Calvary Road Baptist Church
“WHY?”
On this Easter Sunday, all around the world, Christendom is celebrating the glorious resurrection from the dead of the Lord Jesus Christ. Crucified on a Roman cross, a cruel instrument of torture and execution, the Lord Jesus Christ was guilty of none of the charges leveled against Him. He was found guilty of three hastily and illegally called trials that mocked justice and due process of law.[1]
Nevertheless, after being severely beaten and stripped naked and made to carry His Own cross as best He could to the hill called Golgotha, he was taken outside the city walls.[2] There He hung on a cross between heaven and earth with a thief on either side.[3] But what amazing irony could have been seen by anyone with the eyes to see. Written in Greek and Hebrew and Latin and nailed to the cross over the head of the Lord Jesus Christ were these words dictated by Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea who authorized the crucifixion:
“JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS.”[4]
And He was. And He is.
After hanging on that cross for some nine hours, during which time Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled time and time and time again, the Lord Jesus Christ cried out with a loud voice, “It is finished!” and gave up the ghost and died.[5] After a Roman soldier confirmed His death by plunging a spear blade deep into His side, the body was turned over to Joseph of Arimathaea for burial in a sepulcher never before used.[6]
The Lord Jesus Christ predicted that He would rise from the dead after three days and three nights.[7] And Scripture reveals that people saw the resurrected Savior on several different occasions, with some 500 witnesses seeing the resurrected Savior on one occasion.[8] On the Day of Pentecost, Simon Peter, preaching to thousands of religious Jews in Jerusalem, declared that Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead without any refutation from the Jews to this bold proclamation.[9] Why not? The evidence was too telling to refute. Though very few could explain the resurrection, no one could deny it.
Where does the resurrection fit into a larger picture? To answer that question, we must journey back 4000 years to the Passover. Celebrated every year to commemorate the Exodus of the Jewish nation from Egyptian slavery, the Passover observance of the Jewish people that the Law of Moses dictated is really a reminder of God’s tremendous and powerful deliverance of an entire nation.[10]
A summary of the events leading up to the Passover goes something like this: Jacob, the patriarch, and eleven of his sons followed his son Joseph into Egypt, where they enjoyed the favor of the Egyptian Pharaoh. After 430 years and a new dynasty ruling Egypt, the Israelites had been relegated to slave status. Hearing the cries of His oppressed people, the God of Israel raised up a deliverer, Moses, to lead His people back to the land initially promised to Abraham, the grandfather of Jacob.
Expectedly, Pharaoh resisted the stated intentions of Moses to lead the Israelites to freedom, so God judged the Egyptians in a series of ten plagues that struck against the false gods of the Egyptians. However, it was the last plague, by far the most severe of the ten plagues, that broke Pharaoh’s will. In that plague, God passed over the land of Egypt and killed all the firstborn, both man and beast.[11]
When He came to houses that had sacrificed a lamb without spot or blemish, and had taken the blood of the lamb and put the blood on the doorposts and lintels, and had then roasted and consumed the lamb, as per His instructions, He fulfilled His promise to pass over that dwelling and spare everyone inside. The Jewish feast of Passover is the commemoration of that great deliverance that created the opportunity for Israel to march out of Egypt unopposed. That exit is termed the Exodus.
Something for you to think about: knowing that His enemies had been plotting for some time to kill Him, why did the Lord Jesus Christ allow Himself to be taken and crucified on the Passover? Why did His death, and burial, and glorious resurrection, take place at the time when Israel annually celebrated their great deliverance from bondage by their God?
The Passover, of which the Passover observance is the memorial, was a picture of the great salvation which the Lord Jesus Christ would accomplish when He shed His precious blood and died, when He was buried, and when He rose from the dead after three days and three nights. As God wrought a great national deliverance that was accomplished by the Passover so long ago, so the Lord Jesus Christ wrought a great spiritual deliverance when He, during the time of the Jewish Passover, was crucified and died, was buried, and rose from the dead victorious.
Every year Christendom celebrates Easter according to the custom of their pagan contrivances, the eggs, the bunnies, blessing animals down on Olvera Street, going to the river for the weekend, and all the rest of that tripe which can only detract from the real meaning of Easter season. Let us, however, realize and respond to what this is all about. Celebration is a wonderful thing. But it should come after a sober reflection on what exactly this victory is that is being celebrated.
We recognize, do we not, that Easter is all about the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead? I mean, even though better than half of the pastors in this town do not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead after three days and three nights in the tomb, I am quite sure that the overwhelming majority of the people in Monrovia who are attending religious services today recognize that Easter really is a celebration of the resurrection.
That said, people frequently fail to make the connection between Easter, when the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, and the crucifixion, when He was nailed to the cross where He shed His blood and died. Yet it is all connected together in the mind of God. There was a reason the Lord Jesus died and shed His blood outside Jerusalem. There was a reason His body was buried in a rich man’s tomb.[12] There was a reason He waited three days and nights to rise again. And there was a reason why He rose at all.
And all of the things the Lord Jesus did at the end of His earthly ministry of some three to three and one half years were related to why He chose to come in the first place. Have you ever asked yourself, “Why?” Why did the Second Person of the Trinity become a human being? Why did He then shed His blood and die on a cross? And then, why did He rise from the dead on the third day, to then ascend to the right hand of the Father on high, where He sits at this moment?[13]
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy celebrations. And I think folks ought to celebrate great victories of the past. But there is a difference between a celebration and an observance. You see, every June 6th our country celebrates the anniversary of the Normandy invasion that marks the beginning of the end of World War II. Germany observes the anniversary. And our country celebrates the anniversary of the taking of Iwo Jima during World War II, just before the surrender of Japan. Japan observes the fall of Iwo Jima.
Most people celebrate Easter when they ought to observe Easter, because for them there is no victory. So, to help you discern whether Easter should be to you an observation or a celebration, I’m going to ask one question: “Why?” And since Easter, the resurrection, is connected to what happened before, the question really ought to be “Why did all of this happen?” Why did the Lord Jesus come? Why did He shed His blood and die? And why did He rise from the dead?
In response to the question before us, there are three answers:
First, JESUS DID WHAT HE DID FOR SIN
By sin, I refer to the condition of each person’s soul. By sin, I refer to the contamination of each person’s heart. By sin, I speak not of anything that you do but of what you are. Sin is a moral contamination. Sin is an uncleanness of the soul and a deadness of the spirit. Sin is that which is found offensive to a holy God. Sin is a stench in His nostrils and an irritant to His sensibilities. Sin is a contrariness to the will of God and a sneer in the face of God. Sin has not to do with behavior so much as nature. Sin is not only what you do but also what you are. Ultimately, sin is that which proves to be unlike the character of God. It is the opposite of virtue. But Jesus Christ came to do something about your sin.
Sin. What is the cause of your sin? Look carefully at Romans 6.23a:
“For the wages of sin is death.”
That and other verses establish that you have sin. It shows that you are sinful. I say this because the one absolute consequence of sin that is visible to one and all and deniable by no one is death. Sir, you will, sooner or later, die. Ma’am, you, too, shall die. When my brother was in the hospital at the age of 7, the little girl next to him, also aged 7, who he fell in love with over the course of two or three days, died of leukemia. Aged 7! Death is the wages that sin pays to one and all.
But what is the cause of your sin? You inherited it. Romans 5.12 informs us that death passes upon every individual. Sin entered the human family in the Garden of Eden and has been transmitted as an inherited trait from then until now. You have a problem with sin because your dad had a problem with sin. And how do I know? He died, didn’t he? Or, he will, eventually. And what he had he passed on to you.
It is absolutely amazing to me the number of people who strive with every fiber of their being to deny their sinfulness, to convince themselves of their inherent goodness. And I’ll admit to being distracted into forgetting from time to time that they are sinful. But you know what? When that person breathes his last breath the truth will show itself once more. Because only sinners die. And sinners only die.
Sin. What about the correction of it? There are a great many people who recognize that they are sinful. There is far too much evidence of their sinfulness to waste time denying the fact. But they want to do something about it. Knowing that they shall someday die and stand before God, they strive incessantly to alter the reality of their sinfulness.
You’ve seen people’s efforts along this line as well as I have: Consider the Shriner’s Burn Hospitals. What a wonderful help they are to children who have been badly burned. And I certainly commend their efforts. But I know of no Shriner who denies that he is sinful. Hey, they joke about their sinfulness. But they also believe that by doing good deeds and wonderful things for the helpless among us it will somehow help them come Judgment Day.
And there are innumerable other examples I could point to. Remember the annual Jerry Lewis telethon? The “Make A Wish Foundation.” And on it goes. I would never oppose the efforts of people to be a help to others, particularly the weak and sick and helpless among us. But oftentimes the motives that lie back of such efforts is an attempt to revamp, to restore, to rehabilitate somehow, their own sinful nature. And, my friends, such efforts to change your nature don’t work.
Commenting on the futility of attempting to change your very nature, listen to what the prophet Jeremiah wrote in Jeremiah 13.23:
“Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to evil.”
Jeremiah lived and died long before Michael Jackson. But the thrust of this verse is that any attempt to behave in such a way as to change your sinful nature is as likely to succeed as would a black man’s attempts to alter his skin tone or a leopard’s attempts to change his spots around.
Point being, sinner, you cannot correct your sinfulness. You cannot alter the fact that you are a stench in the nostrils of God. You cannot right the wrongness of your soul. You cannot quicken the deadness of your spirit. However, without any help from you at all, the Lord Jesus can. And it was to that end that He came and accomplished a series of feats that ended with His glorious resurrection. You see, He loves you.
Second, JESUS DID WHAT HE DID FOR SINS
The distinction between sin and sins can be explained in this way: If sins are what you do, sin is what you are. Sin has to do with nature. Sins have to do with specific deeds and offenses. A person is born with sin, but a person actually commits sins. Because you are a sinful being, you commit acts of sin, sins. But take note that doing wrong did not make you wrong. It is because you are wrong, sin, that you do wrong, sins.
Sins. What is the cause of you committing sins? And you do commit sins, do you not? The Bible declares that,
“there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”[14]
So, everyone commits acts and deeds of sin. Everyone commits sins all the time. Consider the Ten Commandments that were given to Israel, but which we can appropriately use to point out the sins that people commit.
In Matthew 22.37, the Lord Jesus Christ stated the great commandment in the Law in this fashion:
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”
If you do not obey that command you have committed an act of sin. And how about the 9th commandment?
“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”[15]
Have you ever lied? Has there ever been a situation in which you shaded the truth, failed to tell the whole truth, or told a tiny white lie? Then you have committed yet another specific act of sin.
Many of you may be thinking, “Sure, I commit sins. But they’re not anything like the sins of others I know.” Consider James 2.10:
“For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”
Though you may be perfect in your obedience to the Law, with only one minor exception, you are guilty of violating the whole Law because the Law is one integrated whole.
I point this out to establish in your thinking that, insofar as God is concerned, there are no big sinners and little sinners. There are only sinners. And there is no such thing as a major act of rebellion against His will versus a minor act of rebellion against His will. There is only the act of rebellion against His will.
But the question is, Why? Why is it that people sin? Why do you rebel against the will of God? Why do you commit the sin of not loving God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul? After all, God is lovable. And He is worthy of our love and adoration and worship. It only makes sense to give God our all. Yet violation of the great commandment occurs regularly, such as when people for no reason stay home from Church. You see, no one has a credible claim to loving God while for no reason staying home from Church. Amen?
But why do people commit sins? You commit sins because you are sinful. You commit sins because you are a sinner. Listen up, because this is critical. You did not become sinful when you committed a sin for the first time. It was the other way around. Because you were born with inherited sinfulness, you committed a sin, and you have continued to sin since you were born.
No one had to teach you how to lie. No one had to teach you to be selfish. No one had to teach you how to steal. And no one had to teach you how to feel the rage and hatred in your heart that the Bible says is tantamount to murder.[16] Just like dogs bark because it is their nature as dogs to bark, so sinful people sin because it is your nature to do so. But with this difference. Barking is not offensive to God and deserving of punishment. Sinning is.
So, how do you go about correcting sin? There are a variety of ways in which people attempt to deal with their sins. And in virtually every case a sinner’s remedy for his problem with sins boils down to changing his direction in life, turning over a new leaf, trying to do good from now on, or some other such method of self-reformation. But remember, sinning is the natural consequence of being sinful. So, it has to be seen as impossible, this vain attempt to never again sin or to try and outdo the number of bad things you do by striving to do a whole bunch of good things. It won’t work. The Bible teaches that your righteousnesses are as filthy rags to the LORD.[17] It angers God when someone tries to do good deeds as a way of balancing the scales in his favor.
So, it is futility to attempt to stop committing any more sins. But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that it is possible to stop sinning. It isn’t, but let’s assume that it is for just a few moments for the purposes of this discussion. So, here you are, a bad boy or a bad girl who realizes that what you did was wrong and you’re never going to do wrong again.
Fine. But what about God’s books? Remember, God writes down all the sins a sinner commits in a book in heaven, Revelation 20.12. So, even if you stop sinning and never commit another sin, you will still be judged for the sins you have already committed. Don’t you see? There is nothing you can do about your sins. But Jesus Christ can do something about your sins. You see, the Lord Jesus loves you.
WHY DID JESUS DO WHAT HE DID? HE DID IT FOR SIN. HE DID IT FOR SINS. AND HE DID IT FOR YOUR SALVATION
On this Easter Sunday, you need to evaluate whether this is a day for you to celebrate or a day for you to merely observe. Your problems are basically two. You have a sin problem and you have a sins problem. Sinful is what you are, your nature, and sins are the things you do because of what you are. And both your sinfulness and the sins you commit are an offense to God worthy of wrath. But Jesus Christ came to address and to solve your sin problem and your sins problem.
Consider, first, His provision for your problems. God demands that punishment be rained down upon all ungodliness and unrighteousness. So, He has decreed that the sinful nature of human beings and the sins that we commit must both be punished. That punishment begins in a place called Hell. But the Lord Jesus provided for the punishment of your sin and your sins without you having to go Hell. Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, took upon Himself human flesh when He was born to a virgin. He then offered Himself a sacrifice and took God’s punishment that was deserved by you. Notice the precise wording of these verses in the Bible:
Second Corinthians 5.21:
“For he [God] hath made him [Jesus] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
Here the Lord Jesus dealt with your sin problem.
Romans 3.24-25:
24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.
And here Jesus dealt with your sins problem.
But, specifically, how did the Lord Jesus deal with your sin problem and with your sins problem? First John 1.7 and 9 clearly shows us:
First John 1.7, 9:
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
In both verses, we have reference made to cleansing by His precious shed blood. Verse 7 shows us that the blood of Christ continually cleanses us from all sin. Verse 9 shows us that the blood of Christ cleanses us from our sins.
So, the remedy for both your sin and your sins is the shed blood of Christ. All of that which is offensive to God is dealt with by the blood of the Lamb of God.
But there is a great difference between the Savior doing something for you and you receiving the benefit of what He did. Knowing what He did and believing what He did for you does you no good whatsoever.
Judas Iscariot knew both why and what Jesus Christ was going to do, but he still hanged himself and went to his own place as a condemned sinner.[18] So, the issue before us is not what Jesus did, or, any longer, why Jesus did it. All of that is now clear. The issue is this: What must occur in your experience for you to receive the benefit of what He did? Simple. Abandoning all hopes of solving your sin problem yourself, and abandoning all hopes of solving your sins problem yourself, you must come to Jesus Christ by faith and believe on Him to save you from sin and to save you from sins by washing you clean in His blood.
A man once asked a question many years ago,
“What must I do to be saved?”
How was he to be delivered from the consequences of his sinfulness and his sins? The answer given to him by Silas and the Apostle Paul?
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,”
Acts 16.31.
After shedding His blood as an offering for sin and dying on the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ was buried. Three days later, He rose from the dead. That resurrection is what Christians need to celebrate and what people who are not saved should only observe because they have nothing to celebrate while they are yet in their sins.
Some weeks after His resurrection, and after He was seen by more than 500 witnesses, He ascended to heaven and there sat at the right hand of His Father on high, where He is until this day.[19] And what is He doing at the right hand of the Father? A number of things, actually.
For one thing, He’s waiting to observe your response will be to the Gospel. As you sit there in your sins, condemned in the sight of God and quite literally on your way to Hell, what will you do with Jesus? Will you ignore your lost condition? That is what most people do. Or will you turn away from your useless attempts to deal with your own sin and your own sins and trust Him to save you? That’s what He wants you to do.
Come to Jesus Christ by faith and the fact of Christ’s resurrection will be something for you to rejoice over, something to glory in, something to celebrate, and not something to merely observe.
__________
[1] Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah: New Updated Version, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1993), pages 859-863.
[2] Matthew 27.33; Mark 15.22; John 19.17
[3] Matthew 27.38
[4] John 19.19
[5] John 19.30
[6] John 19.34, 38
[7] Matthew 12.39-40; 16.21
[8] 1 Corinthians 15.6
[9] Acts 2.24
[10] Exodus 12.1-28
[11] Exodus 12.23
[12] Isaiah 53.9
[13] Psalm 16.11; 110.1; Matthew 26.64; Mark 12.36; 14.62; 16.19; Luke 20.42; 22.69; John 3.13; 13.1; 14.2-4; Acts 1.9-11; 2.33, 34-35; 7.56; Romans 8.34; Ephesians 1.20; 6.9; Colossians 3.1; Second Thessalonians 1.7; Hebrews 1.3, 13; 8.1; 9.24; 10.12-13; 12.2; 1 Peter 3.22; Revelation 19.11
[14] Psalm 14.3
[15] Exodus 20.16
[16] 1 John 3.15
[17] Isaiah 64.6
[18] Matthew 27.5; Acts 1.25
[19] Psalm 16.11; 110.1; Matthew 26.64; Mark 12.36; 14.62; 16.19; Luke 20.42; 22.69; John 3.13; 13.1; 14.2-4; Acts 1.9-11; 2.33, 34-35; 7.56; Romans 8.34; Ephesians 1.20; 6.9; Colossians 3.1; Second Thessalonians 1.7; Hebrews 1.3, 13; 8.1; 9.24; 10.12-13; 12.2; 1 Peter 3.22; Revelation 19.11
Would you like to contact Dr. Waldrip about this sermon? Please contact him by clicking on the link below. Please do not change the subject within your email message. Thank you.
Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church