Death of Christ

“ Christ's death, and not his life, is the central truth of Christianity. The cross is par excellence the Christian symbol. In both the ordinances—in Baptism as well as in the Lord's Supper—it is the death of Christ that is primarily set forth. Neither Christ's example, nor his teaching, reveals God as does his death. It is the death of Christ that links together all Christian doctrines. ”

“ The death of Christ is an expression of God's free grace. If we regard Christ, in his life and character, as a manifestation of God's will, then his pathetic and tender death reveals to us that God loves us even when we are sinners, before reparation or repentance ”

“ We suffer, and Christ suffered; we die, and Christ died; he conquered suffering and death, he rose and lives and reigns,—and we shall conquer, rise, live, and reign; the hours on the cross were long, the thirst was bitter, the darkness and horror real,—but they ended. ”

“ The life and the death of Christ are one and mutually explain each other. From the life we learn that no motive can have prompted Christ to die but the one motive which ruled Him always—the desire to do all God willed in men’s behalf. We cannot interpret the death as anything else than a consistent part of a deliberate work undertaken for men’s good. ”

“ Why was it needful for Jesus Christ to die? Why was it worth His while to bear the punishment of man's sin? Why should God and Christ, through all the ages, plead with unintermittent voice? There must be some explanation of it all, and here is the explanation, ‘They that hate Me love death.’ ‘Be ye reconciled to God,’ for enmity is ruin and destruction. ”

“ The mountains are dark overhead, the water roars in the gloom below. His heart is ground between the mill-stones of dread. When he passes the extended body of the dead Christ he takes off his hat to the Lord of Death. Christ is the Deathly One, He is Death incarnate. ”

“ Ever since the fall in Eden, man is born to die. He lives to die. He eats and drinks, sleeps and wakes, to die. Death, like a dark steel-clad warrior, stands ever before us; and his gigantic shadow comes continually between us and happiness. But Christ hath “abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” He was born in Bethlehem, that he might die on Calvary. He was made under the law, that he might bear the direst penalty of the law. He lived thirty-three years, sinless among sinners, that he might offer himself a sin-offering for sinners upon the cross. ”

“ The fact that Jesus Christ has died changes the whole aspect of death to His servant, inasmuch as in that great solitude he has a companion, and in the valley of the shadow of death sees footsteps that tell him of One that went before. ”

“ One answer to this argument is, that the death of Christ, in its effects, is not confined to man, but extends beyond this world, and may be designed to tell on all other intelligences. The difficulty, however, lies in defining the manner in which the death of Christ may bear on other spiritual beings. ”

“ But are any destroyed for whom Christ died? If we understand it of the sufficiency and general intendment of Christ's death, which was to save all upon gospel terms, no doubt but multitudes are. If of the particular determination of the efficacy of his death to the elect, then, though none that were given to Christ shall perish (John vi. 39) , yet thou mayest, as much as is in thy power, destroy such. ”

“ Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with Christ: knowing that Christ rising again from the dead, dieth now no more, death shall no more have dominion over him. For in that he died to sin, he died once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. So do you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. ”

“ Thousands of our lads are doing it at this instant in France. Therefore the death of Christ, beautiful as it is in the Gospel narrative, has seemed to assume an undue importance, as though it were an isolated phenomenon for a man to die in pursuit of a reform. ”

“ It has not a word to explain, though many a word to proclaim and enforce, the fact of Christ's death as the atonement for the sins of the whole world. Observe, too, how scanty the information on points on which the heart craves for more light. How closely, for instance, the veil is kept over the future life! How many questions which are not prompted by mere curiosity, our sorrow and our love ask in vain! ”

“ Take the right attitude and as you look to Jesus and what He was, say: "Father, Thou hast made me a partaker of the divine nature, a partaker of Christ. It is in the life of Christ given up to Thee to the death, in His power and indwelling, in His likeness, that I desire to live out my life before Thee." Death is a solemn thing, an awful thing. In the Garden it cost Christ great agony to die that death; and no wonder it is not easy to us. But we willingly consent when we have learned the secret; in death alone the life of God will come; in death there is blessedness unspeakable. ”

“ Christ died, He died unto sin, and that He liveth, He liveth unto God. The death and the life in Him are inseparable; and even so in us the life to God in Christ is inseparably connected with the death to sin. ”

“ We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed. Any theories we build up as to how Christ’s death did all this are, in my view, quite secondary: mere plans or diagrams to be left alone if they do not help us, and, even if they do help us, not to be confused with the thing itself. ”

“ That the death of Christ is a mighty argument to persuade with the believer, to devote himself to God in Christ, in all things, as becometh one that hath received grace and redemption by his blood, is true ”

“ Note, When with an eye of faith we behold Christ crucified we ought to weep, not for him, but for ourselves. We must not be affected with the death of Christ as with the death of a common person whose calamity we pity, or of a common friend whom we are likely to part with. ”

“ It is this which is special to the death of Christ, and which separates it from all other deaths and heroic sacrifices. It has a universal bearing—a bearing upon every man, because it is a Divine act, the act of that One who is the God and Father of all men. In the same century as our Lord many men died in a manner which strongly excites our admiration. ”

“ We have here what the act of dying and the condition of the dead become by virtue of faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
They have ‘fallen asleep.’ The act of dying is but a laying one's self down to rest, and a dropping out of consciousness of the surrounding world. It is very remarkable and very beautiful that the new Testament scarcely ever employs the words dying and death for the act of separating body and spirit, or for the condition either of the spirit parted from the body, or of the body parted from the spirit. ”

“ It explains why Christ's death is looked at in them only in its bearing upon Himself, as an act of obedience and of condescension, and why even that death in which Jesus stands most inimitable and unique is presented as capable of being imitated by us. ”

“ Jesus Christ became obedient unto death, even unto the death of the cross. Son of God, dying upon the cross for the salvation of souls, we adore thee; eternal Father, we offer Thee this, thy divine Son; accept, we beseech thee, His merits in behalf of the suffering souls in purgatory, for the conversion of all poor sinners, and of all in their agony. ”

“ But Christ has really destroyed death both in the Pagan and in the Jewish feeling concerning it. He destroys the Pagan idea of death as a plunge downward from something into nothing, a descent into non-entity or half-entity, a diminution of our being, a passage from the substantial to the shadowy and unreal. ”

“ Besides, it is one thing to say, Christ died for some that perish, as they partake the fruits of his death in themselves belonging to Salvation, which is granted, another to say, Christ died for all men, considered as fallen according to the will of God, and intention of Christ as Mediatour, with full purpose to purchase for them actuall reconciliation on Gods part, which is, that they contend for. ”

“ The Apostle, [237] four times over in this short paragraph, makes mention of death, and of the dead. "No one of us dieth to himself"; "Whether we die, we die unto the Lord"; "Whether we die, we are the Lord's"; "That He might be Lord of the dead." And this last sentence, with its mention not of the dying but of the dead, reminds us that the reference in them all is to the Christian's relation to his Lord, not only in the hour of death, but in the state after death. It is not only that Jesus Christ, as the slain One risen, is absolute Disposer of the time and manner of our dying. ”

“ Thirdly, Besides all these, he hath other subtle ways of contriving the death of men, by putting them upon ways and actions that are attended with hazard. Thus he sought the death of Christ, not directly but indirectly, by urging him to an action which he thought would unavoidably bring him to death, for a fall from so great a precipice would easily have bereaved any man of life. ”

“ But when we hear ‘Christ died according to the Scriptures,’ the whole symbolism of the ancient ritual and all the glowing anticipations of the prophets rise up before us, and that death assumes an altogether different aspect. If we stop with ‘Jesus died,’ then that death may be a beautiful example of heroism, a sweet, pathetic instance of innocent suffering, a conspicuous example of the world's wages to the world's teachers, but it is little more. If, however, we take Paul's words upon our lips, ‘Brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached ... ”

“ Either the sinner must die, or some one in his stead: but there was none whose death could have been an equivalent for the transgressions of the world but Jesus Christ. Jesus therefore died for man; and it is through his blood, the merit of his passion and death, that we have redemption; and not by his obedience to the moral law in our stead. ”

“ Jesus Christ was the plague and destruction of death and the grave when by death he destroyed him that had the power of death, and when in his own resurrection he triumphed over the grave. But the complete destruction of them will be in the resurrection of believers at the great day, when death shall for ever be swallowed up in victory, and it is the last enemy that shall be destroyed. ”

“ He tasted death for every man; and he could enter into his triumph only by dying. We should be more than resigned to follow our blessed Lord into the tomb. Christ conquered death by dying; we shall be more than conquerors in the same way. If we suffer great pain, we cannot suffer more than Christ suffered on our account. Sufferings borne in the spirit of Christ are counted as sufferings borne for Christ. "If we suffer, we shall also reign with him." "If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together."
Death is a part of the penalty of sin. ”

“ Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. [444] Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. ”

“ When the Apostles heard speak of Christ being put to death, because they were unwilling that He should die, and that they should be separated from Him by death, He alleviates this their sorrow by adding, And the third day He shall rise again. ”