Why Did Jesus Need to Suffer and Die Publicly?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Good Monday morning and welcome back

00:00:05.880 | to a new week on the podcast.

00:00:08.080 | To week number 499 in our history.

00:00:11.320 | It's amazing.

00:00:12.540 | And we start week 499 with a question

00:00:15.560 | from a listener named Elizabeth,

00:00:16.960 | who has an interesting question

00:00:18.320 | about the saving work of Christ.

00:00:20.760 | Hi, Pastor John, I am studying 1 Peter,

00:00:23.000 | going through your lab videos and digging deeper

00:00:25.480 | to share with my fellow stay at home moms at church.

00:00:29.240 | My question pertains to Hutas,

00:00:30.920 | the Greek word in 1 Peter 1.11 translated subsequent.

00:00:34.500 | I'm trying to tie together the sufferings of Christ

00:00:38.420 | and his subsequent glories.

00:00:41.440 | Does not seem to simply refer

00:00:42.800 | to a chronological progression.

00:00:45.140 | Peter very often ties suffering and glory together.

00:00:48.840 | 1 Peter 1, verses six to seven and verse 10,

00:00:52.000 | chapter two, verse 12, chapter three, verse nine and 14,

00:00:55.440 | chapter four, verses 12 to 15, chapter five, one

00:00:58.800 | and verse 10 of chapter five.

00:01:00.680 | So here's my question.

00:01:02.600 | Did Jesus have to suffer in public

00:01:05.520 | for God to give him those glories?

00:01:08.200 | Couldn't Jesus have lived a perfect law abiding

00:01:10.880 | substitutionary life for us in total isolation

00:01:14.960 | or at least in obscurity?

00:01:17.520 | I know he underwent his formal temptations alone.

00:01:20.900 | So he could have died serenely,

00:01:23.560 | then risen and defeated death and sin,

00:01:25.640 | but not by suffering in public.

00:01:28.280 | Or if he had done this,

00:01:29.240 | would he not have received the subsequent glories?

00:01:32.660 | Was it required for him to suffer publicly

00:01:34.920 | and to die early?

00:01:36.920 | So then again, what's the subsequent relationship

00:01:39.320 | between his public sufferings and his eternal glory?

00:01:44.100 | The reason I'm drawn to answer this question,

00:01:46.720 | even though in one sense,

00:01:48.880 | it's the kind of what if question

00:01:51.000 | that the Bible doesn't really address directly.

00:01:54.720 | What if Jesus had lived a perfect sinless life

00:01:57.900 | and died a natural death at age 85,

00:02:00.460 | could that life and death save us?

00:02:03.220 | The Bible doesn't spend a lot of time reflecting

00:02:06.160 | on that possibility.

00:02:07.920 | And so you might think, well, that's,

00:02:09.120 | why would you even go there?

00:02:11.080 | Nevertheless, questions like that

00:02:13.920 | in trying to answer this particular question

00:02:16.720 | and questions like that,

00:02:18.640 | we are led, I think, to ponder the wonder,

00:02:23.640 | at least I am,

00:02:25.860 | the wonder that God did it in fact a certain way,

00:02:30.860 | that he planned for his son to suffer agonizingly,

00:02:36.400 | publicly, extremely,

00:02:41.400 | and why he did it that way.

00:02:44.320 | And that's worth our serious meditation, I think.

00:02:47.920 | So as I have pondered the question,

00:02:52.920 | whether our redemption could have been accomplished

00:02:57.000 | by the perfection of Christ

00:02:59.360 | without the public suffering of a crucifixion,

00:03:02.840 | I see at least six reasons

00:03:06.240 | that the Bible gives for why this could not have happened.

00:03:11.240 | In other words, why Christ's public,

00:03:15.920 | horrific suffering by crucifixion

00:03:19.200 | was absolutely necessary for our salvation.

00:03:24.200 | Now, the first and perhaps the most obvious reason

00:03:29.680 | is that these particular sufferings

00:03:33.880 | were predestined by God

00:03:37.240 | before the foundation of the world.

00:03:40.400 | It was God's eternal plan

00:03:43.520 | that his son suffer in this way.

00:03:46.720 | Acts chapter four, verse 27,

00:03:49.720 | "Truly in this city were gathered together

00:03:52.920 | "against your holy servant Jesus,

00:03:54.640 | "whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate,

00:03:58.340 | "along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,

00:04:01.320 | "to do whatever your hand and your plan

00:04:05.440 | "had predestined to take place."

00:04:07.400 | So everything that Herod and Pilate

00:04:12.160 | and those Gentile soldiers who drove the nails,

00:04:15.320 | the spear and the crucifying mobs,

00:04:18.320 | everything they did to Jesus in those last hours

00:04:21.200 | was God's plan.

00:04:25.920 | It had been predestined to take place.

00:04:29.400 | Was not up for grabs.

00:04:32.040 | The alternative of a leisurely life

00:04:34.560 | and an 85-year-old death was not in the plan.

00:04:38.400 | That's the first reason it couldn't have happened.

00:04:41.880 | Second, these sufferings were prophesied in God's word.

00:04:46.480 | The Old Testament scriptures,

00:04:47.980 | which cannot be broken over and over again in the gospels,

00:04:52.980 | the details of the final sufferings of Christ

00:04:57.040 | are said to be that the scriptures might be fulfilled.

00:05:00.680 | Matthew 26, 56, Luke 22, 37, Luke 24, 26,

00:05:05.740 | John 13, 18, 19, 36.

00:05:08.560 | For example, He was pierced for our transgression.

00:05:13.200 | Isaiah 53, 5, pierced.

00:05:15.740 | Not cancer, not old age, not cardiac arrest.

00:05:21.400 | He was pierced for our transgression.

00:05:23.720 | In other words, the horrific public shaming

00:05:27.160 | and sufferings of Christ were scripted,

00:05:30.020 | scripted down to the details

00:05:32.440 | of what would happen to His clothing in the Old Testament.

00:05:37.060 | If those writings cannot be broken,

00:05:40.160 | then the sufferings could not be avoided.

00:05:42.920 | Third, and this gets closer to the heart of the matter,

00:05:46.080 | Hebrews 2:10.

00:05:47.680 | It was fitting, I'm underlining that word,

00:05:52.340 | but a big red circle around that word.

00:05:54.520 | It's an amazing word.

00:05:56.040 | It was fitting that He for whom

00:05:59.600 | and by whom all things exist

00:06:02.440 | in bringing many sons to glory

00:06:05.040 | should make the founder of their salvation

00:06:08.160 | perfect through suffering.

00:06:10.820 | This is very profound.

00:06:15.020 | And it is worth much study and hours of meditation

00:06:19.120 | that God's eternal decision

00:06:22.160 | to achieve our salvation

00:06:26.220 | through the sufferings of Christ

00:06:29.780 | is not arbitrary or whimsical or meaningless,

00:06:34.420 | but is owing to a profound fitness,

00:06:39.420 | fitness, appropriateness, suitableness,

00:06:43.580 | as God considers all things.

00:06:46.460 | It is appropriate, it is suitable.

00:06:49.060 | It is ultimately, you might say, beautiful.

00:06:53.080 | That is, it's in perfect harmony

00:06:56.520 | with all of God's other acts and plans.

00:07:01.180 | And we can spend a lifetime probing into why it is fitting,

00:07:06.180 | but let Hebrews 2:10 fly like a great banner

00:07:12.940 | over the sufferings of Christ.

00:07:16.220 | It was fitting, right, good, suitable, beautiful

00:07:21.220 | in the mind of God for our salvation to be accomplished

00:07:25.740 | this way and not another way.

00:07:29.380 | Fourth, the death of Jesus was an intentional sacrifice

00:07:34.380 | given by God similar to the sacrificial offerings

00:07:41.500 | of a lamb in the Old Testament.

00:07:44.620 | Jesus, Paul says, is our Passover lamb,

00:07:49.620 | 1 Corinthians 5, 7.

00:07:52.780 | So just as in the Old Testament,

00:07:54.940 | allowing a sheep to get old in the flock

00:07:57.880 | and die from mange was not a sacrifice.

00:08:01.940 | That's not the way it worked.

00:08:03.980 | You took the sheep and you handed him over

00:08:08.460 | with your heart and with an intentionality.

00:08:12.060 | So Christ growing old in some remote village

00:08:14.780 | and dying would not have been a sacrifice of God

00:08:18.620 | slitting the throat of the precious lamb of God.

00:08:21.500 | The word slaughter is used in Revelation

00:08:25.220 | for what happened to the lamb

00:08:27.180 | and how he accomplished our salvation.

00:08:30.480 | There was an intentionality to the sacrifice.

00:08:33.060 | Jesus was offered up on the cross as a sacrifice.

00:08:37.540 | Hebrews 10, 12, when Christ had offered for all time

00:08:42.540 | a single sacrifice for sins,

00:08:46.660 | he sat down at the right hand of God.

00:08:50.960 | Fifth, over and over in the New Testament,

00:08:55.040 | Christ is said to accomplish his saving work

00:08:58.440 | by means of his blood.

00:09:00.800 | For example, Romans 5, 9,

00:09:03.800 | we have now been justified by his blood.

00:09:08.280 | Hebrews 9, 22, without the shedding of blood,

00:09:11.800 | there is no forgiveness of sins.

00:09:15.600 | I think that's another way to draw out

00:09:18.640 | the significance of Christ's death as a sacrifice.

00:09:22.560 | And then finally, number six,

00:09:25.360 | Philippians chapter two describes the humiliation of Jesus

00:09:29.920 | from the highest point of equality with God

00:09:33.360 | to the lowest point of death,

00:09:37.160 | and then he adds even death on a cross.

00:09:42.160 | As the path from the highest to the lowest,

00:09:45.600 | as the path that God rewards

00:09:50.200 | with the exaltation of Jesus,

00:09:53.800 | not only to new life in resurrection,

00:09:57.840 | but to the acclamation of all the nations as Lord of lords.

00:10:02.840 | Though he was in the form of God,

00:10:06.760 | he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

00:10:10.560 | but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant

00:10:14.280 | and being born in the likeness of men

00:10:17.120 | and being found in human form,

00:10:18.600 | he humbled himself by becoming obedient

00:10:22.960 | to the point of death.

00:10:24.560 | And then these words are not throwaway words

00:10:27.200 | because they had to be the lowest point

00:10:30.480 | to accomplish our redemption,

00:10:32.540 | even death on the most despicable, shameful, painful

00:10:37.540 | instrument of execution, the cross.

00:10:40.880 | Therefore, God is highly exalted him.

00:10:44.080 | And bestowed on him a name that is above every name

00:10:46.640 | so that at the name of Jesus,

00:10:48.040 | every knee should bow in heaven and on earth

00:10:50.960 | and under the earth and every tongue confess

00:10:53.520 | that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

00:10:57.040 | There is in God's mind a path to glory for his son.

00:11:03.060 | And this path was a painful, humiliating death

00:11:08.860 | by crucifixion.

00:11:10.780 | It was the depth of the suffering.

00:11:13.360 | It was the ignominy of the cross that he endured,

00:11:18.360 | which was the lowest point that he had to reach

00:11:24.200 | for God to reward him with the highest office

00:11:28.760 | of lordship as a redeemer.

00:11:32.360 | Perhaps one last passage to point to the fact

00:11:37.460 | that the slaughter of the lamb

00:11:40.660 | was what made Jesus a fitting ruler

00:11:43.980 | of all the peoples of the world,

00:11:46.260 | namely Revelation 5, 9.

00:11:48.100 | Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals.

00:11:52.540 | In other words, worthy are you to be the Lord

00:11:55.260 | of the unfolding of history.

00:11:58.980 | For you were slaughtered, sphagizomai,

00:12:03.580 | not died in a remote village in 885.

00:12:07.080 | You were slaughtered.

00:12:09.240 | And by your blood, you ransomed people for God

00:12:12.620 | from every tribe and language and people and nation,

00:12:15.700 | and you have made them a kingdom priest to our God,

00:12:18.420 | and they shall reign on the earth.

00:12:20.220 | So for those six reasons, at least, I would say,

00:12:24.760 | we can say that the glorification of Jesus Christ

00:12:30.740 | and the achievement of our salvation

00:12:34.260 | did indeed require the kind of sufferings he endured,

00:12:39.260 | and we will sing the song of the lamb,

00:12:43.400 | the lamb, the slaughtered lamb,

00:12:46.040 | forever and ever as a tribute

00:12:49.000 | to those sufferings and our salvation.

00:12:52.680 | - Yeah, amen.

00:12:53.500 | Fascinating collection of points here.

00:12:54.800 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:12:56.380 | And thank you for joining us in the podcast today.

00:12:58.080 | You can ask a question of your own,

00:12:59.880 | search our growing archive,

00:13:00.920 | or subscribe to the podcast,

00:13:02.660 | all at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:13:06.680 | On today's theme, I want to linger on what it means

00:13:11.020 | that Christ's death was fitting.

00:13:14.720 | It was fitting.

00:13:15.860 | And we will do so next time with a sermon clip

00:13:17.780 | from a 1996 sermon,

00:13:19.820 | a clip that comes in the context of talking

00:13:22.220 | about the practical implications here

00:13:24.740 | in a discussion about gospel drift and how to avoid it.

00:13:29.220 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:13:30.060 | We'll see you back here on Wednesday for that.

00:13:31.960 | Thanks for listening.

00:13:32.960 | (upbeat music)

00:13:35.540 | (upbeat music)

00:13:38.120 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Why Did Jesus Need to Suffer and Die Publicly?

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