Jesus Was Born to Die
Tom Shrader walks through Genesis 3 to explain how sin entered the world and separated humanity from God, grounding the Christmas story in the need for salvation. He traces the consequences of the Fall — spiritual death, physical death, and eternal separation — and argues that no human effort can bridge the gap between a holy God and a sinful humanity. The teaching concludes with a direct appeal: Jesus was born specifically to die for sinners, and the peace people spend their lives searching for is only found through reconciliation with God.
“Jesus was born to die. That's the whole point.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Christmas
Recorded: 2001 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 36 min
Themes: sin, salvation, christmas, death, peace, forgiveness, separation from god, hope, searching for peace, feeling empty at christmas, struggling with guilt, unbeliever, new believer, spiritually lost, grieving, questioning faith
Scripture: Genesis 2:16, Genesis 2:25, Genesis 3:1-8, Genesis 4:8, Matthew 1:21, Romans 5:10, Romans 5:12, Hebrews 9:27, Luke 2:14, 2 Corinthians 5:19
Theological Themes: hamartiology, the fall, original sin, atonement, spiritual death, reconciliation, total depravity, incarnation
Full Transcript
Christmas Traditions and the Question of Christmas
I was standing back there today when they were singing "Silent Night," and there was a lady in the second-to-last pew who, when they started singing, just began to weep. My sense was she was going through what I go through when I hear those songs — that flood of memories, some of them good and some of them bad. Some of them are dreams and some of them are nightmares. Maybe that's the way we have to say it.
And then there are traditions. Everybody has gifts and all those kinds of things, but there are also unique traditions. At our house, my mother always made oyster stew, and it was just awful. Other than my mom eating an obligatory bowl every year, I don't remember anyone else ever tasting it. But I was thinking the other day that I now know what my mom was doing — she was trying to grab something from the past and let it still live. She didn't want it to get away from her.
We have a tradition at our house in the way we decorate the inside. We have two Christmas trees. One is in the family room, and that is the tree where we hang all the ornaments — baby's first Christmas, one from Nantucket, something from Anchorage, just stuff from everywhere. It's a great tree with lots of stuff, and there's a little box the girls made years ago as a gift stuck under it. Then in the living room, we have a tree that's not an ornament tree but is ornamental — absolutely beautiful. To sit in our living room tonight with all the light is so peaceful, so quiet.
Around that tree, there is a space that spans probably from here over to those poinsettias — one giant village. It started with just a couple of houses and a little church, circa 1875 to 1900, and Sarah is responsible for it every year. You've got the whole town — the ice skating rink, horses and cows, little bales of hay.
About four or five years ago, I was on vacation and went into a Christmas store. I thought it would be great to bring a gift for the village, something they'd never expect from me. So I looked all over and found a Starbucks. I thought that was great — though I wasn't thinking clearly, because they didn't have Starbucks back then. I also brought a Coca-Cola truck with some guy delivering Coke. They let me know quickly that this was totally inappropriate for their village. That sort of thing was for the other side of the tracks.
The Rebel Village
So here is what we did. We started, four years ago, what we call at our house Rebel Village. When you come into the room, one side looks like Martha Stewart. The other side is my village. They've got snow; mine has a green cloth like grass. You can buy all of these pieces, and the Rebel Village has a McDonald's, a Starbucks, a Harley-Davidson shop, a Ford dealership with a '65 Mustang spinning around in it, a movie theater, Rosarito's Mexican restaurant, and a garage sale. I've got pink flamingos and palm trees. It needs a Motel 6 — that's what it's lacking.
People come in and, you know what they do? They make a courtesy stop at the Martha Stewart Village, but they love to see Rebel Village. It has become a big thing. Through the years, the girls would get me a piece every year for Rebel Village. So you've got traditions like that, and there are things we associate — and things we disassociate — with Christmas.
Jesus Is the Reason for the Season
There was a saying that popped up — it seems to me maybe fifteen years ago, give or take — a phrase that captured everyone's imagination and attention for a while: "Jesus is the reason for the season." It was everywhere. It was on pins, on cards, on bumper stickers. I'm kind of a contrarian, so when something becomes popular, unless I thought it up, I don't like it. But you know what I did notice about it? That phrase opened up, if you took advantage of it, a lot of opportunities to talk to people. When you start talking about Jesus being the reason for the season, it prompts a couple of questions.
Here is the first question: What does this mean? Is it just a clever phrase? "Jesus is the reason for the season" kind of rhymes, it fits, and it's a good marketing scheme — but what does it actually mean? We know what it means to us. It's the Christmas story, the story we looked at last week: Mary and Joseph engaged, Mary becomes pregnant by the Holy Spirit, the angel appears to Joseph and to Mary and says, don't be afraid, hang in there, that conception is from the Holy Spirit, and you'll have this Son, and He will save His people from their sin.
That is the Christmas story. And when you are listening to that story, a second question comes to mind: Why was Jesus born? Over the years there have been billions and billions of births, but this one birth seems different from all the others. We may mark someone's birthplace, but rarely do we mark their birth date. And no birth has ever caused the excitement and celebration that this birth does. Why? Why is this birth so important?
The Answer in Matthew 1:21
The answer is in the passage we looked at last week. In Matthew chapter 1, verse 21, the angel has appeared to Joseph, and —
The Purpose Statement of Jesus' Life
The angel said, "Do not be afraid." It was conceived in Mary by the Holy Spirit, and then the angel said, "Mary will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins." There is the purpose statement for Jesus' life. Maybe you work for a large company. One of the things they try to do is get everybody on the same page, get everybody thinking the same way, so they will come up with a mission statement or a purpose statement, and that becomes the defining thing for the corporation. We take all of the core values, all of our goals, all of our strategic planning, and we lay it against the purpose statement.
Here is the purpose statement of Jesus' life: to save His people from their sins. Did He do other things in His life? Sure He did, but they were all subjected to this one overriding issue. As you read through the Gospels, you see it. Within just a short period of time of Jesus introducing His public ministry, Jesus begins to prepare His disciples for the trip to Jerusalem to die. He said, "I must go and die." Why? Because that is why He was born. "For God so loved the world" — how did He prove His love? "That He gave His only begotten Son." Jesus was born to die. Why? To save His people from their sin.
Why We Must Talk About Sin
That word *save*, at least to me, communicates that I am in jeopardy. That is what I want to talk about. I want to talk about sin. It is a word that in many churches — and I mean this — it has been banished, or at least it is something they do not talk about much anymore. The idea there is that the term is a little antiquated and even alienates people. But I think if we do not use that word *sin* — the idea of missing the mark — we miss what God is saying to us.
I want you to open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 3. We are going to try to provide answers to a lot of questions. We are going to talk about sin and its coming into the world. But before we do that, we want to try to explain how the world got into the condition it is in. Why is the world this way? Here is what some of you may ask: why would a God of love, a God who cares, create a world where babies die, where people get sick, where there is suffering and pain and torment? The answer is — He did not. He did not create the world that way. The explanation lies in Genesis chapter 3.
Genesis 3: The Most Important Passage in Human History
Ray Stedman wrote this: "In many ways Genesis 3 is the most important piece of information ever conveyed to man. Here is the ultimate explanation for the tensions and conflicts that are constantly flaring up around the world. Here is the explanation for over a hundred centuries of human heartache and misery, torture, blood, sweat, and tears. Here is the reason for the powerful fascination that drugs hold for young people, or the passion for power, or the lure of wealth and enticement of forbidden sex — the only reasonable answer for the existence of all these things in the world today." When you sit and ask how the world got into the shape it is in, Genesis 3 explains it.
Imagine this book without Genesis chapter 3. Look at how Genesis chapter 2 ends. Man — Adam — and woman — Eve — have been created, and Genesis 2:25 tells us, "The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed." Then we go to Genesis chapter 4, and now there is Cain and Abel, and verse 8 says, "It came about when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him." So here we are in Genesis 2 with peace, harmony, and love, and in Genesis 4 we have strife, anger, and murder. What in the world happened? The answer is Genesis 3.
I believe — and I speak from my own experience — that when you grasp and understand Genesis chapter 3, you will understand yourself, you will understand mankind, and you will understand the world you live in. Genesis 3 is the key because it is through Genesis 3 that sin enters the world. Here is what Paul writes in Romans chapter 5, verse 12: "Just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, in this way death came to all men because all have sinned." He is talking about one man — Adam. That is what you have in front of you in Genesis chapter 3.
The Account of the Fall Is Not a Fable
When we read the story of Adam and Eve, we do not read a fictitious account. We do not think this is some parable created for an ancient mind with limited mental capacity that needed a clever story. We believe this is the actual account of how the human race began. We believe this is the infallible, inherently true Word of God, and when you go back to figure out creation, this is how it started — man and woman, naked and in the garden.
Verse 1 of Genesis chapter 3 says, "Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the beasts of the field which the Lord God had made, and he said to the woman, 'Indeed, has God said you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?'" Now God had spoken to Adam, and Adam had obviously communicated this information to Eve. Here is what God said, a few verses back in chapter 2, verse 16: "The Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'From any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat from it you shall surely die.'"
Satan came and asked, "Did God say you could not eat from any tree?" The woman said no — "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God said you shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die." There are all sorts of points made there. Some point out that she actually changed God's word — God said not to eat it or you will die, and she added that they must not touch it either. To me, however, the emphasis is this: Satan came, and this is what he does in your life. This is what he did in her life.
Satan's Doubt and the Fall
Satan does the same thing in every case. He plants doubt. "Did God really say that? And if He did say that, what kind of God would He be? If God really loves you, if God really cared for you, Eve, why would He put any limits on you at all?" Isn't that how we see it? If we were God, why would He deny us anything we want? The answer is: for our own good. This is a test.
Before I began to read the Bible, I had heard this story and I always imagined it this way — a dry, arid land, one tree, one piece of fruit, and God saying don't eat from it. It almost seemed like a nutritional test. But nutrition is not part of this at all. It is about obedience. God said, look at all these trees. Here is an orchard. You are in paradise. There are trees everywhere. You can eat from any tree except that one over there. And the minute He said "not that one," they wanted to know which one it was.
Satan comes and tests them. He said, "Did God really say that?" Eve replied that God said if they touched it or ate from it, they would die. And Satan, with all the boldness you can imagine, says, "You surely shall not die." He directly contradicts God's Word. His claim is that God knows the day they eat from it their eyes will be opened and they will be like Him, and He does not want any competition. That is what Satan is saying.
The Three Lusts and the First Sin
Satan exits, and now there is Eve and the fruit. The woman saw that the tree was good for food — the lust of the flesh. It was a delight to the eyes — the lust of the eyes. And the tree was desirable to make one wise — the boastful pride of life. She took it, she ate it, she gave it to her husband, and he ate. Then both of their eyes were opened, they realized they were naked, and they began to cover themselves.
If you want to study abnormal behavior, here is the first instance of it in the history of mankind. Genesis chapter 3, verse 8: "They heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord." Apparently, up to this point there had been some level of communion with God — they recognized the sound of Him coming. But now He comes, and they hide. That is what sin does.
Death and Separation from God
God had said the minute they ate from it they would die. The Bible uses the idea of death in three different ways. The first is literal separation. The minute they ate from that fruit, they were dead in the sense that they were separated from God. There is a chasm between Adam and Eve and God. Sin does that.
We come into the world already in that condition. There is a beautiful little girl here tonight, Grace, almost five months old — it is hard to realize she is a sinner. But she is. She is separated from God. Death brings separation.
The second way the Bible talks about death is physical death. Hebrews 9:27: "It is appointed for man once to die, and then judgment." I was thinking about this recently — I do not think when I was a young man I ever heard of reincarnation. But I saw a poll recently showing that 33% of the American public now believes in reincarnation: that when you die, because you have not achieved perfection, you come back as a lower form of life, and then you do better, and then you rise higher. That is not what the Bible says. The Bible says it is appointed for man once to die, and then judgment.
The third way the Bible talks about death is this: if I die in that state of separation from God, I remain there forever. Spiritual death — that is what sin does. The wages of sin is death.
"Where Are You?"
God then does something strange. He says to Adam, "Where are you, Adam?" That seems odd — as if God lost track of him. He only had two people to watch at that point. But that question is not God seeking information. He is not saying, "Adam, I cannot find you." That question, like many questions we pose, is for Adam's own benefit.
Think about it this way: if someone is driving to your house and they get lost and they call you, the very first thing you ask is, "Where are you?" If I know where you are, and I know where I am, I can tell you how to get to me. That is what God is saying. "Do you understand that you are lost? I will tell you how to find Me."
I will tell you that as I sit and think about the things that frustrate me, the most frustrating thing I deal with — more than cell phones — is people who are lost and do not know it. They think they are fine. Teenagers who are lost but believe they will live forever, so it does not matter. Thirty-year-olds who are lost but still have a career, so it is fine. Fifty-year-olds who never quite outgrow it. We never really move past it on our own.
Maybe God is saying to you tonight, "Where are you?" He is calling out your name. Where are you, Brittany? Where are you, Robert? Where are you, John? Where are you, Allison? He wants you to stop. He wants you to understand that where you are and where He is are two different places. And He is here to tell you how you can find Him, because you are dead.
Religion Cannot Save You
Now maybe you are sitting there thinking, "All right, I understand I am lost — but I will take care of this myself." That is what all religion is. All religion is man trying to satisfy a holy God. The Westminster Confession of Faith says this —
God Saves Sinners
Man, by his fall into a state of sin, has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation. Natural man, being altogether adverse from good and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself or prepare himself thereunto. In other words, there is nothing you can do. You come into this world a sinner separated from God. You are on a track that begins moments after birth, where your body begins to wind down and deteriorate, and there is nothing you can do to prevent hell.
That is not a very uplifting Christmas message, is it? Well, here is the good news — three words: God saves sinners. It is nothing that you can do. It is nothing that you have to do. It is what God has done.
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit come together and choose those whom They will save. Christ dies for those, and the Holy Spirit implants in their heart a new life. He saves them, doing everything that needs to take place to rescue you from your sin and ultimately from the consequences of your sin, which means eternal separation from God. God saves sinners.
Adam, Eve, and the Evasion of Guilt
That phrase — God saves sinners — refers to people who are guilty before God. In Genesis 3, God interrogates Adam and says, "Adam, where are you?" And Adam says, "I heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid." And God said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you not to eat?" Confronted with his sin, Adam gives a very clever response: "It is the woman that You gave me. She gave me from the tree, and I ate."
The Lord then said to Eve, "What is this that you have done?" And she said, "It is the serpent that deceived me." Not my fault, God. Adam is essentially saying: I would have never eaten from that tree. I don't know why in the world You created her, because I would have been happy here all by myself. And the woman says it is not her — it is that serpent You created, God.
If you go into a prison and start working there, you will find something they all have in common: they are all innocent. They did not do it. Going in to do a Bible study, they never did it. Or if they did do it, there was always an explanation. Always a victim, never a villain. Always deprived, never depraved. We are depraved, villainous people separated from God by our sin. And the good news is God saves sinners.
Peace on Earth — What the Verse Actually Says
This time of year, Christmas cards arrive with phrases like "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men," or "peace to men of goodwill." Both of those are derivations of a verse — Luke chapter 2, verse 14 — but they do not adequately or accurately capture it. Here is what the verse actually says: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom God is pleased."
It is not peace to men of goodwill, as though possessing goodwill earns you peace. It is peace extended to those with whom He is pleased. John MacArthur writes about this verse: "It is not to be taken as a universal declaration of peace toward humanity. A better rendering here might be peace toward men on whom God's sovereign pleasure rests. God's peace is not a reward for those who have goodwill, but a gracious gift to those who are objects of His goodwill."
It is a gift — not something I earn, but something I receive. If you have peace, the peace of God, it is a peace that has been extended to you as a gift from Him.
God and Sinner Reconciled
Every year there is one phrase from the Christmas songs that I find myself returning to again and again: "God and sinner reconciled." I keep coming back to it because it captures the essence of the Christmas story. Man and God are separated by sin. Man, through all of his efforts, can never appease a holy God. But God moves, and God saves sinners. God reconciles man to Himself.
The word "reconciliation" implies a pre-existing hostile condition. If all you knew was the sentence "Russ and Tom are reconciled," the one thing you would know is that there must have been a broken relationship at some point. There cannot be reconciliation unless there has first been some break in relations. "God and sinner reconciled" implies exactly that — a broken relationship restored.
Here is some important information about that reconciliation. God reconciles Himself to us while we were yet sinners. That is what Romans 5:10 says: we are reconciled to God through the death of His Son while we were yet sinners. We are reconciled by God in Christ, by Christ's death. As 2 Corinthians 5:19 says, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their sins against them."
The byproduct of all of that is the peace we talk about. I personally believe that when you get to the heart of man, what man seems to desire more than anything else is peace.
The Search for Peace
There is some sense in which what man truly wants is satisfaction or happiness. There was a show on A&E, *American Castles*, where they featured a man with a hundred-and-twenty-thousand-square-foot house down in West Palm Beach. At the end of his life, he said, "I would have traded all this and lived in a shack if I could have had one day of happiness." I think that is what man truly wants. No man wants money for its own sake. He wants money because he thinks it will make him happy, or allow him to get the things that will make him happy.
We are desperately searching for peace. It starts off as little things and grows as we get older. When we are younger, it is just having the right shoes, then the right clothes, then the right friends. If I can just get the right set of friends, everything will be okay.
Then it becomes: if I can just get him to ask me to the prom, or get her to go on a date with me, or get into that college — if I can just get into that college, everything will be okay. If I can get into the right fraternity, or that sorority, I will be happy. If I can just find the right person and marry them, and have a couple of kids — two would be just right.
And then: if we could just have this house, if I could get into that industry, and not just that industry but that one company, and not just in the company but in management — not just a manager, but *the* manager. If I can just get there, I will be happy. That is what we keep telling ourselves. We are grabbing for all this, and there is never any satisfaction, never any moment where I can truly take a breath. There may be a moment where I think, "This is great," but then it wears off.
Peace With God vs. the Peace of God
The reason is that we have the two things reversed. We want the peace of God, but we do not want peace with God. I am never going to have the peace of God until I have peace with God. If you are at war with God — if you are not a Christian — you are separated from Him. That is why you are miserable. It is not because you married the wrong person, or because you are living in the wrong house. It is because you are at war with God. Nothing, no one, no place, no job is ever going to make you happy.
Jesus Was Born to Die
Every year I close one of these services with this story, and I love it. Here is the side of the Christmas story that is not often told. Those soft little hands, fashioned by the Holy Spirit in Mary's womb, were made so that nails might be driven through them. Those baby's feet, pink and unable to walk, would one day walk up a dusty hill to be nailed to a cross. That sweet infant's head, with sparkling eyes and an eager mouth, was formed so that someday men might force a crown of thorns onto it. That tender body, warm and soft, wrapped in swaddling clothes, would one day be ripped open by a spear. The whole Christmas story is captured in the last sentence: Jesus was born to die. That is the whole point.
A Direct Word to Those Who Are Not Christians
Let me take a moment and be very direct. There is a group of you here tonight who we do not regularly see. Maybe you are here because you are from out of town and staying with people, and church is their thing, so it has to be your thing for a couple of days. It may be that you have a spouse who has been gently persuading you all year, so you are throwing them a bone at Christmas. It may be you are here with a friend or a neighbor.
Let me explain their motive, because they have been after you. They have been giving you tapes to listen to and books to read. Do you know why? They want you to understand this message and believe it, because they know the truth of it — and the truth is that right now you are not a Christian, and if you die in that condition, you will spend eternity in hell.
A while ago, about three or four months ago, I had a visit from a little old lady, eighty-five years old. I did not know why she wanted to meet, but she wanted to go through her funeral arrangements — here are the songs, here are the details. I said, "Anything else?" She said, "Yes." She was very clear: "I want you to tell my kids, because I am a Christian and I have a couple of children who are not. They think they are going to see me in heaven, and I want you to tell them they are not going to see me in heaven. They are going to hell. Tell them that." I said it might carry more weight if I could quote her. She said, "That's fine. I tell them that all the time."
Her motivation is absolutely love. I cannot fathom what it would be like to be the parent of a child you love — whether they are thirteen or thirty-three — and know in your heart that they are not going to heaven. To have a sick child would be hard enough. But to know your child is not going to heaven — that has to be a killer. I honestly do not know how I would live with that.
So if someone is nagging you — if you are a child and your parents are on you about this, if you are a spouse and your partner keeps pressing you — their motivation is love. And so is ours. If you did not take communion tonight, by your own admission you are not a Christian, and we want you to understand what that means.
Jesus Was Born to Die
We love the opportunity to put one of these booklets in your hand. There will be a couple of guys after the service standing up here, and they would love to talk to you and explain what it means to be a Christian. It will take just a couple of minutes. If you want, you can meet with them, or trade information so you can get together at another time. But especially today and tomorrow, we want to keep this message very much in front of you.
It is really our prayer — and I know the power of this word, but I mean it — we beg you to come and listen to this truth that God has for you.
Closing Prayer
Father, we pray Your Spirit would work in people's hearts, that they would talk to the person that brought them, that they would come and pick up this pamphlet. God, they come with questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? And those answers are here in this book.
God, I pray that You would move people's hearts. In this season, when we seem so open to spiritual things, I pray that You would get us through all that maze of garbage that is out there and focus us on the truth of Your Word. God, that is our prayer.
We pray especially for those who are here tonight and are not Christians. We pray that You would soften their hearts, and that this might be the greatest Christmas they have ever experienced — because it will be the first one they really understand the birth of Your Son. God, move them. We ask that in Jesus' name, amen.
Have a great night. We will see you tomorrow at noon.