Why did Jesus die on a cross?

If your not a Christian and your interested in Christianity or you want to at least understand Christianity then this blog's for you. It's what we call the gospel which means the good news. It's what Christianity is all about.

You may have noticed that Christians wear crosses or have crosses on their buildings. Maybe you've seen something like the Passion depicting the crucifixion. Maybe you've heard people talk about Jesus "dying for your sins". What on earth is it all about?

There's really two things you need to know:

1) People cannot get to God
God is the perfect one, the creator of the world. He made everything good and will one day destroy everything that's bad. He is so incredible that we can't even imagine how great he is. Imagine all that is good in the world: beautiful landscapes, love, friendship, whatever is good he made it. And what's more he made it out of nothing! Now come on if this is true you really want to know this guy. You could spend eternity with someone who is this amazing!

There's a problem though. You are God's enemy. Everything you do is in rebellion to God's perfect plan. God brings only good. You, and I, bring only evil to the table.

"Wait up" you might say "I'm only evil? Come on! I sometimes help old ladies cross the road. I give money to charity. Grief, I didn't even have sex before I was married like everyone else in the world. Sure I'm not perfect, but I'm not only evil."

Ok let's check you up against God's plan. God's plan for your life can be summed up in two rules. First is love others. Okay giving to charity and helping a little old lady are fairly loving things to do, on the outside. But God can see your inside to. Let me ask you a question. Did you ever do anything without a little selfish motive in your heart? I don't know how good a person you are, but if I'm honest at the back of my mind there's always a false motive.

"Oh I could help that old lady, I'd look so good then."
"Ha I'll show them I care about the earth. Just watch me donate money to charity!"
"It'll be so much easier to deal with my parents if I don't have sex before I'm married. And hey maybe sex in marriage is actually better!"

Maybe your a bit of do-gooder who never has any selfish motive. But then wonder this: have you loved your neighbour the best way you possibly could? Did you help the old lady cross the street, staying around to listen to her talk about her late husband and invite her out for coffee the next day because you realise actually she's incredibly lonely? Did you do the very best you could? That's the standard God expects. Have you met it? I know I sure haven't.

If that's not depressing enough. The second big rule in the Bible is love God. Not just any God. The real God. The God who has revealed himself in the Bible. Allah or Vishnu won't do. It's got to be the God of the Bible.

"Well I go to church, sometimes read my Bible, sometimes pray, try my best to obey the rules of God." But the Bible says you've got to love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Everything.

Again that means you've got to have loved God the most you possibly could have. Have you told of his great deeds to everyone you could do? Have you spent time with him as much as you could? Has every thought that's passed through your mind been coloured with love for God?

Let me break it to you. You have never loved your fellow human beings as you should. You have never loved God as you should. How do I know? Because he told me so:

"None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." (Romans 3:10-12 ESV)

You can't get to God. Neither can I. Neither can anyone else. Whatever they are a fascist dictator, a school child, a president, a widow, an eco-warrior, or even a pastor of your church, they cannot get to God. Unless you've loved both your neighbour and God perfectly you are part of the problem. You are part of the reason that the world is such a mess. And you deserve to never ever be with God, the most wondrous being in the universe. We all deserve this.

But luckily there's some good news...

2) God can get people to God
There is a way out. You can meet this great God.

You see what happened is this. You deserve to be cast out from God's presence. You are God's enemy and should just be got rid of. But God loves you so much he gives you a second chance.

Now God can't just let people get away with being evil, that would be chaos. Heaven would not be heaven and he wouldn't be God. God has to be just, because justice is perfect. He has to punish your crime.

But what God did is he became man. God has three persons within his oneself, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. All three are God. The Son came down to earth, with the full backing and help of the other two, and became a human being. His name was Jesus. God himself came to earth.

Of course being God he lived a perfect life. He never did anything wrong. He loved others so much that he healed their diseases and pointed them to the perfect God and his perfect way, the most loving thing anyone can do in a given situation. Oh and how he loved God. He never shut up about how amazing he was! This guy lived the perfect life.

Yet he was killed on a cross. He was put to death.

Now remember this man is God. He could've escaped with a click of his fingers. So why did he stick it out?

This is why. Jesus offered himself to die the punishment we deserved. It wasn't the nails that killed him that brutal day. No, death on a cross took many days. What killed him was God's anger. You see we all faced God's anger, to be cast from his presence. Yet Jesus said that he would die in place of us. He would face the fullness of God's wrath, even though he was God! He was only acceptable because he was perfect. The perfect God's death was the only thing that could pay the price of millions of people's wrong doing.

Then he rose from death three days later to prove himself to be God and he poured out his Spirit on his followers and told them to go out into the world and tell people that he had taken their punishment away so they could get to God.

That's what I'm doing now. I too am a failure. But God showed me in his good news that Jesus had taken my punishment away. All I had to do was believe it was true, hate my evil doing and begin to turn away from my wrongs and start to do what is loving to God and humans.

What is most loving for me to do is to tell you that you don't have to face the punishment for all the evil you've done. All you must do is what I did. Believe Jesus took your punishment on the cross, believe you free to come to God and start to go his way.

If you have believed drop me an an email I'd love to tell you what to do now. Also if you have any questions drop me an email, I'll see what I can do to help.

Jesus dying on the cross is the most amazing thing you'll ever here. That's why the cross is good news. That's why Jesus died on the cross.

In Christ
Tim

P.S. If anything in this was unclear please send me an email so I can make it clearer for everyone. This is something I really need to explain right