Purposes of Christ's Death: Summing It All Up

Click on the links to read the commentary on each scripture passage and explanations of the purpose statement(s) found there.

God intended for Christ’s death to

1. conquer death and the fear of death by giving eternal life. 
   John 3:16-17
   1 Thessalonians 5:9-10
   Romans 14:9
   Hebrews 2:14-15
   
   
2. justify people in a righteous way.
   Romans 3:24-25
   2 Corinthians 5:21
   
   
3. take care of the curse of the law by bearing it for us and fulfilling the laws requirements within us.
   Galatians 3:13-14
   Romans 8:3-4
   
   
4. reconcile people to God and to each other.
   1 Peter 3:18
   Ephesians 2:14-16
   
   
5. conquer sin by putting it away and freeing people from bondage to it.
   Hebrews 9:26b
   Galatians 1:3-5
   
   
6. fulfill the promise to Abraham.
   Galatians 3:13-14
   
   
7. prove that God is just.
   Romans 3:24-25
   
   
8. create a new kind of people with a new way of life.
   Galatians 1:3-5
   2 Corinthians 5:14-15
   1 Peter 2:24
   Titus 2:14
   Ephesians 5:25-27
   
   
9. make possible God’s adoption of sons and ensure their inheritance.
   Hebrews 9:15
   Galatians 4:4-5
   
   
10. gather everything together in Christ and place Christ as Lord-of-All.
    Ephesians 1:7-10
    Colossians 1:19-20
    
    

A few concluding thoughts on these posts on the purposes of Christ’s death. 

• I looked at the explicit purpose statements for Christ’s death found in scripture. But every result of Christ’s death is also an intended purpose of for it, because God has the power and wisdom to do things so exactly what He wishes is accomplished. There are no unintended results from anything God does, and that includes the Father sending the Son to die. So, for instance, we know that one of the results of Christ’s death is that we have good news to proclaim to people worldwide. This, then, is also something God purposed to accomplish with Christ’s death, and it isn’t a secondary or less important purpose because it isn’t listed above.


• I call them purposes of Christ’s death, but they aren’t separate or unrelated purposes. They are all part of the one big, multifaceted purpose found at the end of the list. Stating them separately may be the only way we can see the details of the whole, but at the same time, we must remember that they are each a piece of one marvelous many-sided accomplishment showing the manifold wisdom of God to us.


• This list reveals how widespread the results of sin and how much we have lost. It also show us how great God’s wisdom is, that in one perfect act he could make everything absolutely right again.

Purposes of Christ's Death: Hebrews 26:b

This is another edited and reposted piece from an old series of posts examining the purpose statement that scripture gives us regarding the death of Christ. 

… he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

(Hebrews 9:26, ESV)

This statement from Hebrews tells us that Christ’s death (or His sacrifice) was “to put away sin.” It seems like a simple statement, but before I began this post, I could have guessed what it meant, but I wouldn’t have been sure.

One of the main points of the book of Hebrews is that the New Covenant instituted by Christ is much better than the Old Covenant. The writer of Hebrews urged his readers,1 who were  most likely Jewish Christians, to hold fast to Christ and his perfect covenant, and to not be drawn back to the familiar ways of the old imperfect system. He contrasts the old with the new, showing that the old system was not the real deal, but a pointer to and a picture of the true and complete covenant that had now been now instituted. 

For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities … . (Hebrews 10:1a ESV)

The bottom line is that the blood sacrifices of the Old Covenant were unable to take away sins (10:4). They accomplished some kind of outward cleansing, but no inward cleansing (Hebrews 9:13—14). And they had to be repeated over and over again, showing that what they accomplished was only temporary. Consequently, the sacrificial system served as a reminder of the sin problem rather than a solution to it (10:1-3). 

But in Christ, the answer for sin arrived. He  was offered “once to bear the sins of many (9:28).” No more repetitious sacrifices needed; no more constant reminders of sin. It is a finished; sin is finally, truly, forever put away, because Christ “has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

Another of the purposes of Christ’s death is to put away sin once for all time.

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1 Or his audience, if the text of was first a sermon.

Purposes of Christ's Death: Romans 8:3-4

This is one more edited and reposted piece from an old series of posts examining the purpose statement that scripture gives us regarding the death of Christ. 

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, [4] in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:3-4 ESV)

The purpose statement in this text is found in verse four: “… in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

This is another purpose statement that refers to the law. We’ve already seen that Christ’s death removes the curse of the law. We all stand condemned because of our disobedience to God’s law, but Christ’s death removes this condemnation from those who are united to him. And this purpose statement from Romans 8 goes one step further. Yes, dying as a human being (in the flesh) Christ paid the penalty for sin (condemned sin), but his death also made it possible for those who belong to him to do what the law commands. 

Verse 3 says that that law was “weakened by the flesh.” Sinful corruption (the flesh) causes us all to be disobedient to the law, and this universal human disobedience turns God’s good law into a source of condemnation rather than blessing. God’s solution is to send his Son to die, removing condemnation for those who believe, and, in this way, giving the Spirit access to them. Based on the finished work of Christ, the Spirit works within each believer, enabling them to obey the law. Through Christ’s death God gives us power us to keep his commandments. 

Another of the purposes of Christ’s death is that those who belong to him would fulfill the requirements of the law through the work of the Spirit.