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Sermon on the Holy Son 3
Why Did Christ Die
Vicariously for Many?
It was because Jesus was baptized
by John, through which He accepted the sins of the world passed
onto Him. In Matthew 3:15, we see Jesus taking all the sins of the
world upon Himself by receiving His baptism from John. The reason
why Jesus was baptized by John was because He had to shoulder the
sins of the world through this baptism. It was because this was
God’s own desire, as stated in Isaiah 53:10, “Yet it pleased
the LORD to bruise Him….” Therefore, the purpose of God in sending
Christ to this earth was to “bruise Him” because of His bearing
of our sins and death.
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Realizing this love, the Apostle John
said, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved
us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John
4:10). In obeying the will of God, Christ therefore discarded
at once the comfortable way, which He was more than capable of taking
with His majesty and power, and did not hesitate to eschew the compassion
of His disciples and the great welcome of the people. Put differently,
because there was a way for Him to accept all the sins of the world
by being baptized, He died for us, who, as Isaiah 53:6 tells us,
“like sheep have gone astray,” and has thereby opened
“a new and living way” (Hebrews 10:20). Jesus, in other words,
had to embrace His baptism by John to satisfy the righteousness
of God, regardless of whether people would recognize it or not,
for this was the very desire of the Father. This is why He faced
the accursed and terrifying death of the Cross.
Because His sufferings were the will
of God, He remained completely silent even as He suffered. As Isaiah
53:7 states, “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened
not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep
before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.”
As such, even as He was falsely accused, harshly beaten, plucked
of his beard, and spat at, because He had accepted the sins of mankind
passed onto Him from John through His baptism, He remained silent.
Not only this but furthermore, because
it was the will of the Father for Him to be baptized and thus die,
He died for the sake of those who believe. Only after being baptized
by John at the age of 30 and thereby taking upon Him the sins of
the world, our Lord was crucified at the age of 33 and shed His
blood. He then rose from the dead, and has become the eternal Savior
for those of us who believe in this truth.
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