This series of articles is derived from John Piper’s “The Passion of Jesus Christ: Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die”. Here John discusses why Jesus’ death was so important. The following articles are but a few of the fifty reasons he gives behind the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The main goal of this series is to answer an important question: Why did Jesus suffer and die?

Why did Jesus die?

To Absorb the Wrath of God
To Please God the Father
To Show His Love for Us
A Ransom for Many
The Forgiveness of Sins
To Provide the Basis for Our Justification
To Heal Us from Moral and Physical Sickness
To Give a Clear Conscience
To Give Eternal Life to All who Believe on Him
So We Might Belong to Him
To Give Us Confident Access to the Holiest Place
To Bring the Old Testament Priesthood to an End
To Free Us from the Slavery of Sin
So That He Would Be Crowned with Glory and Honor
To Show that the Worst Evil is meant by God for Good

Read the book: “The Passion of Jesus Christ: Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die”

This article is part of an extended series.

We have now been justified by his blood. - Romans 5:9

[We] are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. - Romans 3:24

We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. - Romans 3:28

Justified or forgiven?

Being justified before God and being forgiven by God are not identical. To be justified in a courtroom is not the same as being forgiven.  Being forgiven implies that I am guilty and my crime is not counted.  Being justified implies that I have been tried and found innocent.  My claim is just.  I am vindicated.  The judge says, “not guilty.”

Justifying is a legal act.  It means declaring someone to be just.  It is a verdict.  The verdict of justification does not make a person just.  It declares a person just. It is based on someone actually being just.  We can see this most clearly when the Bible tells us that, in response to Jesus’ teaching, the people “justified” God (Luke 7:29).  This does not mean they made God just  (since he already was).  It means they declared God to be just.

The moral change we undergo when we trust Christ is not justification. The Bible usually calls that sanctification – the process of becoming good.   Justification is not that process.  It is not process at all.  It is a declaration that happens in a moment.  A verdict:  Just!  Righteous!

Keeping the law?

The ordinary way to be justified in a human court is to keep the law.  In that case the jury and the judge simply declare what is true of you:  You kept the law.  They justify you.  But in the courtroom of God, we have not kept the law.  Therefore, justification, on ordinary terms, is hopeless.  The Bible even says, “He who justifies the wicked [is] an abomination to the LORD”  (Proverbs 17:15).  And yet, amazingly, because of Christ, it also says God “justifies the ungodly” who trust in his grace (Romans 4:5).  God does what looks abominable.

Why is it not abominable?  Or, as the Bible puts it, how can God “be just and the justifier of the one who [simply!] has faith in Jesus”  (Romans 3:26).  It is not abominable for God to justify the ungodly who trust him, for two reasons. One is that Christ shed his blood to cancel the guilt of our crime. So it says, “We have now been justified by his blood”  (Romans 5:9).

But that is only the removal of guilt.  That does not declare us righteous.  Canceling our failures to keep the law is not the same as declaring us to be a law-keeper.  When a teacher cancels from the record an exam that got an F, it’s not the same as declaring it an A.  If the bank were to forgive me the debts on my account, that would not be the same as declaring me rich.  So also, canceling our sins is not the same as declaring us righteous.  The cancellation must happen.  That is essential to justification.  But there is more.  There is another reason why it is not abominable for God to justify the ungodly by faith.  For that we turn to the next chapter.

John Piper, “The Passion of Jesus Christ:  Fifty Reasons Why He Came to Die”  (Wheaton, Illinois:  Crossway Books, 2004) Reason #10.  Used by Permission.

This article is part of an extended series.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. - Isaiah 53:5

[He]  healed all who were sick.  This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah:  “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.” - Matthew 8:16-17

Christ suffered and died so that disease would one day be utterly destroyed. Disease and death were not part of God’s original way with the world.  They came in with sin as part of God’s judgment on creation.  The Bible says, “The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope”  (Romans 8:20).  God subjected the world to the futility of physical pain to show the horror of moral evil.

This futility included death.  “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin”  (Romans 5:12).  It included all the groaning of disease.  And Christians are not excluded:  “Not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit [that is, those who trust Christ], groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies”  (Romans 8:23).

But all this misery of disease is temporary. We look forward to a time when bodily pain will be no more.  The subjection of creation to futility was not permanent.  From the very beginning of his judgment, the Bible says God aimed at hope.  His final purpose was this:  “that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage and decay and obtain the freedom of glory of the children of God”  (Romans 8:21).

When Christ came into the world, he was on a mission to accomplish this global redemption.  He signaled his purposes by healing many people during his lifetime.  There were occasions when crowds gathered and he “healed all who were sick”  (Matthew 8:16; Luke 6:19).  This was a preview of what was coming at the end of history when “he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore”  (Revelation 21:4).

The way Christ defeated death and disease was by taking them on himself and carrying them with him to the grave. God’s judgment on the sin that brought disease was endured by Jesus when he suffered and died.  The prophet Isaiah explained the death of Christ with these words:  “He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed”  (Isaiah 53:5).  The horrible blows to the back of Jesus bought a world without disease.

One day all disease will be banished from God’s redeemed creation. There will be a new earth.  We will have new bodies.  Death will be swallowed up by everlasting life  (1 Corinthians 15:54; 2 Corinthians 5:4).  “The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like an ox”  (Isaiah 65:25).  And all who love Christ will sing songs of thanks to the Lamb who was slain to redeem us from sin and death and disease.

John Piper, “The Passion of Jesus Christ:  Fifty Reasons Why He Came to Die”  (Wheaton, Illinois:  Crossway Books, 2004) Reason #18.  Used by Permission.

This article is part of an extended series.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. - Revelation 1:5-6

Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. - Hebrews 13:12

Our sin ruins us in two ways.

1. It makes us guilty before God, so that we are under his just condemnation; and
2. It makes us ugly in our behavior, so that we disfigure the image of God we were meant to display.

It damns us with guilt, and it enslaves us to lovelessness.

The blood of Jesus frees us from both miseries. It satisfies God’s righteousness so that our sins can be justly forgiven.  And it defeats the power of sin to make us slaves to lovelessness. We have seen how Christ absorbs the wrath of God and takes way our guilt.  But now how does the blood of Christ liberate us from the slavery of sin?

The answer is not that he is a powerful example to us and inspires us to free ourselves from selfishness.  Oh, yes, Jesus is an example to us.  And a very powerful one.  He clearly meant for us to imitate him:  “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another:  just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another”  (John 13:34).  But the call to imitation is not the power of liberation.  There is something deeper.

Sin is such a powerful influence in our lives that we must be liberated by God’s power, not by our willpower.  But since we are sinners we must ask, Is the power of God directed toward our liberation or our condemnation?  That’s where the suffering of Christ comes in.  When Christ died to remove our condemnation, he opened, as it were, the valve of heaven’s mighty mercy to flow on behalf of our liberation from the power of sin.

In other words, rescue from the guilt of sin and the wrath of God had to precede rescue from the power of sin by the mercy of God.  The crucial biblical words for saying this are:  Justification precedes and secures sanctification.  They are different.  One is an instantaneous declaration  (not guilty!); the other is an ongoing transformation.

Now, for those who are trusting Christ, the power of God is not in the service of his condemning wrath, but his liberating mercy.  God gives us this power for change through the person of his Holy Spirit. That is why the beauty of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control are called “the fruit of the Spirit”  (Galatians 5:22-23).  This is why the Bible can make the amazing promise:  “Sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace”   (Romans 6:14).

Being “under grace” secures the omnipotent power of God to destroy our lovelessness (not all at once, but progressively).  We are not passive in the defeat of our selfishness, but neither do we provide the decisive power.  It is God’s grace.  Hence the great apostle Paul said, “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me”  (1 Corinthians 15:10).  May the God of all grace, by faith in Christ, free us from both the guilt and slavery of sin.

John Piper, “The Passion of Jesus Christ:  Fifty Reasons Why He Came to Die”  (Wheaton, Illinois:  Crossway Books, 2004) Reason #29.  Used by Permission.

This article is part of an extended series.

How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. - Hebrews 9:14

Dirty conscience

Some things never change.  The problem of a dirty conscience is as old as Adam and Eve.  As soon as they sinned, their conscience was defiled.  Their sense of guilt was ruinous.  It ruined their relationship with God – they hid from him.  It ruined their relationship to each other – they blamed.  It ruined their peace with themselves – for the first time they saw themselves and felt shame.

All through the Old Testament, conscience was an issue.  But the animal sacrifices themselves could not cleanse the conscience.  “Gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation”  (Hebrews 9:9-10).  As a foreshadowing of Christ, God counted the blood of the animals as sufficient for cleansing the flesh – the ceremonial uncleanness, but not the conscience.

No animal blood could cleanse the conscience.  They knew it  (see Isaiah 53 and Psalm 51).  And we know it.  So a new high priest comes – Jesus the Son of God – with a better sacrifice:  himself.    “How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God”  (Hebrews 9:14).  The animal sacrifices foreshadowed the final sacrifice of God’s Son, and the death of the Son reaches back to cover all the sins of God’s people in the old time period, and forward to cover all the sins of God’s people in the new time period.

Cleansing the conscience

So here we are in the modern age – the age of science, Internet, organ transplants, instant messaging, cell phones – and our problem is fundamentally the same as always:  Our conscience condemns us.  We don’t feel good enough to come to God.  And no matter how distorted our consciences are, this much is true:  We are not good enough to come to him.

We can cut ourselves, or throw our children in the scared river, or give a million dollars to the United Way, or serve in a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving, or perform a hundred forms of penance and self-injury, and the result will be the same:  The stain remains, and death terrifies.  We know that our conscience is defiled – not with eternal things like touching a corpse or eating a piece of pork.  Jesus said it is what comes out of a person that defiles, not what goes in  (Mark 7:15-23).  We are defiled by pride and self-pity and bitterness and lust and envy and jealousy and covetousness and apathy and fear – and the actions they breed.  These are all “dead works.”  They have no spiritual life in them.  They don’t come from new life; they come from death, and they lead to death.  That is why they make us feel hopeless in our consciences.

The only answer is these modern times, as in all other times, is the blood of Christ. When our conscience rises up and condemns us, where will we turn?  We turn to Christ.  We turn to the suffering and death of Christ – the blood of Christ.  This is the only cleansing agent in the universe that can give the conscience relief in life and peace in death.

John Piper, “The Passion of Jesus Christ:  Fifty Reasons Why He Came to Die”  (Wheaton, Illinois:  Crossway Books, 2004) Reason #16.  Used by Permission. 

This article is part of an extended series.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. - John 3:16

In our happiest times we do not want to die. The wish for death rises only when our suffering seems unbearable.  What we really want in those times is not death, but relief.  We would love for the good times to come again.  We would like the pain to go away.  We would like to have our loved one back from the grave.  We want life and happiness.

We are kidding ourselves when we romanticize death as the climax of a life well lived.  It is an enemy.  It cuts us off from al the wonderful pleasures of this world.  We call death sweet names only as the lesser of evils.  The executioner that delivers the coup de grace in our suffering is not the fulfillment of longing, but the end of hope.  The longing of the human heart is to live and to be happy.

God made us that way.  “He has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).  We are created in God’s image, and God loves life and lives forever.  We were made to live forever.  And we will.  The opposite of eternal life is not annihilation.  It is hell.  Jesus spoke of it more than anybody, and he made plain that rejecting the eternal life he offered would result not in obliteration, but in the misery of God’s wrath:  “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him”  (John 3:36).

And it remains forever.  Jesus said, “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life”  (Matthew 25:46).  This is an unspeakable reality that shows the infinite evil of treating God with indifference or contempt.  So Jesus warns, “If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out.  It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched’”  (Mark 9:47-48).

So eternal life is not merely the extension of this life with its mix of pain and pleasure.  As hell is the worst outcome of this life, so “eternal life” is the best.  It is supreme and ever-increasing happiness where all sin and all sadness will be gone. All that is evil and harmful in this fallen creation will be removed.  All that is good – all that will bring true and lasting happiness – will be preserved and purified and intensified.

We will be changed so that we are capable of dimensions of happiness that were inconceivable to us in this life.  “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined . . . God has prepared for those who love him”  (1 Corinthians 2:9).  It is true every moment of life, now and always:  For those who trust Christ the best is yet to come.  We will see the all-satisfying glory of God.  “This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”  (John 17:3).  For this Christ suffered and died.  Why would we not embrace him as our treasure, and live?

John Piper, “The Passion of Jesus Christ:  Fifty Reasons Why He Came to Die”  (Wheaton, Illinois:  Crossway Books, 2004) Reason #19.  Used by Permission. 

This article is part of an extended series.

We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus. - Hebrews 10:19

One of the great mysteries in the Old Testament was the meaning of the worship tent used by Israel called the “tabernacle.” The mystery was hinted at but not clear.  When the people of Israel came out of Egypt and arrived at Mount Sinai, God gave detailed instructions to Moses about how to build this mobile tent of worship with all its parts and furnishings.  The mysterious thing about it was this command:  “See that you make them after the pattern for the, which is being shown you on the mountain”  (Exodus 25:40).

When Christ came into the world 1, 400 years later, it was more fully revealed that this “pattern” for the old tabernacle was a “copy” or a “shadow” of realities in heaven.  The tabernacle was an earthly figure of a heavenly reality.  So in the New Testament we read this:   “[The priests] serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.  For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, ‘See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain’”  (Hebrews 8:5).

So all the worship practices of Israel in the Old Testament point toward something more real. Just as there were holy rooms in the tabernacle, where the priest repeatedly took the blood of the animal sacrifices and met with God, so there were infinitely superior “holy places,” as it were, in heaven, where Christ entered with his own blood, not repeatedly, but once for all.

When Christ appeared as a high priest . . . through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.  (Hebrews 9:11-12)

The implication of this for us is that the way is now opened for us to go with Christ into all the holiest places of God’s presence. Formerly only the Jewish priests could go into the “copy” and “shadow” of these places.  Only the high priest could go once a year into the most holy place where the glory of God appeared  (Hebrews 9:7).  There was a forbidding curtain protecting the place of glory.  The bible tells us that when Christ breathed his last on the cross, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.  And the earth shook, and the rocks were split”  (Matthew 27:51).

What did that mean?  The interpretation is given in these words:  “We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh”  (Hebrews 10:19-20).  Without Christ the holiness of God had to be protected from us.  He would have been dishonored, and we would have been consumed because of our sin.  But now, because of Christ, we may come near and feast our hearts on the fullness of the flaming beauty of God’s holiness. He will not be dishonored.  We will not be consumed.  Because of the all-protecting Christ, God will be honored, and we will stand in everlasting awe.  Therefore, do not fear to come.  But come through Christ.

John Piper, “The Passion of Jesus Christ:  Fifty Reasons Why He Came to Die”  (Wheaton, Illinois:  Crossway Books, 2004) Reason #24.  Used by Permission.

This article is part of an extended series.

You also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead. - Romans 7:4

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. - 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. - Acts 20:28

The ultimate question is not who you are but whose you are.

Of course, many people think they are nobody’s slave.  They dream of total independence.  Like a jellyfish carried by the tides feels free because it isn’t fastened down with the bondage of barnacles.

But Jesus had a word for people who thought that way.  He said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  But they responded, “We . . . have never been enslaved to anyone.  How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”  So Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sins is a slave to sin”  (John 8:32-34).

The Bible gives no reality to fallen humans who are ultimately self-determining. There is no autonomy in the fallen world.  We are governed by sin or governed by God.  “You are slaves of the one whom you obey. . . .  When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. . . . But now . . . you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God”  (Romans 6:16, 20, 22).

Most of the time we are free to do what we want. But we are not free to want what we ought.  For that we need a new power based on a divine purchase.  The power is God’s.  Which is why the Bible says,  “Thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart:  (Romans 6:17).  God is the one who may “grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will”  (2 Timothy 2:25-26).

And the purchase that unleashes this power is the death of Christ.  “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price”  (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).  And what price did Christ pay for those who trust him?  “He obtained [them] with his own blood”  (Acts 20:28).

Now we are free indeed.  Not to be autonomous, but to want what is good.  A whole new way of life opens to us when the death of Christ becomes the death of our old self. Relationship with the living Christ replaces rules.  And the freedom of fruit-bearing replaces the bondage of the law.  “You also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God”  (Romans 7:4).

Christ suffered and died that we might be set free from law and sin and belong to him. Here is where obedience ceases to be a burden and becomes the freedom of fruit-bearing.  Remember, you are not your own.  Whose will you be?  If Christ’s, then come and belong.

John Piper, “The Passion of Jesus Christ:  Fifty Reasons Why He Came to Die”  (Wheaton, Illinois:  Crossway Books, 2004) Reason #23.  Used by Permission.

This article is part of an extended series.

But we see . . . Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death. - Hebrews 2:9

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore God has highly exhalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. - Philippians 2:7-9

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing! - Revelation 5:12

The night before he died, knowing what was coming, Jesus prayed, “Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed”  (John 17:5).  And so it came to pass:  He was “crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death”  (Hebrews 2:9).  His glory was the reward of his suffering.  He was “obedient to the point of death. . . .  Therefore God has highly exalted him”  (Philippians 2:8-9).  Precisely because he was slain, the Lamb is “worthy . . . to receive . . . honor and glory”  (Revelation 5:12).  The passion of Jesus Christ did not merely precede the crown; it was the price, and the crown was the prize.  He died to have it.

Many people stumble at this point. They say, “How can this be loving?  How can Jesus be motivated to give us joy if he is motivated to get his glory? Since when is vanity a virtue?”  That is a good question, and it has a wonderful biblical answer.

The answer lies in learning what great love really is.  Most of us have grown up thinking that being loved means being made much of.  Our whole world seems to be built on this assumption.  If I love you, I make much of you.  I help you feel good about yourself.  It is as though a sight of the self is the secret of joy.

But we know better.  Even before we come to the Bible, we know this is not so.  Our happiest moments have not been self-saturated moments, but self-forgetful moments. There have been times when we stood beside the Grand Canyon, or at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, or viewed a stunning sunset over the Sahara, and for a fleeting moment felt the joy of sheer wonder.  This is what we were made for.  Paradise will not be a hall of mirrors.  It will be a display of majesty.  And it won’t be ours.

His glory and love

If this is true, and if Christ is the most majestic reality in the universe, then what must his love to us be?  Surely not making much of us.  That would not satisfy our souls.  We were made for something much greater.  If we are to be as happy as we can be, we must see and savor the most glorious person of all, Jesus Christ himself. This means that to love us, Jesus must seek the fullness of his glory and offer it to us for our enjoyment.  That is why he prayed, the night before he died, “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory”  (John 17:24).  That was love.  “I will show them my glory.”  When Jesus died to regain the fullness of his glory, he died for our joy.  Love is the labor – whatever the cost – of helping people be enthralled with what will satisfy them most, namely, Jesus Christ.  That is how Jesus loves.

John Piper, “The Passion of Jesus Christ:  Fifty Reasons Why He Came to Die”  (Wheaton, Illinois:  Crossway Books, 2004) Reason #49.  Used by Permission.

This article is part of an extended series.

The former priests . . . were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever.  Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. . . . He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. - Hebrews 9:24-26

For Christ has entered . . . into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.  Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world.  But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. - Hebrews 9:24-26

Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.  But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. - Hebrews 10:11-12

One of the greatest phrases of Christian truth is “once for all.”

It comes from one Greek word (ephapax) and means “once for all time.”  It means that something happened that was decisive.  The act accomplished so much that it need never be repeated.  Any effort to repeat it would discredit the achievement that happened “once for all.”

It was a gloomy reality year after year that the priests in Israel had to offer animal sacrifices for their own sins and the sins of the people.  I don’t mean thee was no forgiveness.  God appointed these sacrifices for the relief of his people.  They sinned and needed a substitute to bear their punishment.  It was mercy that God accepted the ministry of sinful priests and substitute animals.

But there was a dark side to it.  It had to be done over and over.  The Bible says, “In these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin every year”  (Hebrews 10:3).  The people knew that when they laid their hands on the head of a bull to transfer their sins to the animal, it would all have to be done again.  No animal could suffice to suffer for human sins.  Sinful priests had to sacrifice for their own sins.  Mortal priests had to be replaced.  Bulls and goats had no moral life and could not bear the guilt of man.  “It was impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins”  (Hebrews 10:4).

But there was a silver lining around this cloud of priestly insufficiency.  If God honored these inadequate things, it must mean that one day he would send a servant qualified to complete what these priests could not perform – to put away sin once for all.

That’s who Jesus Christ is.  He became the final Priest and the final Sacrifice. Sinless, he did not offer sacrifices for himself.  Immortal, he never has to be replaced.  Human, he could bear human sins.  Therefore he did not offer sacrifices for himself; he offered himself as the final sacrifice.  There will never be the need for another.  There is one mediator between us and God.  One priest.  We need no other.   Oh, how happy are those who draw near to God through Christ alone.

John Piper, “The Passion of Jesus Christ:  Fifty Reasons Why He Came to Die”  (Wheaton, Illinois:  Crossway Books, 2004) Reason#26.  Used by Permission.