But why should He dread the inevitable “hour” or shrink from its approach? But an hour or two before, He had said, “Now I go my way to him that sent me.” Would not death be to Him an hour of glorious release from a life environed by sin, suffering, and sorrow? Would it not be the hour of reinvestment with all His kingly majesty and glory? Above all, would it not be a return to the blessedness of immediate, intimate fellowship with His Father? Had He died a death such as other men die, then it would indeed have been just such a glorious release. Had death for Him been merely the culminating event in a life of unsullied perfection, then it would have been such a gracious coronation. Some adequate explanation must be found for His dread of the approach of that “hour” that meant the drinking of a bitter “cup.”

But another question must surely press in upon one who has beheld the Son as He is mirrored in the pages of the four Gospels and who has entered into a study of His matchless, pure life with any degree of spiritual appreciation and apprehension. The question is, “Why need Jesus Christ die?” Scripture is very clear in its statement of what death is and who dies.

Romans 6:23

“For the wages of sin is death.”

Romans 5:12

“Therefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed onto all men, for all have sinned.”

Ezekiel 18:20

“The soul that sinneth, it shall die.”

Death is the consequence of sin: it is the sinner who dies. And Jesus Christ died! The irresistible logic of these facts places before one, two alternatives. Either Jesus was a sinner as all other men are, and His death, like theirs, was the wages of His own sin, or else He died a death different from the death of all other men and for a reason entirely outside of His own life.

Was Jesus Christ a sinner? Did death come to Him as the penalty for His own Sin? Even His bitterest enemies in the time in which He lived and in all succeeding ages have never accused Him of sin. He said once to a group who were opposing and denying Him, “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” But not one word of accusation did they bring against Him. Even Pilate said he could find no fault in Him. God testified to the absolute sinlessness and holiness of His life even before His birth in saying through the angel to Mary, “That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” 

After living in a world where He was continuously environed by sin and defilement, God again testified through those who knew His character and conduct under all circumstances that He “did no sin” (1 Peter 2:22); “In him is no sin” (1 John 3:5); He “knew no sin ” (2 Corinthians 5:21). In His character, conversation and conduct He was the holy One of God “without blemish and without spot.” If then, death is the wages of sin, it had no claim upon Jesus Christ.

Why, then did Jesus Christ die? How foolish and futile to look anywhere else for the answer to such a question but to God’s divine revelation. There, an absolutely sufficient and altogether satisfying answer is given.

1 Corinthians 15:3

“For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received: how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.”

Isaiah 53:6

“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

Isaiah 53:4-5

^4” Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. ⁵ But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed.”

1 Peter 2:24

“Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed.”

In every one of these passages, “death” and “sin” are shown to have an inextricable relationship to each other, but it is invariably the death of Christ and the sin of men.

Words could not make it clearer that Jesus Christ died not because of anything in Himself but because of something in us; that it was not the wages of His sin but of ours that He paid on the cross. It was our sin He put away; our sins that He bore; our iniquities which were laid upon Him. Death had no claim on Him; then the death He died was for the sake of others and to accomplish something for them which they were unable to accomplish for themselves. The death of Christ was obviously for the purpose of taking up the sin question and dealing with it in such a way as to bring salvation to man.

Source: “Life on the Highest Plane” by Ruth Paxson

Lord, thank You for allowing our sins to be placed on You. You died in our place.