“I see the death of Christ as having been allowed, but not a necessity. Christ, himself, provides the way to attain eternal life in his personal example of conduct. Do you agree?”
M.M., USA
The question needs to be answered in two parts.
Must Christ die?
Yes! If we are to be saved, it is the will of God that the redeemer die. “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures…In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (I Cor. 15:2; Eph. 1:7). Jesus knew this to be so; he knew he must die if he were to be obedient to the will of his Father: “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mk. 10:45).
This did not mean he accepted suffering and death without first pleading that there might be some other way whereby he could be the redeemer. Hours before Jesus was to drink the cup of pain he prayed, “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt” (Mark 14:36). An angel appeared to comfort and encourage Jesus (Lk. 22:43), but the divine messenger made it clear that it was the will of God that he should submit to the death of the cross (Isa. 49:3-8; 53:10).
Jesus could have refused to obey by calling upon 12 legions of angels (Mt. 26:53) but “he [Jesus] humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him” (Phil. 2:8-9).
The death of Christ was thus voluntary, in that he could have avoided it, but a necessity in that it was according to the will of God.
From God’s point of view, the provision of His Son on our behalf was an act of love, not an act of necessity. Scripture testifies: “It pleased the LORD to bruise him;” “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son;” “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (Isa. 53:10; John 3:16; I John 4:10). God voluntarily set out a plan of redemption that would condemn sin in a human being while assuring all believers of the depth of His love and His willingness to save.
Following Christ’s example
In regard to attaining eternal life, we should recognize the great difference that exists between Jesus and ourselves. Jesus Christ never sinned; furthermore, he so effectively learned obedience that he fully manifested the glory of God’s spiritual attributes (Heb. 1:3). He could say of his entire life, “I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. ..Therefore hath the LORD recompensed me according to my righteousness” (Psa. 18:21-24).
On the other hand, of ourselves it is said, “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). As sinners, we will never gain eternal life based on our own conduct no matter how hard we try. Our hope is that, through faith, we might be “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24).
It is true that, once baptized into Christ Jesus, we are committed to him as our Lord and Leader and are expected, like our Lord, to implement God’s principles in our lives. Since our situation is different from our Lord’s, however, there are some things he did we ought not to do.
Actions we should not imitate
For example, the Lord Jesus is the King of Israel. He was right in striding into the temple and cleansing it of money changers and merchants (John 2:15). We have no right to do something similar to religious institutions around us.
The Lord was the prophet greater than Moses who carried a message to save his people. In that role, he should concentrate his preaching efforts on the Jews rather than Gentiles. We are under the commission to preach to every creature under heaven (Mk. 16:15).
As the Master teacher of God’s way, once he was ready, the Lord should spend full time as an itinerant preacher being supported by donations from others. For most of us, it would be a sin to stop earning our own living (II Thess. 3:8-11).
Consider another example: the Lord was the Son of God by physical birth; it would be confusion for him to marry or seek to reproduce. That is obviously not our situation. Our privileges and responsibilities in regard to married life are specifically addressed in I Corinthians 7. This matter is an excellent example showing that the Acts and epistles are essential for us to understand in order to implement Christianity in a practical manner. That’s why they are provided and that is why those who accept only the gospels as inspired are at a loss for guidance in so many situations.
Christ not the only example
Throughout scripture, we are given many examples that are useful to our walk before God. Some cover situations not found in the life of our Lord. The obvious instance is how to recover from iniquity which Jesus never had to do but which we see in the lives of David, Jehoshaphat, Peter, etc. We also see people dealing with a barren womb, suffering the loss of one’s partner, handling a variety of domestic situations and many more. We are given all of scripture and we need all of it.
Not much detail
In fact, a word of caution should be noted regarding appealing to the example of Christ. We have what we need regarding his life to prove he is the Son of God, but it is a very limited sample of his activities. The apostle John supposed that, if everything had been recorded, “even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.”
This being the case, we have often heard brethren imagining what Christ would have done in this or that situation when, in fact, they don’t really know. They are actually attributing to the Lord what they think would be appropriate. To counter a tendency to impute our own ideas to Christ, we need to be familiar with the whole counsel of God for all of it is useful for “instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (II Tim. 3:16-17).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One