Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up. (John 3:14)
Do you ever wonder why Jesus had to die such an awful death?
I wonder about this from time to time. I wonder about the whole sacrifice thing in the Old Testament and what slaughtering innocent animals had to do with people’s sin (except that it might have made them think twice if they had to watch an animal cut up every time they got caught in someone else’s business). It all pointed to Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice — and I know that — but then we still haven’t answered why there had to be a sacrifice in the first place.
Theologians tell us it’s all about God’s justice. Adam sinned — the rest of us followed suit — and since the punishment for sin is death, well, that kind of does in the whole human race, unless someone dies in our place — someone who hasn’t fallen like we did, who would appease the justice of God because he was perfect.
That intellectually makes sense, but I still don’t really get it. And after all this, I think I can truly say: At some point it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that you understand it; it only matters that you believe it.
Jesus once likened his death on a cross to a snake on a pole in the desert — the bronze snake that God directed Moses to make in order to save the lives of those bitten by a deadly strain of venomous vipers. “Make a snake,” God told Moses, “and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live” (Numbers 21:8).
I’ve often wondered about this too. What a silly thing, this snake on a pole. Those people wouldn’t have had a clue what this was all about, but do you think that mattered? If you were bitten and dying, and all you needed to do to live was look at a bronze statue, would you care? Would you spend a lot of time trying to figure it out? You’d just look, wouldn’t you?
I’m not condoning being stupid. I’m the first one I know to champion questions and try and get to the bottom of things, but at some point, when the chips are down, and it comes to your own life and death, and someone offers you life, you take it.
As we start Easter week and focus, as Christians have done for centuries, on Christ’s death and resurrection, let’s realize there is part of this we understand and part of this we don’t. It’s okay to wonder why, but you don’t have to let that make you stop believing.
It almost seems too easy: just believe in Jesus and your sins are forgiven. Well… it is easy. God has made it so a child can understand. You don’t have to understand it all anyway – just enough of it to believe. Bitten by sin? Look upon Jesus and live.
John Fischer The Catch 
This reminds me of when Naaman, the Syrian, who had leprosy, was told to wash in the Jordan seven times to become clean. That didn’t make sense to him either, and he almost didn’t do it. But his servant talked him into it, he washed, and he was cleansed. (II Kings 5:1-19)
God is constantly telling us to keep our eyes on Him, and not to look to the right or to the left. Keeping our eyes on Jesus – the visual manifestation of God on earth – brings life and righteousness. Taking our eyes off Him brings sin and death.
There is much that we, today, do not understand about ancient cultures. People believed crazy things – like just LOOKING at Jesus, or TOUCHING Him, or having Him SPIT on them would heal them. Then there was the Roman Centurion that simply asked Christ to say the word, and his servant would be healed. Or Peter, whose shadow held some healing power for people. We don’t understand that kind of faith today. We would almost call it superstition.
Faith doesn’t have to make since. We just have to believe. What will it take for us? “Look on me” are still three of the most powerful words ever spoken.
One of your best “catches”. Thank you!
I agree!
It would be nice if I could blame Adam for this whole situation. But I can’t. If I was there, Adam’s name would be Tim. And my sin is worthy of the death sentence. I am the worst of sinners. I deserve to be put to death. But God came up with this plan. I can’t understand why Jesus would sacrifice His life to save mine. But I believe it. With tears rolling down His face, and mine.
Thanks, John. I read you because you put words to my thoughts and feelings. Your spiritual honesty gives me permission to think about things where my spirit sometimes fears to tread.
Paul said much the same thing. What we believe can certainly seem pretty silly, even stupid. “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (i Cor. 1:18). Faith can seem like foolishness to me, if I let my spirit go there.
All of those kinds of questions you raised swirl in my mind throughout the year, and can throw me off-balance spiritually. But Easter is a season of re-centering. It’s when I’m reminded that all of that is subsumed in the one act and fact of Christ’s resurrection: “…and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain” (15:14).
I do not have faith in faith, but faith in a reality. I don’t look up to a dead man hanging on a cross to be saved from the bite and sting of sin (15:55-57), but to a living Jesus who died and was raised back to life. When I re-center on that historical event, my faith is strengthened and I regain my spiritual balance. If the resurrection is true, then anything can be true.
Indeed, theology can get quite heady, and we can easily lose sight of the main thing. 1 Corinthians 15 is a good place to look to get “recentered.” If the resurrection isn’t true … then none of this matters, might as well get on with our meaningless lives! But if it IS true – then that changes everything!
I too have thought similar thoughts as in today Catch and know that I know, it still to this day sometimes jus absolutely baffles me…yet sooo very thankful to God in I do not have to understand it, jus believe it.
Dear John –
I have also always wondered about the whole sacrifice thing. And until reading this Catch, I would have continued to wonder. No longer. You did not say this, but it occurred to me as I was reading your post. After more than half a century of reading and studying and teaching from the Bible, I really think I now understand. And it is really quite simple.
The point of the ritualistic sacrifice of animals was to pound home this idea –
“Every time I sin, something has to die.”
“Every time anybody sins, there must be a death.
and “The greater the sin, the greater to volume of blood that must be shed”
This is what is meant elsewhere in scripture where we read that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin, and the wages of sin is death. The only way to compensate for my sin is for something to die. Every time. Even when I am not even aware of the sin, the ritual required that I submit an animal for sacrifice, just in case. Because each and every sin requires a death. Because sin is so abominable to God, there must be a payment by loss of life, by shedding of blood. And the life is in my place; the sacrifice is a death on my behalf, so that my own life does not need to be taken as the penalty.
This makes the new covenant so much clearer also. Once for all. And thanks be to God, because there is no way to ever keep up with the demands of the old covenant.
You may not have intended to teach this in your Catch today, but this is what I got. So, thank you. It is now clear to me.
Praise Him….
I’m with Janice….. “Nice catch, John”….. thank-you. Luke 17:5
Hi John:
I think your insights are awesome as well as your honesty about not always understanding God’s ways. I often have these kinds of thoughts and questions myself. My friends think I am so intellectual (!!) while I have often wondered whether or not it reflects a lack of faith. But I think the principle applies here, much like your analogy of the snake on a stick, that The Word of God and God himself are both shallow enough for a baby to wade in and deep enough for an elephant to drown in.
Well said.
Hi John:
Love your site, books and blog – very refreshing. Over the years, i have come to question and doubt the penal substitionary theory that only really gained prominence with the Reformers (based on Anselm’s Satisfaction Theory in the 1100s). I see it more as reconciliation. God wrapped up all of humanity into Himself. God’s justice “set things right,” not saved us from His wrath. God is love – always has been, always will be. The cross shows just how much love He has.