What did Jesus Christ accomplish?
Question 3 of 7. Who saves, what His death did, for whom He died, why He rose, and whether anything is left to add.
Where it begins
Most people have an opinion about Jesus. Many call Him a great teacher, a good man who died for what He believed, or one way to God among several. Few doubt that He died. The question is what His death did, and whether it did enough.
The last question ended with a promise God made on the day sin began. This question turns to Jesus Christ and what He accomplished: who He is to the sinner, what His death did with sin and with God's justice, for whom He died, why He rose, and whether anything is left undone.
The answer Settled
Salvation is found in Jesus Christ and in no one else. He said, "No one comes to the Father except through Me" (), and His apostles said there is "no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (). Sincerity cannot open a second road. God has given only one.
He died in the sinner's place. Isaiah wrote that "the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (), and Peter says Christ "Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree" (). His death shows love, but it was more than an example. The sins were the sinner's, and He carried them.
His blood met what God's justice requires. God set Him forth as a propitiation, a sacrifice that turns away God's wrath against sin, "that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (). God can declare the guilty righteous and still be just, because their sins have been borne. This was not God's anger overcoming His love. God "loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (), and the Son laid down His life of Himself.
He died for everyone. He is the propitiation for believers' sins, "and not for ours only but also for the whole world" (). That does not mean everyone is saved. The one who believes is not condemned, and the one who does not believe "is condemned already" ().
He rose again in the body that died, and without His rising no one would be saved: "if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!" (). The risen Jesus told His frightened disciples, "a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have" ().
And His work is finished. On the cross He said, "It is finished!" (). He offered one sacrifice for sins and sat down at the right hand of God, and where sins are forgiven there is "no longer an offering for sin" (). Nothing is left for anyone to add.
What remains is how a person receives what Christ has done. That is the next question.
What you can see for yourself
- Dying for a friend, and for an enemy. People honor a soldier who dies to save the men beside him. Hardly anyone dies for a man who hates him. Paul says Christ did: "when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son" ().
- Taking the blame. Most people have seen it, in a family or a classroom: one person takes the punishment for what another did, and the one who was spared does not forget it. Peter says Christ did that for sinners: "Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust" ().
Dive deeper
Each page below takes one part of this answer and shows the passages it rests on.
- Isn't there more than one way to God? What Jesus said about Himself, and what His apostles said after Him.
- Wasn't His death just an example of love? Isaiah 53, a ransom, and the just for the unjust.
- Couldn't God simply forgive? Why the cross shows that God is just, and why it is love.
- Did Christ die only for those who will be saved? The whole world, and the Lord who bought them.
- Did He have to rise from the dead? Why His rising saves, and why it was in the body.
- Is anything left to pay? "It is finished," and the priest who sat down.