WHY BELIEVE JESUS DIED FOR OUR SINS?
Some have questioned if Jesus actual died on a cross. Some have doubted if his death was really necessary. Many believe the Bible has the answers ((2 Timothy 3:16-17).
MANY EYEWITNESSES ACTUALLY SAW JESUS DIE
Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken,” and, as another scripture says, “They will look on the one they have pierced.” (John 19:31-37).
However, disciples of the early Christian church informed believers: “many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist” (1 John 1:7) The disciples told believers that every spirit that does not acknowledge that Jesus has come in the flesh, and died for the sins of mankind is not of God: this is the spirit of the antichrist (1 John 4: 3,10). And “there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them with his blood” (2 Peter 2:1).
Jesus said: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).Nevertheless, in today’s antichrist New Age/Spirituality movement, many are taught other ways to God than the atoning death of Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us: Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits by the Word of God to see whether they are from God (I John 4:1; 2 Timothy 3:16-17).
WHY JESUS DEATH WAS NECESSARY
“Without the shedding of [Jesus’} blood there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22). The blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death,[c] so that we may serve the living God! (Hebrews 9:14). He has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. (Hebrews 9:15).
It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. 25 Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. 26 Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.” (Hebrews 9:23-26).
For, “he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).
WHY BELIEVING IN JESUS CHRIST DEATH IS NEEDED FOR OUR SALVATION
“God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). For “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[ Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” ( Corinthians 5:21).
