Read through the Gospels and you’ll be amazed at how often Jesus was healing people or even bringing people back from the dead. We’ve discussed several of those instances over the course of the last couple months. What each one demonstrates is how Jesus is full of grace and truth. They demonstrate his grace because no one he healed did anything to deserve or earn it; it was simply a gift from a loving Savior. And what is the truth that his acts of grace revealed? That God longs to bring restoration where there is brokenness, life where there is death.
Nowhere was this truth better demonstrated than at Jesus’ resurrection. It was one thing for Jesus to raise people from the dead. It was quite another for Jesus himself to be raised from the dead. Despite the fact that he warned his disciples several times that he was going to be arrested, killed, and raised back to life three days later, it just never seemed to sink in with them. They were still in shock and awe when it all happened. The question for them, and for us as well, was did it have to happen.
To answer that question, we need to go all the way back to the beginning, back to the Garden of Eden. There we find Adam and Eve enjoying the beauty of all that God had made for them and enjoying the freedom they had in their relationship with each other and with Him. The only limit to that freedom was the sole command God had stipulated – “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die (Genesis 2:17).”
Many theologians have interpreted this statement to mean that breaking this commandment would lead to their spiritual death. In other words, the spiritual life that God had breathed into them would be gone if they disobeyed and all their descendants would be born spiritually dead. In that condition, there would be no hope for anyone to enter eternity apart from somehow being made spiritually alive.
Others argue that God was simply warning them of pending physical death if they ate the fruit of that tree. According to this argument, Adam and Eve were created to live forever in unbroken fellowship with God. But eating the forbidden fruit spelled their doom as they and their descendants would come to know the pain of disease, decay, death, separation, and loss.
Still others argue that both of the above views are true, that Adam and Eve’s disobedience led to immediate spiritual death and eventual physical death.
As for me, I don’t think it matters much which is true. I lean toward thinking that both may be, at least to some extent. Either way, it seems apparent that sin brought death, and death is the enemy of humanity. The absence of life was the problem that needed a remedy because God created us to have life.
And that’s where Jesus stepped in. He was the remedy to our problem, and the instrument by which the remedy was applied was the cross. It was there that sin and Satan met its match. It was Satan, through his tempting of Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, who introduced sin into the world, and, as we’ve already established, it was sin that brought death into the world. As Paul declared, “,,,sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned (Romans 5:12).”
But Jesus brought victory over Satan and sin. On the cross, Jesus became sin and, therefore, through his death, the power of sin died with him so that we would become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). It’s as John said of Jesus, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work (1 John 3:8).” By destroying sin on the cross, Jesus destroyed the work of Satan.
But that’s not all Jesus accomplished. With the defeat of Satan and sin came also victory over death. What Jesus did was similar to a doctor treating a symptom by curing the disease. In this case, the symptom was death and the disease was sin. With the cure for sin being made available in Christ, we have now been set free from the ill effects of sin – death.
Now how can I say that since we all still face death? Well, as the writer of Hebrews stated, Jesus shared in our humanity “so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15).”
Did you catch that? What power did death hold over us? It kept us enslaved because of our fear of it. We feared that death would be the end of our story. We feared that we would never again see our loved ones and friends. We feared that we would incur the wrath of God because of our sins. We feared that His fierce anger would cause Him to send us to an eternal torment and separation from Him. We feared we would never taste life again.
But praise God, Christ brought victory over sin and death. What Adam set in motion, Jesus has reversed. “For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:21-22).” So Jesus’ resurrection brings hope to us all and we no longer need to fear death. Why? Because “perfect love drives out fear (1 John 4:18),” and that perfect love brings the hope and promise of eternal life for those in Christ. So the fear of death has been driven away, and death can no longer hold us in its chains of slavery. Therefore, I say with Paul:
“When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’
‘Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?’
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:54-57).”
So I now return to the question I raised at the start – Did Jesus’ death and resurrection have to happen? The answer is an unequivocal, “yes.” His death destroyed the work of Satan and the power of sin. His resurrection brings the hope of eternal life for all mankind by breaking the chains of slavery that the fear of death held us in. I am convinced that all the other healings that Jesus performed in his earthly ministry, including the ones I touched on in my previous blogs in this series, were but a precursor to the biggest healing of them all – healing us from the power of sin and death. That is ultimately why he came to earth. He wanted to show the world by his self-sacrificial love that the grace of our heavenly Father would restore us from more than disease, doubt, confusion, blindness, and grief. It would also restore the very thing that we most need – life! That life is found in Christ and no one else.
So celebrate that life if you have it today. And if you don’t, put your faith in him and enjoy that life right now. He’s ready to give it to you. How do I know? Because God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit are full of grace and truth.
Essential Grace 