“Preaching on Christ - The Sovereign Servant”
TOPIC:“Christ - His Vicarious Death”
“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.” (John
When William Carey, the great missionary to India, lay dying during those last days of his earthly life, he said to a close friend: “I have no other hope of salvation than through the death of my Lord and Savior.” To him, the death of Christ was INDISPENSABLE. There was no real, genuine, life-redeeming hope without it. It was in the same peaceful spirit that Charles Hadden Spurgeon, prominent English preacher of past years, faced the demands of death. He said upon his death bed: “My theology now is in four little words: 'Jesus died for me.' I do not say that this is enough to preach were I to live, but it certainly is enough to die upon.” To him the death of Christ was IMPERATIVE. There was no future life without it.
And yet, if we are to have any intelligent view of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, we must realize that His death was INEVITABLE. There was no way around it. It was sure to happen. Let me show you what I mean. God PREDESTINATED it. The death of Christ was no accident, no unfortunate incident, no after-thought in the mind of God. On the contrary. The plan of Christ's death was prepared and the date was determined way back in eternity. God had declared in His eternal counsels that Christ would die. The Apostle Peter boldly declared: “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). The Apostle John wrote: “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Or as Paul S. Rees so wonderfully put it: “Calvary is not an act of desperation, it is an act of design.”
Not only did God predestinate the death of Christ, but the Law PRESCRIBED it. The Law demanded death for sins committed. We read these words: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4). Again in the Old Testament we read these words: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood...for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul" (Leviticus 17:21). Carrying this over into the . . .