The Sins We Carry, Sick and Wounded

Over 5,000 years ago, an infant was born.  An angel came to a man named Joseph in a dream, telling him not to be afraid because his fiancé, Mary, would immaculately give birth to a son, and that they were to name Him Jesus because He will be the saviour of His people — coming Messiah.  It was this boy who grew into a man as any human male does, but what was special about this boy was that He is the Son of God who became the most momentous decree from God in human history as He became the beacon of salvation, and of hope to the entire human race.  Billions of people are familiar with this story, whether they believe it or not.  For many Christians, the question we're all faced with when we first believe this is:  Why?  Why would God, the Creator of the universe and therefore the most powerful Being in existence, send His only Son into the world only to die?  I approach this topic because the answers to this question are either not known because of the naïveté of complacent Christians, the misunderstanding of God's grace, and/or the answers most people have are false, and it is my goal to make known the real, truthful answers with support from Scripture.  There are multiple purposes why God sent Jesus, but I will be focusing on what I believe to be the three primary reasons.  God sent His only Son to fulfil the Law, to save sinners, and to be the propitiation for our sins.

The first purpose for Jesus coming into the world was to fulfil the Law.  Jesus said, "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfil" (Matthew 5:17).  Why would Christ need to fulfil the Law and what does He mean by "fulfil"?  Jesus needed to fulfil the Law because as we are imperfect human beings, it is impossible for us to keep the Law perfectly.  As Paul writes later in Romans, "For what the Law could not do, though weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (8:3-4).  Jesus fulfilled the moral law by keeping it perfectly; although He was tempted in every way as we are, He was without sin (Hebrews 4:15).  He fulfilled the ceremonial law by being the embodiment of everything the law's types and symbols pointed to, and He fulfilled the judicial law by personifying God's perfect justice (Matthew 12:18, 20).  Jesus' fulfilment of the Law was to demonstrate that it is not through works that we are saved, but rather through faith.  Going back to Paul again in Romans, he writes, "Where then is boasting?  It is excluded.  By what kind of law?  Of works?  No, but by a law of faith.  For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law" (3:27-28). Paul also writes to the Ephesians that no one can boast of their salvation because it was not their works that enabled it, but rather it was the gift of grace through faith given by God in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9).  How Jesus fulfilled these laws exactly will be covered later.

The second purpose for Jesus coming into the world was to save sinners.  Jesus said, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mark 2:17).  We are all sick, wounded sinners who need healing, which only Christ can offer.  This is the reason why God, " 'gave His only begotten Son, [so] that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life' " (John 3:16).  Because we claim to be rational beings, we seek logical explanations for actions done, demanding a detailed report that explains why and how something was done.  However, God does not give us a detailed report for His actions because He doesn't need to explain Himself to us!  Also, we're ultimately incapable of fathoming how He chooses to work.  "What God declares, the believing heart confesses without the need of further proof.  Indeed, to seek proof is to admit doubt, and to obtain proof is to render faith superfluous" (A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy).  Understanding why God did this for us is not the objective; the objective is to accept this gift with our entire being.  "Christ's sacrifice, offered once, has appeased God's wrath and has removed the sin of His people.  Christ's intercessory work continually applies all of the benefits of that death to His people" (Geoffrey Smith, Parkwoods Orthodox Presbyterian Church).  Because of God's love and grace, Jesus Christ interceded for us to pay the penalty of our sins so that we don't have to.  His sacrifice was a one-time deal, and the blessings we receive through His death and resurrection work continually for all of eternity.

The last primary purpose I will be giving was that Jesus came to be the propitiation for our sins.  Now, how did He do this?  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...  And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John1, 14).  That's how it started.  In the beginning of Creation was the Word, who was with God, and that Word was and is God.  That same Word became flesh, and He walked among us and talked with us as we witnessed His magnificent glory, God's "only begotten," ergo Jesus Christ is not only one with God, but He humbled Himself into the form of human man for us, "full of grace and truth."  Jesus did all this to be "a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28).  The price of Jesus' life as a blood atonement (Leviticus 17:11; Hebrews 9:22).  This prophecy was fulfilled on the cross when Christ offered Himself up for the divine punishment of sin on our behalf (Isaiah 53:4-5; Luke 23:44-46).  A little later on, in praying to His Father, Jesus prays, "My Father, if it possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:39).  In the Old Testament Scriptures, a cup was often used as a metaphor for God's divine wrath against sin (Isaiah 51:17, 22; Habakkuk 2:16).  The following day, Jesus would "bear the sins of man" (Hebrews 9:28), and the fullness of divine wrath to be poured upon Him (Isaiah 52:10-11; II Corinthians 5:21).  In His humanity, Jesus was fearful of His imminent death.  However, He prays for God's will to be done and not His own, revealing how Christ in His humanity voluntarily surrendered His will and His life to the will of God.

We know how the rest of the story goes.  Jesus is betrayed, sentenced to crucifixion, He dies, and is resurrected after three days, the sacrifice complete.  By serving His three primary purposes of fulfilling the Law through being the propitiation for our sins in order to save sinners, we who accept Christ are saved.  Because we are utterly incapable of fulfilling the Law, Jesus did it for us.  Because we all suffer the illnesses of sin, Jesus came to heal us.  Because we are incapable of saving ourselves, Jesus came as the propitiation for our sins to save us from the condemnation and damnation of sin that could not be done through the Law, so Christ fulfilled it in paying the ransom for it by giving His life.  It is not only loving Christ, but also allowing Him to love us.  "If we believe in the exciting message of Jesus, if we hope in vindication, we must love and, even more, we must run the risk of being love" (Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel).  By repenting, loving Him, and letting Him love us, His sacrifice is complete, and we are delivered into salvation.  The sins we carry, sick and wounded, Christ has conquered on the cross.