Why Christ Had To Die

Spirituality Column #29
Current! In Carmel (IN) Newspaper
May 29, 2007

Why Christ Had To Die
By Bob Walters

Why did Christ have to die?

Anyone who is familiar with the Christian religion will tell you that Christ died to forgive our sins.

OK. But why did he have to die? Why couldn’t God Almighty just say, “OK, you are all forgiven of your sins,” and be done with it? What was it about God’s plan for our salvation that required Jesus to die?

The answer is: Christ had to die to conquer death itself. There was even more at stake on the Cross than our awful sins and the fallen nature of the entire creation. Our eternal lives were at stake.

Christ had to die to beat death itself.

When we read the Gospel accounts of Christ’s crucifixion, burial and resurrection, it’s easy to forget that it wasn’t God’s punishment of Adam and Eve that made them sinners, Satan made them sinners (Genesis 3).

They were not created to die, but when they sinned God banished them (and all of us) from the Garden of Eden, and that banishment brought death into the world. (Genesis 3:3, 4, 19).

“The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). That’s a hard one because, remember, it is not God who makes us sin. It is, however … um … God who makes us die. No matter how sinless or good (or horrid or bad) any one of us may be, we are going to die because, no thanks to Adam and Eve’s sin, we are banished from the Garden.

Christ comes into the picture – and this is why they call the Gospels “Good News” – to do more than forgive our sin. He died a horrible death that totaled the depravity of the sins of the world and in that gave us renewed life and fellowship with God.

With Christ’s death, He defeated death.

We need to remember to thank Him, and praise Him, for that.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), a Carmel resident, expects many of his Christian friends to argue with him over the finer points of sin, death, forgiveness, salvation and eternal life.