Session 3 of 9

Foundations

Why did Jesus die?

Read

³He was despised, and rejected by men; a man of suffering, and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him. ⁴Surely he has borne our sickness, and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted. ⁵But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed. ⁶All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:3–6

Think

The cross is the most recognisable Christian symbol. That’s strange when you think about it: it was an instrument of execution, designed to shame. Why do Christians put it at the centre?

The Bible is honest about us. We have all turned away from God and gone our own way, which is what the Bible calls sin. It isn’t only the wrong things we do; it’s a heart that wants to run its own life. That breaks our relationship with God and damages everything else.

God doesn’t shrug that off: he is just, and evil matters. But neither does he leave us. In Jesus, God himself came and took the consequences of our sin on himself. Isaiah wrote it centuries before: “he was wounded for our transgressions… by his wounds we are healed.”

So the cross is where God’s justice and God’s love meet. It’s not an angry Father punishing an unwilling Son, but the Father, Son and Spirit together giving everything to bring us home.

Talk it over

1. How would you explain “sin” to a friend in everyday words?
2. Isaiah 53 was written hundreds of years before Jesus. What do you notice in it?
3. Romans 5:8 says Christ died for us “while we were still sinners”. Why does that matter?

Learn by heart

But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

Pray

Jesus, thank you for taking what I deserved. I can’t repay it. Help me to live for you.