, He could have offered salvation to man without having His Son suffer such a terrible death. However God must have felt it was necessary or He would have never allowed His Son to bear such incredible pain. In order to make sinners acceptable to God, without compromising God's justice, someone had to pay the penalty for their sins. Jesus willingly did that, for God’s glory. He did it to demonstrate that, even though God forgives sin, God is still righteous.

A lot of people wonder whether God is really good, or if there even is a God at all. The fact that there is so much evil in the world, causes them to question how a holy and righteous God could allow so many sins to go unpunished (Mal. 2:17). But just because God doesn't immediately punish sin, doesn't mean that He never will. There are times when God does immediately punish sin but more often God chooses to withhold His judgment for later. He does this because of another of His attributes, His forbearance. Forbearance (anoche) means self-restraint and tolerance. The only reason that everyone doesn't die right away when they sin is because God is temporarily overlooking their sins and restraining His judgment against them. God told Adam and Eve that they could eat from any tree they wanted to, except for one. God said if they ate from that one tree they would die. But when they did eat from it, God did not kill them right away. Eventually they did die, but God held back from immediately taking their lives. Because God is just, every sin must be punished. The word just is translated from dikaios, the same Greek word that righteous also comes from. Because God is righteous, no one can get away with even one sin. No sin can go unpunished. However God is satisfied that the death of Jesus Christ was punishment enough for all the sins that would ever be committed. If a person repents and believes in Jesus, His death on the cross paid the penalty for all their sins. If not, when they die they will spend forever in hell being punished for their sins themselves. Until then God is being patient with them. God is giving them time to repent and receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Readings for today: Deut. 32:4; Ezek. 18:20; Psalm 78:38-39; Isa. 53:5-6; 2 Pet. 3:9; Rom. 2:4-5