50 Reasons Why Jesus Came To Die

I just started reading this great book (as titled) by John Piper.  It’s free to download (as well as many of his other books!!) from http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/OnlineBooks/ByTitle/.  Do check it out because he’s a great writer, and I thank God for that 🙂

I’m up to Reason #3 (Christ suffered and died to learn obedience and to be perfected), which is one that I’ve only really heard and thought about more recently.  At first it seems a strange thing to say about what Jesus’ death accomplished, but Scripture says it!

Piper points to two verse from the book of Hebrews:

‘Although he was a son he learned obedience through what he suffered.’ – 5:8

‘For it was fitting that he [the Father], for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation [Jesus] perfect through suffering.’ – 2:10

How could this be when Jesus was and is sinless?  Piper says that Jesus learning obedience through suffering doesn’t mean that he learned to stop disobeying, but it actually means that Jesus had to learn in practice as a human being (that is, in pain) what it means to obey.  And being made perfect through suffering doesn’t mean that God the Father was refining Him the way He does to us through suffering; it means that he was gradually fulfilling the perfect righteousness that He had to have in order to save us (‘For it was fitting…’ – Hebrews 2:10).

And this bit really blew my small brain away: Jesus’ suffering didn’t only absorb God’s wrath but it also fulfilled His true humanity and made Him able to call us brothers and sisters (Hebrews 2:17).

I thought to myself, ‘who would be crazy enough to do that?!…who would want to give their son over willingly to suffer for another, and not just any ‘another’, but people who hated you for demanding their loyalty and submission, and ultimately wanted nothing to do with you?  what would he have to gain by this?’

Well, obviously God is crazy enough to do this.  He poured his anger out on his own son, the one whose perfect submission to him made him infinitely unworthy to receive this anger.  It would be an understatement to say that God was unfair to His own son.  It is a terrible yet wonderful picture of God’s justice (in demanding punishment for rejecting Him as God) being met by God’s love (His willingness to sacrifice even His son to meet the demands of this punishment).

And for what?  So that Jesus could make himself nothing, being found in appearance as a man (the perfect man) and call us brothers and sisters.

Crazy.