Ask Mr Bible

1. How important is the death of Jesus Christ?

 Henry Thiessen writes:

The death of Christ has a prominent place in the New Testament.  The last three days of our Lord’s earthly life occupy about one-fifth of the narratives in the four Gospels.  If all the three and a half years of his public ministry had been written out as fully as the last three days, we would have a Life of Christ of some 8,400 pages!  Torrey claims that the death of Christ is mentioned directly in the New Testament more than 175 times.  Since there are 7,959 verses in the New Testament, this would mean that one out of every 53 verses refers to this theme.

The death of Christ is the essential thing in Christianity.  Other religions base their claim to recognition on the teaching of their founders; Christianity is distinguished from all of them by the importance it assigns to the death of its Founder.  Take away the death of Christ as interpreted by the Scriptures, and you reduce Christianity to the level of the ethic religions.  Though we would still have a higher system of ethics, were we to take away the cross of Christ, we would have no more salvation than these other religions.  Napoleon said, when banished to St. Helena, that Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and he had founded mighty kingdoms on force, but that Jesus Christ had founded his on love.  This is true, if we mean love expressed in his substitutionary death.

It is of Supreme Interest in Heaven.  The death of Christ is the subject of supreme interest in heaven.  We may expect those who have gone to heaven to have a fuller and truer conception of life’s values than those who are still limited in their vision by their existence in the body.  We are told that when Moses and Elijah appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration, they conversed with Christ about the decease which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem (Luke 9:30-31).  We also find that the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders sang the song of redemption through the death of Christ (Rev. 5:8-10).  Even the multitude of angels around the throne, though not in need of redemption themselves, joined in the song of the Lamb that was slain (Rev. 5:11-12).  Since those who have the veil of human limitations completely removed from their eyes—those who have entered into the fuller fruits of redemption through the blood of Christ—extol Christ’s death above everything else, we mortals ought to study into the true meaning of that death.
(Systematic Theology, pp. 313-314)

Consider the importance of Jesus’ death as viewed from another perspective.

A. There is a total of 89 chapters in the four-fold accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

B. Of these 89 chapters, only 4 are given over in recording the first thirty years (Luke 3:23) of Jesus’ earthly life (Matt. 1, 2; Luke 1, 2).

C. Of these 89 chapters, no less than 13 describe (in detail) those events surrounding His death (Matt. 26, 27; Mark 14, 15; Luke 22, 23; John 13-19).

D. We may thus correctly conclude that, according to the space afforded it in the divine record, the death of Jesus Christ was considered more than three times as important than the first thirty years of His life!

E. Unlike any other person in history, Jesus’ greatest gift to humanity was not His life, but rather His death!  Thus, He was born in Bethlehem that He might die at Calvary.  The manger would become the door leading to the cross!

Historically speaking, He died on Friday (many believe), March 30, A.D. 33 at 3:00 P.M.

“Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost”

“And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost”

“And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost”

“When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost”

Theologically speaking, He died before the foundation of the world.

At least four New Testament passages bring this out:“According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love … In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace”

“For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God”

“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you”

(Eph. 1:4, 7). (Heb. 10:4-7).(1 Peter 1:18-20). (Matt. 27:50). (Mark 15:37). (Luke 23:46). (John 19:30).

“And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world”

(Rev. 13:8).

Stated another way, in the mind and plan of God, the last Adam was already on the cross of Calvary before the first Adam was in the Garden of Eden!