Weird Ideas: Crucified, Dead, and BuriedSample

Why did Jesus have to die? The Apostles’ Creed doesn’t say. It’s more concerned with telling you what happened than why it happened. It assumes you know the “whys.”

The New Testament talks a lot about what Jesus’s death accomplished, and how it impacts all of life. It shows us how Jesus willingly gave his life to save us, overthrow the power of evil, and orchestrate God’s rescue plan for the world. Jesus’s crucifixion is central to his identity, his purpose, and God’s plan for the world. Jesus was born to die.

The Nicene Creed briefly captures this. It describes Jesus’s purpose for coming when it says, “who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven…” Jesus came to save.

Salvation encompasses a lot. It’s a catch-all word for all the ways God rescues a sinful people in a broken world. Forgiveness over punishment. Life over death. Freedom over slavery. The kingdom of God over the kingdom of Darkness. Hope over despair. Joy over mourning. Fellowship with God over separation from him. The list goes on.

Strange, that Jesus’s death would accomplish all this. But that’s what God says! That’s salvation. All because Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried. In Jesus’s death, God offers salvation to you!