E52 Q65 What does Jesus’ death mean for you?
Jesus bore my sins and died the death that I deserve, so that I could be saved from sin and eternal condemnation and reconciled to God.
Jesus bore my sins and died the death that I deserve, so that I could be saved from sin and eternal condemnation and reconciled to God.
Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures by dying on the Cross as a sacrifice for sin in obedience to his Father. He thereby showed the depth of the love of God for his fallen creation, satisfying the justice of God on our behalf and breaking the power of sin, Satan, and death.
Jesus was executed as a common criminal. He was scourged, mocked, and nailed to a Cross outside the walls of Jerusalem. Though humanly a miscarriage of justice, his execution fulfilled God’s plan of salvation.
The Creed thus makes clear that Jesus’ life and death were real events that occurred at a particular time and place in Judea in the first century AD.
Jesus has experienced our sufferings, understands our sorrows, and is able to sympathize with our weakness. Therefore, I should bear my sufferings with perseverance and hope, for my Savior is with me in them, and through them I will come to know him more fully.
On earth, the incarnate Son shared physically, emotionally, and spiritually in the temptations and sufferings common to all people, yet without sin. In his agony and desolation on the Cross, he uniquely suffered in my place for my sins and, in so doing, revealed God’s love and compassion for fallen and suffering humanity.
Jesus suffered as a sacrifice for our sins so that we could have peace with God, as prophesied in the Old Testament: “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.”
All Jesus does as a human being he also does as God. His human words and deeds are saving because they are the words and deeds of God the Son.
At the moment of Jesus’ conception, the divine nature of the one eternal Person of the Son was united to our human nature. Therefore, Jesus Christ is fully and truly both divine and human, but without sin. His two natures are united without division, separation, mixture, or change.