Satan loves to use such words as gospel, forgiveness, justification, etc. And phrases such as Jesus died to save ne, or Jesus died so that He could forgive my sins. Why? Because his definitions for these biblical words and his explanation for why Jesus died provide the basis for a limited gospel.
To illustrate, Time, April 1, 2002, had a cover story entitled, "Can the Catholic Church Save Itself?" Under the section, "The Confession of Father X" were these words of Father X, who was describing his life of lust with young people in his parish: "I'd go to confession; there would be genuine repentance [remorse, but hardly "change of mind"]; and then I would go for a period of time without molesting anyone. I would make a very real point when this was having to be confessed to go to another diocese to make sure the priest didn't know me. What I was after was the absolution, so that I could pick up the pieces and go on."
These may be the words of an unfortunate Catholic priest. But he mirrors all of us when we have Satan's picture of why Jesus died in our heads instead of the big picture within the "everlasting gospel" that God wants made clear in these end times. For too long the Christian churches have lived in the fog of partial truth.
Satan's picture runs something like this: "We are all sinners. We will be sinners until Jesus comes, and if we die before He returns, He will remember that we were sorry for our sins." And continuing, "Didn't Jesus die to cover my sins, and if I ask Him to forgive me, isn't that the good news?"
If this is all we understand as to why Jesus died, then we are believing in Satan's "good news." But that is one of his monstrous lies—again, taking truth and clouding it!
As in all biblical issues, we must keep the big picture in view: the great controversy is focused on vindicating God's fairness and justice in His dealing with His created beings. Satan has accused God of being unfair in making laws that could not be kept and said that if anyone tried, they would be unhappy legalists. But Jesus and His followers prove Satan wrong, exposing his lies as pure sour grapes.
First, Jesus earned the right, by His life and death, to forgive sincerely repentant people because He proved in His humanity that God's laws could be cheerfully obeyed, thus satisfying God's justice. In addition, He earned the right to forgive the truly repentant because his or her faith in Him contained the seed of future loyalty and obedient—that same faith that kept Him from sinning.
Second, He earned the right to be our High Priest, who promises to make available "grace to help in time of need" (Heb. 4:16).
Simply put, Jesus lived and died to give us both pardon and power. To ask for His pardon and not His power is to miss the point of why He died. To think that forgiveness is the major or only reason for the death of Jesus is to discover yet another example of the limited gospel.
Augustus Toplady said it well in his beloved hymn, "Rock of Ages":
"Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee; Let the water and the blood, From Thy riven side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure, Cleanse me from its guilt and power."
Let us look at how Ellen White illuminated "the double cure," with the cherished biblical promises that build on why Jesus died (some quotations bridge more than one category):
I. Jesus satisfied "justice," demonstrating that God was indeed "just" in that He did not require the impossible from His created beings:
"By His life on earth He honored the law of God. By His death He established it. He gave His life as a sacrifice, not to destroy God's law, not to create a lower standard, but that justice might be maintained, that the law might be shown to be immutable, that it might stand fast forever. Satan had claimed that it was impossible for man to obey God's commandments; and in our own strength it is true that we cannot obey them. But Christ came in the form of humanity, and by His perfect obedience He proved that humanity and divinity combined can obey every one of God's precepts."—Christ's Object Lessons, 314.
II. Jesus paid the price that shut Satan's mouth regarding whether God could love sinners so much as to suffer the enormous indignities of the cross in order to reconcile us to Him (John 3:16).
1. "All heaven triumphed in the Saviour's victory. Satan was defeated, and knew that his kingdom was lost. To the angels and the unfallen worlds the cry, 'It is finished,' has a deep significance. It was for them as well as for us that the great work of redemption had been accomplished. They with us share the fruits of Christ's victory. Not until the death of Christ was the character of Satan clearly revealed to the angels or to the unfallen worlds."—The Desire of Ages, 758.
2. "Not because we first loved Him, does God love us; but 'while we were yet sinners' (Rom. 5:8) Christ died for us, making full and abundant provision for our redemption."—Amazing Grace, 10.
3. "Such is the value of men for whom Christ died that the Father is satisfied with the infinite price which He pays for the salvation of man in yielding up His own Son to die for their redemption. What wisdom, mercy, and love in this fullness are here manifested! The worth of man is known only by going to Calvary. In the mystery of the cross of Christ we can place an estimate upon man."—Amazing Grace, 175.
4. "By His life and His death, Christ proved that God's justice did not destroy His mercy, but that sin could be forgiven, and that the law is righteous, and can be perfectly obeyed. Satan's charges were refuted. God had given man unmistakable evidence of His love."—The Desire of Ages, 762.
III. Jesus suffered the wrath of God [awfulness of being God-forsaken] against transgression.
"God suffered His wrath against transgression to fall on His beloved Son. Jesus was to be crucified for the sins of men. What suffering, then, would the sinner bear who continued in sin? All the impenitent and unbelieving would know a sorrow and misery that language would fail to express."—The Desire of Ages, 743.
IV. In proving Satan wrong and God right, in our Lord's life and death, Jesus earned the victor's right to be our Savior and High Priest.
Some by their impenitence would make it an impossibility for the prayer of Christ to be answered for them. Yet, just the same, God’s purpose was reaching its fulfillment. Jesus was earning the right to become the advocate of men in the Father’s presence."—The Desire of Ages, 744.
V. Jesus died to demonstrate the character of God and the value of mankind.
1. "The Lord our Redeemer had not yet demonstrated fully that love to its completeness. After His condemnation in the judgment hall, His crucifixion on the cross, when He cried out in a clear, loud voice, 'It is finished,' that love stands forth as an exhibition of a new love—'as I have loved you'—is demonstrated. Can the human mind take this in? Can we obey the commandment given?"—Manuscript Releases 16, 190.
2. "Christ died to bring life and immortality to light through the gospel, and therefore man is of value in God's sight."—Manuscript Releases 17, 198.
3. "And the Son of God endured this shame as the penalty of guilt, in order that the sinner may stand guiltless and innocent before the throne of God. See what may arise from the height of exaltation from which our Saviour came, and the depth of humiliation to which He reached in order to grasp the sinner and lift him up to become a partaker of His divine nature, and link his life, his soul, with the Infinite God. When we obtain a sight of that cross; when that suffering, agonized cry, 'It is finished,' pierces our ears, the sacrifice is complete. His love has imprinted the name of every saint upon the palms of His hands."—Manuscript Releases 18, 19.
VI. Christ died to reclaim this earth from the usurped authority of Satan.
"It was to make an inroad on the territory of Satan, and dispute his usurped authority, and reclaim the kingdom unto Himself, that Christ died. With the shout of a monarch who has clothed himself with zeal as a cloak, will He fight His antagonist, the prince of darkness, and win back the kingdom Satan claims as his own rightful dominion."—Manuscript Releases 18, 54.
VII. Jesus died to underscore the immutability of the law of God—that it could not and should not be altered to fit the whims of created intelligences (Matthew 5:17, 18).
1. "The light that I have is that God’s servants should go quietly to work, preaching the grand, precious truths of the Bible—Christ and him crucified, His love and infinite sacrifice—showing that the reason why Christ died is because the law of God is immutable, unchangeable, eternal."—The Southern Work, 69.
2. "Christ died because there was no other hope for the transgressor. He might try to keep God’s law in the future; but the debt which he had incurred in the past remained, and the law must condemn him to death. Christ came to pay that debt for the sinner which it was impossible for him to pay for himself. Thus, through the atoning sacrifice of Christ, sinful man was granted another trial."—Faith and Works, 30.
3. "When Christ died, the destruction of Satan was made certain. But if the law was abolished at the cross, as many claim, then the agony and death of God’s dear Son were endured only to give to Satan just what he asked; then the prince of evil triumphed, his charges against the divine government were sustained. The very fact that Christ bore the penalty of man’s transgression is a mighty argument to all created intelligences that the law is changeless; that God is righteous, merciful, and self-denying; and that infinite justice and mercy unite in the administration of His government."—Patriarch and Prophets, 70.
4. "By the crucifixion of Christ the immutability of the law of God was forever established. He was the Son of God, and had it been possible, God would have changed the law to meet man in his fallen state. But the law of God is unalterable, and the only way that man could be saved was for a Substitute to be provided, who would bear the penalty of transgression, and thus give man an opportunity to return to his loyalty."—Manuscript Releases 18, 70.
5. "The reason why Christ died is because the law of God is immutable, unchangeable, eternal."—Maranatha, 177.
VIII. Because God will not take rebels back into heaven, Christ died to make it possible for sinners to choose loyalty and become obedient commandment-keepers by His promised grace.
1. "Christ died that the transgressor of the law of God might be brought back to his loyalty, that he might keep the commandments of God, and His law as the apple of his eye, and live. God cannot take rebels into His kingdom; therefore He makes obedience to His requirements a special requirement."—Child Guidance, 257.
2. "By giving His life for the life of men, He would restore in humanity the image of God. He would lift us up from the dust, reshape the character after the pattern of His own character, and make it beautiful with His own glory."—The Ministry of Healing, 504.
3. "Is the matter of gaining eternal life one to be trifled with? With His own life Christ paid the price of our redemption. He died to secure our love and willing obedience."—Manuscript Releases 18, 269.
4. "He died to make it possible for us to keep the law. But all are left to make their choice for themselves. God forces no one to accept the advantages secured for him at an infinite cost."—The Youth's Instructor, March 20, 1902.
IX. Christ died because of sin on Planet Earth—the transgression of God's law.
"Why did He die? In consequence of sin. What is sin? The transgression of the law. Then the eyes are open to see the character of sin. The law is broken but cannot pardon the transgressor. It is our schoolmaster, condemning to punishment. Where is the remedy? The law drives us to Christ, who was hanged upon the cross that He might be able to impart His righteousness to fallen, sinful man and thus present men to His Father in His righteous character—Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary 1110 (334).
X. Jesus died to provide the basis and purpose for the everlasting gospel—that sinners would take courage and understand the divine power available and live as loyal followers, again proving Satan wrong about the willingness and ability of created beings to obey God (Philippians 2:12-15).
1. "The precious revelation of God’s will in the Scriptures with all their unfolding of glorious truth is only a means to an end. The death of Jesus Christ was a means to an end. The most powerful and efficacious provision that He could give to our world, was the means; the end was the glory of God in the uplifting, refining, ennobling of the human agent."—Manuscript Releases 7, 274.
2. "Jesus died that He might purify us from all iniquity. The Lord will carry on this work of perfection for us if we will allow ourselves to be controlled by Him. He carries on this work for our good and His own name’s glory."—Manuscript Releases 4, 348, 1898.
3. "We hear many excuses; I cannot live up to this or that. What do you mean by this or that? Do you mean that it was an imperfect sacrifice that was made for the fallen race upon Calvary, that there is not sufficient grace and power granted us that we may work away from our own natural defects and tendencies, that it was not a whole Saviour that was given us? or do you mean to cast reproach upon God?"—Ms 8, 1888, sermon preached at Minneapolis General Conference, Sabbath, Oct 20, 1888, cited in Olson, Through Crisis to Victory, 261, 262.
4. "How could he give you any stronger evidence of his love than he gave when he died for you on Calvary’s cross? He died that you might have power to break with Satan, that you might cast off his hellish shackles, and be delivered from his power."—The Youth's Instructor, March 2, 1893.
5. "Christ died that His life might be lived in you, and in all who make Him their example. In the strength of your Redeemer you can reveal the character of Christ, and you can work in wisdom and in power to make the crooked places straight."—Gospel Workers, 164.
6. "By dying on the cross Christ gave His life as an offering for sin, that through His power man might turn from his sins, become converted, and be a laborer together with God."—Manuscript Releases 18, 75.
7. "All heaven is interested in the restoration of the moral image of God in man. All heaven is working to this end. God and the holy angels have an intense desire that human beings shall reach the standard of perfection which Christ died to make it possible for them to reach."—In heavenly Places, 286.
8. "When tempted and tried, he claims the power that Christ died to give, and overcomes through His grace. This every sinner needs to understand. He must repent of his sin, he must believe in the power of Christ, and accept that power to save and to keep him from sin."—Selected Messages, bk. 1, 224.
9. "We are not, because Christ died, left a company of orphans. ... It is possible for us to obtain victory after victory, and be the most happy people on the face of the earth."—Our High Calling, 148.
10. "But men have been satisfied with small attainments. They have not sought with all their might to rise in mental, moral, and physical capabilities. They have not felt that God required this of them; they have not realized that Christ died that they might do this very work. As the result they are far behind what they might be in intelligence and in the ability to think and plan."—Testimonies, vol. 5, 554.
11. "Christ died that the moral image of God might be restored in humanity, that men and women might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. We are to use no power of our being for selfish gratification; for all our powers belong to him, and are to be used to His glory."—Review and Herald, November 6, 1900.
12. "By transgression man was severed from God, the communion between them was broken, but Jesus Christ died upon the cross of Calvary, bearing in His body the sins of the whole world; and the gulf between heaven and earth was bridged by that cross. Christ leads men to the gulf, and points to the bridge by which it is spanned, saying, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up His cross daily, and follow me.” God gives us a probation in which we may prove whether or not we will be loyal to Him."—Manuscript 21, 1895, cited in Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 7, 465.
13. "Christ died to make an atoning sacrifice for our sins. At the father’s right hand He is interceding for us as our High Priest. By the sacrifice of His life He purchased redemption for us. His atonement is effectual for every one who will humble himself, and receive Christ as his example in all things. If the Saviour had not given His life as a propitiation for our sins, the whole human family would have perished. They would have had no right to heaven. It is through His intercession that we, through faith, repentance, and conversion, are enabled to become partakers of the divine nature, and thus escape the corruption that is in the world through lust."—Manuscript 29, 1906, cited in Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 7, 477.
14. "Christ has died that we might keep God’s commandments. Will you have your names registered in the Lamb’s book of life? Then be careful and zealous to repent of every sin. He says, “I will not blot out your name from the book of life, but I will confess it before My Father and His angels” (Revelation 3:5)."—Manuscript Releases 9, 264.
15. "When Christ gave His life for you, it was that He might place you on vantage ground and impart to you moral power. By faith you may become partakers of His divine nature, having overcome the corruption that is in the world through lust."—Manuscript Releases 14, 73.
16. "Christ came to our world to elevate humanity, to renew in man the image of God, that man might become the partaker of the divine nature. ... The Majesty of heaven gave His life to make us individually His own by bringing back the transgressor to his loyalty to God’s law, by turning away the sinner from his iniquity. Oh, that men would love and fear God!"—Manuscript Releases 14, 85.
17. "By the death of His only begotten Son, God has made it possible for man to reach the high ideal set before him. We can do God no greater dishonor than to remain in indolence and indifference, caring not to save the souls perishing in sin."—Manuscript Releases 16, 342.
18. "He died that you might be led to see the sinfulness of sin and come unto Him that you might have life."—Manuscript Releases 17, 49.
19. "Do not disappoint the One who gave His life that you might be an overcomer. He was tempted on every point that you and I can be tempted on, and in order to resist He spent whole nights in prayer and communion with his Father. Christ did not leave this world until He had made it possible for every soul to live a life of perfect faith and obedience, to have a perfect character."—Manuscript Releases 17, 85.
20. "You are not called upon to fast forty days. The Lord bore that fast for you in the wilderness of temptation. There would be no virtue in such a fast; but there is virtue in the blood of Christ. Will you not believe that there is power in His sacrifice to purify and refine you, power in His grace to make you a laborer together with God?"—Manuscript Releases 17, 86.
21. "Those who keep the commandments of God should make it manifest that the truth is sanctifying the soul, refining and purifying the thoughts, and elevating the character and life. Christ has died that the moral image of God might be restored in our souls and might be reflected to those around us."—Faith and Works, 61.
22. "The cross of Calvary challenges, and will finally vanquish every earthly and hellish power. In the cross all influence centers, and from it all influence goes forth. It is the great center of attraction; for on it Christ gave up His life for the human race. This sacrifice was offered for the purpose of restoring man to his original perfection. Yea, more, it was offered to give him an entire transformation of character, making him more than a conqueror."—Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 6, 1113.
23. "As a divine Saviour, Jesus died for us that we might live His life of purity, truth, and righteousness. He teaches us how to live. Our prayer should be, 'Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.'"—Manuscript Releases 18, 277.
24. "Christ died to save sinners, not in their sins, but from their sins."—Manuscript Releases 19, 182.
25. "By dying on the cross Christ gave His life as an offering for sin, that through His power man might turn from his sins, become converted, and be a laborer together with God."—Manuscript Releases 18, 75.
26. "As a divine Saviour, Jesus died for us that we might live His life of purity, truth, and righteousness. He teaches us how to live. Our prayer should be, 'Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.'"—Manuscript Releases 18, 277.
27. "The Son of God consented to die in the sinner’s stead, that man might, by a life of obedience, escape the penalty of the law."—Signs of the Times, Aug 7, 1879.