Purposes of Christ's Death: 2 Corinthians 5

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

This post looks at two texts from 2 Corinthians 5. The first is text is this: 

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; [15] and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. (2 Corinthians 5:14-15 ESV)

The second is just a few verses away:

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV)

The purpose statements in these two texts are different, but I’ve to put them together because they come from the same passage of scripture.

The purpose statement in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15  is “that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” One of the purposes of Christ’s death is to produce people who no longer live in the old way of life, but in the new way; who no longer live self-centered lives, but live lives centered around Christ. Or to put it another way, Christ died to create people who are controlled, not by self-love, but by love of Christ. 

The second purpose statement is found in 5:21. Christ died “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” In The Atonement: It’s Meaning and Significance, Leon Morris explains the mysterious phrase “righteousness of God”:

….the expression signifies the righteousness or ‘right standing’ that God gives….Paul is clearly referring to a legal status, a standing before God. A status can be given, and the apostle says that this status is given.

You will probably recognise the term “right-standing” before God (or the “righteousness of God”) as another way of expressing justification. In a parallel — but an opposite kind of parallel — to Christ being counted as sinful, we are counted as righteous. This is another of the many purposes of Christ’s death: Christ died so that we would be justified, or given a right legal status before God.

The two purposes for Christ’s death found in these texts are so that we would live for Him rather than for ourselves, and so that we would be justified.

Purposes of Christ's Death: Galatians 1:3-5

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

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, [4] who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, [5] to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. (Galatians 1:3-5 ESV)

These verses tell us that the purpose for Christ’s giving of Himself for us is “to deliver us from the present evil age.” It seems like a straightforward statement, one that should be easy to understand — except for that little phrase “present evil age.” Obviously, Paul is not using age to refer to simply “a period of time,” but is getting at something else. But what, exactly?

I went to Herman Ridderbos and Paul: An Outline of His Theology for help. If you’ve read Ridderbos, you know he can be difficult to understand, but I think I got enough to be at least a bit closer to grasping what “age” means in this statement from Galatians. I am borrowing liberally from Ridderbos in the next paragraphs. 

Paul uses the word age to speak of a whole way of life, and in the case of “the present evil age,” it’s the way of life outside of Christ. This would make it roughly equivalent to the way Paul uses the word “world,” too. In Ephesians 2, he uses the two words, aeon (age) and kosmos (world) together:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins [2] in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—(Ephesians 2:1-2 ESV)

The word translated “course” is aeon, just like the word “age” in the verses from Galatians we are looking at. Paul is, in effect, saying that we once walked according to the age of this world. And you can see from the context that he is refering to the former life of believers, the life they once lived, a life characterized by the rule of Satan. He uses the the word flesh this way also, to mean not simply the physical body, but the whole realm of the life of sin.

In Paul’s writings, the present age, the world, and flesh, are used to refer to the way of life of those who are not in Christ, who are ruled by sin. These contrast with a new age, a new creation, and new life in the Spirit — or the way of life that comes by union with Christ. 

One of the purposes of Christ’s death is to rescue us from this present evil age—or the rule of Satan and sin. Elsewhere, Paul writes that Christ’s redemption transfers us from Satan’s kingdom to Christ’s kingdom:

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son … (Colossians 1:13 ESV)

Through Christ’s death for us, we are freed from bondage to our old way of life and brought into the new creation that is life governed by the Spirit. This deliverance from the present evil age (or the rule of sin) is one of the purposes of Christ’s death.

Purposes of Christ's Death: 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 and Romans 14:9

Back in my first years of blogging, on my old blog, I did a series of posts on the purposes of Christ’s death. Each post examined one or more of the purpose statement that scripture gives us regarding the death of Christ. A couple of years ago, I began reposting them here. I reposted eight old posts, and then, for some reason—or maybe no reason—stopped. I’d still like to have them all here, so I’m resuming the reposting and updating. (You can find the other posts from this series by clicking on the purposes of Christ’s death label at the end of this post.)

For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, [10] who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 ESV)

There are some who  think that the terms awake and asleep in this text don’t refer to physical life and death, but rather to whether someone will be watching alertly or caught off-guard when the day of wrath comes, and they point to the verses right before this as evidence. I think it’s more likely that Paul is bringing us round again to the subject of the last part of the chapter before this one, that those who have already died and those who remain alive until Christ’s return will be joined together to be with the Lord. If you look at 4:17 and 18, and compare these verses to 5:9-11, you can see the parallels. Given these close parallels, I think it’s reasonable to conclude that awake and asleep in verse ten refer to physical life and physical death.

The purpose statement found in these verses is “so that whether we wake or sleep, we will live together with Him.”

Moving on to the next text:

For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. (Romans 14:9 ESV)

The words “to this end” alert us to a purpose statement here. One of the goals of Christ’s death and resurrection was “that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living”. 

In both of these texts, our being united with Christ means that something remains the same for us even if we should die. In the first text, we see that our physical death does not change our expectation of living forever with the Lord. We need not fear the wrath on the day of the Lord — even though we die physically — because those who are united with Christ in His death are assured that there is no wrath in store for them, but rather, a wonderful life in the presence of the Lord. 

In the second text we are told that because Christ died and lived again, He is Lord of all those who belong to Him, those who are living and those who have already died. Because Christ himself once died and now lives, those who are “in Him” will remain “in Him” in either state, dead or living. For those to whom He is Lord in this life, He will remain Lord after death. 

Because of Christ’s death and resurrection, those who are united with Him can be assured that death will not change these two things: They can still count on living eternally with Christ, and Christ will remain their Lord. Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians that we should use these truths to comfort and edify each other. We have nothing to fear, because no matter what happens to us, we are permanently and eternally included with Christ, since He died and rose for us. 

Christ died and rose on our behalf so that we can be certain that we will live forever with Him, whether live until his return or die prior to it; and so that he will always be our Lord, both while we are living and after we die.