Easter 2004
Tom Shrader tackles the Easter question of why Jesus had to die, drawing from 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 to show that Christ died specifically for human sin and rose bodily from the dead. He argues that every person is separated from God by sin and that no amount of religious effort can bridge that gap, because God demands a perfection only Christ could provide. Shrader calls those with questions to trust the overwhelming historical and scriptural evidence for the resurrection and to come to Christ in repentance and faith rather than exhausting themselves in religion.
“The tomb is empty. He rose from the dead. If that's true, do you see that Jesus is different than everyone else?”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Easter
Recorded: 2004 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 1 hr 19 min
Themes: resurrection, sin, forgiveness, easter, salvation, repentance, faith, hope, searching for truth, skeptic, questioning faith, not yet a believer, spiritually lost, exhausted by religion, young adult, seeker
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, John 17, Acts 2, 1 John 1:1, John 14:6
Theological Themes: atonement, substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection, justification, human depravity, total depravity, soteriology, saving faith
Full Transcript
Setting the Stage
My job today is made easier by what is going on in the world. I read in the newspaper, saw on the television, and heard on the radio that Jesus is hot, that He is selling. Coffee mugs, caps, keychains, silver spikes. I have not been to the mall in the last four or five trips where I did not see that magnificent T-shirt: Jesus is my homeboy. I have friends who want to argue about that — is this valuable, what does it mean? You can figure that out. I do not care particularly.
Let me show you the cover of Time Magazine for this week, dated April 12, 2004. All of a sudden the media — and I think probably Mel Gibson deserves some credit here, thirty million people have seen that movie — and it seems like everybody is talking about it. Time Magazine asks the question: why did Jesus have to die? When you get inside the magazine, they ask a slightly different question: why did Jesus die? Those are two different questions, though very similar. I have fifteen minutes to tackle both of them. I know volumes are written on this subject, but we can work through it and answer it. Why did Jesus have to die? That is an important question for you to be able to answer.
Who Is in the Room Today
I come from a commercial real estate background, and in real estate we had this persistent little requirement called full disclosure. It was a demanding thing — it meant you had to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It always got in the way, turning what could have been a great deal into just a good deal. In the spirit of full disclosure, let me tell you exactly who I am talking to this afternoon.
Some of you we see virtually every week. You are already trained — you know that typically every week we go chapter by chapter, verse by verse through Scripture, and this week you do not even have a Bible with you because of that. You are people who have come to the point in your life where you understand who Jesus Christ is, you have responded to that, you have acknowledged your sin and acknowledged Him as Lord and Savior. Your life has been transformed by God's indwelling Holy Spirit. I am glad you are here — I can sense gratitude, thanksgiving, and praise in your life — but you are not the target audience today.
I want to talk to the rest of you. Maybe you come on a regular basis but you would not call yourself a believer. You have some questions, some issues, things you are trying to work through. I want to talk to you. Maybe you are here and you are antagonistic — you resent the fact that you are here, and the only reason you came is that annual or semi-annual bone you throw to your mom, your dad, or your spouse. You are excited this is only an hour and that forty-one minutes of it are already gone. I am glad you are here. You do not scare me a bit, and I want to talk to you. Maybe you are ambivalent — a religious or spiritual person for whom Christianity is not your thing, but you would describe yourself as spiritual. I am here to talk to you as well.
The Cosmic Question
Now when you get into the Time article, about two or three paragraphs in, the author writes this: why did Jesus die? That is not a question about who on earth killed Him, or even exactly how much He suffered. That question has taken up a great deal of time and really distracted from the deeper issue — the anti-Semitism debate, who did this. It does not matter. The real question is: what was the cosmic reason for His agony? What is its purpose? The article uses a great phrase for this — divine calculus.
If we try to answer the question "why did Jesus die" using only human reasoning, we get stuck. We come up with answers like this: He was a radical, and if you are on the wrong side of a conflict with the ruling powers, you get killed — so He was simply a political prisoner. Or we say that God is a God of love who wants to give us a role model, to show us what real love looks like. It is one thing to live for somebody, but it is a whole other thing to die for somebody, so the cross is really about nothing more than a beautiful picture of unconditional love.
What Scripture Says
But we have a different source. You and I do not have to go over to Starbucks and try to figure this out on our own. We do not have to wonder, guess, or speculate. Scripture, the infallible Word of God, gives us the answer. It is 1 Corinthians 15:3: "Christ died for our sins." That is very simple. When you want to know why Jesus died, there it is — you do not need anything else. He died for a specific purpose.
The Old Testament speaks of the Messiah who is coming. Jesus comes and dies according to the Scripture. The angel appeared to Joseph and said that Mary would have a son, and that Joseph was to name Him Jesus, because He was coming to save His people from their sins. Jesus died on the cross for exactly that reason, and it really is as simple as that.
Why Did He Have to Die?
Now I want to go back to the other question — the cover question: why did Jesus have to die?
The Universal Problem of Sin
Romans chapter 3 verse 23 says this: "All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Do you see who Paul is talking about in Romans 3? He's talking about you — every person that's ever lived. All of us have sinned. There is no exception to that. And I think that's pretty easy to prove. Nobody's perfect. Everybody's flawed. And what you and I call flaws, or something less than perfection, God calls sin. Everybody has sinned.
Now you and I don't like that. We have a tendency to minimize it. Even when we make statements that aren't exactly true, we're uncomfortable with them, so we'll call them little white lies — it's not that big a deal, no one really got hurt too bad. Isn't that the way we respond to sin? We always have a view of our sin that is far less than God's view.
This morning I came up with this idea: we have a disease called finiteness. We're finite. I can't see around the corner, I can't see tomorrow, I don't know what's going to happen. What you and I need is not our own view, or just some other finite human being's view — we need God's view. That's why the Bible, that infallible Word of God, is so important: it allows us to see our life as God sees it. It's an accurate mirror.
We Minimize Our Own Sin
We want to dismiss our sin. Say I'm driving down the 101 going 80, speed limit 75, and the officer pulls me over. It's exactly the reaction you have, isn't it? The minute he pulls you over, you're frustrated, you're angry. And your comment — although you won't say it to his face, you'll say it while he's back checking your driver's license — your comment is, "Why didn't you go catch a real criminal? Why didn't you go catch somebody who's guilty?" He did. It's you. You're guilty.
That's the point. You and I want to diminish this. Your sin has separated you from God. The wage of sin is death. Death means separation. You've acknowledged nobody's perfect, that imperfection is called sin, and that sin has separated you from God.
Did Jesus Have to Die?
Remember the question: why did Jesus have to die? Well, He didn't have to. He could have left us in our sin. His judgment, His righteousness demands payment for that sin. What He could have done is simply allow us to live our lives here on this earth, then go to hell and spend eternity there, and never have it paid in full. He didn't have to die.
But once it was determined that God was going to save some people, the only possible vehicle was for God to become man — to live a perfect life — so that He is the perfect sacrifice for you and me. If you're one of those religious people, maybe you're new, maybe this is your first time here, we're going to rattle your world right here. All of your religion, all of your spirituality, all of your striving to do this and do that and don't do the other — all of it is a gigantic waste of time.
You are separated from God. He demands perfection. You've already blown it. He is the standard. We don't like that.
How Good Is Good Enough?
Instinctively, if you go down to Chandler Mall and ask people what you have to do to go to heaven, they're going to say, "Be good." And you ask them one question and they're stumped. What's that question? How good? "Oh, man, I don't know. Better than him."
This is an absolutely true story. One night, before I was a Christian, I'm in a place where they serve a few adult beverages. I've got a guy with me and we're talking. I said, "You know what? My life has no meaning, no purpose, no direction. I have absolutely no value as a human being." He said, "Tom, that's not true." He looked me right in the eye — I'll never forget these words — and he said, "You have great value. You can always be used as a bad example." I thought, wow, I'm something. But he said, "No, Tom, I'm serious. All the time, when my wife starts to get on my case, I say to her, 'I'm not as bad as Tom.' All the guys in the office say that — I'm not as bad as Tom."
That's what we do. How good? Well, I try to hang around a bunch of guys who aren't very good so I can say I'm better than them. For me, I always had a problem with that comparison — I'd have to go all the way to Hitler to feel better about myself. See, I am separated from God by that sin. And God judges that sin.
Religion Cannot Fix the Problem
If you're one of those religious people who says, "I'm just going to fix this, I'm going to do the best I can, I'm going to buckle down" — as I said, you've already blown it, because He demands perfection. You are not going to measure up to that. You might be saying, "God, I don't want any special favor from You. All I want is what I deserve. I want what I've earned." In the marketplace, we call that a wage. "The wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus."
He Accomplished His Mission
Why did He die? He died for our sin. But I want to ask you a question: did He accomplish His mission? Did He have to die? Yes and no. He died for our sin — but did He accomplish what He set out to do?
Jesus believed that He did when He was hanging on the cross. Here are His last words: "It is finished." I have completed the task. He prays in John 17, "Father, I have done the job You've given me to do." What was that job? Everyone around Him at least understood it — Mary and Joseph, in particular. He came to save His people from their sins.
Did He Accomplish His Mission?
That was His mission. That was His job. He sits down at the end of His life and says, "It is finished." But maybe He was just delusional. Maybe He was just swept away in His own press clippings. I am asking you a hard question: Did He accomplish His mission?
We go to that infallible source, the Scripture. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul said, "He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and then He appeared to Peter and then to the twelve, and then after that to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive." Go check it out. Jesus Christ died — and He rose again.
We have all sorts of spiritual and religious leaders, but none of them really claimed to be God except Jesus. None of them said they were going to die in your place except Jesus. And none of them — and this is huge — none of them rose from the dead. The tomb is empty. He rose from the dead.
If that is true, do you see that Jesus is different from everyone else? Do you see that the Christian faith is not based on wishful thinking, but on the fact of the resurrection of Jesus?
The Eyewitness Testimony
Paul says he saw Him. Peter saw Him. Five hundred people saw Him. John, who writes the Gospel, and 1, 2, and 3 John, and the book of Revelation, writes this as an introduction to 1 John: "We saw Him with our own eyes and touched Him with our own hands, and He is Jesus Christ, the Word of life, and we are telling you about what we ourselves have actually seen and heard." John said he went to the tomb that day, and it was empty, and He was gone, and no one stole the body. He rose. Isn't that extraordinary?
What the Secular Historians Say
I know how you think. You are saying, "Sure, that is what the Bible says — it is all part of some gigantic conspiracy." So what do the secular historians say, the ones with no spiritual agenda? Paul Maier says this: "If all the evidence is weighed fully and fairly, it is indeed justifiable according to the canons of historical research." In other words, if you approach the resurrection the way you would any other historical event, it is absolutely reasonable to conclude that the tomb in which Jesus was buried was actually empty on the morning of the first Easter, and no shred of evidence has yet been discovered that disproves that statement.
Another historian writes: "Taking all the evidence together, it is not too much to say that there is no historic incident better or more variously supported than the resurrection of Christ." And Professor Thomas Arnold — author of the History of Rome — writes this: "I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort to the understanding of a fair inquirer than the great sign which God has given us, that Christ died and rose again from the dead."
You are coming here with your questions, and I am glad you are bringing them. You may be skeptical — maybe even antagonistic — and I am glad you feel comfortable being here. But let me tell you something: you will not believe this, and the reason is not a lack of facts. Thousands upon thousands of people have attacked the resurrection, because they know the historic Christian faith is based on it. You take down Christ and the resurrection, and our faith falls apart. But bring it on. As you study and research, there is only one conclusion: He died and He rose again, and the facts are overwhelming.
The Agony of Death — and the Emptiness of Life
When He rose, Acts chapter 2 tells us that Peter declared He put an end to the agony of death. I will add to that: there is a sense in which He also put an end to the agony of life. That does not mean the suffering and the pain disappear, but it means that all of a sudden life has meaning and purpose and direction.
Isn't it true that if it is just us here and now, even in the midst of your successes, you would acknowledge that you are empty? Let's say Phil Mickelson comes down the final holes at Augusta and wins — the greatest golfer alive who had not won a Masters finally wins it. Do you understand that in a week or two, if he does not know Christ, he is going to be miserable? Look at Tiger Woods. How much do you need to achieve? And yet they cannot leave it alone.
I do not care what is wrong with Tiger. What is wrong with you — that is the question. And what is wrong with you is your sin, and your sin has separated you from God. Some of you are in here and it is all you can do to keep it together, and when you are all by yourself, here is what you would acknowledge: you feel guilty. I can help you with that. You feel guilty because you are guilty, and there is nothing you can do to get rid of it except come to Christ in repentance and faith.
Your Problem Is Spiritual
Your problem is not sociological or economic. It is not just about winning a tournament or closing a deal. Your problem is spiritual. Spiritual problems have spiritual answers, and the only legitimate spiritual source is the Scripture.
One of the great disadvantages you have is that I know how you think — and I know what you are thinking.
The Question That Won't Evaporate
A writer at *Time Magazine* nailed it perfectly: the question of why Jesus dies requires some sort of response, and it isn't going to evaporate in a minute or two. You are going to carry this with you all your life, and it is going to be a blessing.
I had breakfast with a man on Thursday, and it was a terrific conversation. Here is what he said: "I was born and raised Catholic. Then I joined the Jehovah's Witnesses. Then the Seventh-Day Adventists. I've looked at Hinduism. Right now I'm in a Mormon church." And then he said, "I'm miserable. I'm exhausted. I'm tired. I've been looking all over, thinking that religion has the answer, but I sense that isn't it."
That is precisely what Jesus speaks to. He said, "Come to me, all you who are tired, weary, heavy laden, and I'll give you rest." No more religion that never satisfies. No more church attendance to try to pacify some God. What Jesus offers is a personal relationship with Him.
Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, the life, and no one comes to the Father but through me." You, my friend, are not the exception. You have sinned, you are separated from God, and there is nothing you can do but come to Christ in repentance and faith.
Legitimate Questions Deserve Legitimate Answers
You have legitimate questions, and those fair questions deserve a legitimate answer. You will get those answers next week in the class designed for exactly that purpose — for those who have questions, who want to inquire, who want to discuss. Chris is there for that.
This may sound arrogant, but so be it: you have come to the place that has the answer, and not because we are smarter than everybody else — we aren't. But we know that the Bible contains this truth, and when we open it, it is remarkably simple. You have sinned, you are separated from God, and Jesus Christ and Him alone is the only solution.
He Has Risen Indeed
This is an extraordinary day. Every day is great, but this is a special day because it is the day we set aside to acknowledge that He has risen — and He has risen indeed.
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*Father, thank You for the men and women here who acknowledge that Your Son Jesus is their Lord, their Savior, their Master. I pray especially for those who came today with questions — those who thought they would simply glide in and glide out, somehow duck under Your radar screen, but You caught them, and now they want answers. I pray for those who came antagonistic, bitter, and angry — God, let Your Spirit break down those walls. I pray for those here on a semiannual visit, who came to satisfy a mom or dad, a husband or wife, a coworker or neighbor, and who can't wait to leave — God, open their eyes and their hearts and their minds. I pray for those with legitimate questions, that You would provide legitimate answers here next week, and give them the courage to return. Father, for those of us who truly can sing praise and thanksgiving, we do it to You right now. We love You because You first loved us, and we praise You and we worship You. Amen.*