Approaching Death

Sacrifice of Jesus

Jesus’ Death Will Exalt Him

John 14:28 You have heard how I said to you, ‘I go away, and come again to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice, because I said, ‘I go to the Father: for my Father is greater than I.’

The disciples ought to rejoice in His death, because it meant Jesus would finally be glorified. He had finished the work God gave Him to do. He was now going to go and receive the reward of the good pleasure of God, and be eternally exalted.

Jesus wanted to be restored to that pristine glory He had known prior to His humiliation, when he left heaven to become a man. He was a sinless Son who deserved only the glories of the eternal. God had suffered as a man, from the hatred of other men.

“My Father is greater than I,” is a present statement that Jesus made indicating that in His role as a humble servant Son, at that point the Father was greater than He for the Father was in glory and He was humiliated in the earth.

Jesus’ Death Verifies His Truth

John 14:29 And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that, when it is come to pass, you might believe.

Jesus had made many claims to the disciples, and they were really having a difficult time believing it. Jesus knew that to help their faith, He could predict events. Then, when they came to pass, it would bolster their faith. The prophecies that Jesus Christ gave were given to document His truth that He was God. Only God can foretell the future, so Jesus told them things they couldn’t understand yet. When those things came to pass, their faith would be stronger.

Christ knows that these men He has invested Himself in are holding in their hands the truth of God.

They must carry the message; they’re going to have to have a solid faith. When I go, the truth is going to be documented in your lives. You’re going to move out with the gospel all the faster to the world.

Jesus’ Death Defeats Satan

John 14:30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world comes, and has nothing in Me. Man, through Adam, had fallen out of fellowship with God.

So Christ came to bring back fallen man to God. In order to do that, He had to enter into direct conflict with Satan to defeat him, and to restore fallen man.

Christ had battled Satan all throughout His life. Satan had tried to kill Him as a baby. When Christ began His ministry, Satan tried to tempt Him, and to get Him to bow down to him. Satan had failed.
Then, throughout Jesus’ life of ministry, through hateful people and demons, Satan tried to kill Him.

Finally, in His death, that conflict would be resolved.

Jesus’ looked at the cross in the light of conflict with Satan. Revelation 20:10 ultimately says, he’ll be cast into the Lake of Fire, for the final sentencing. He’s already been wiped out in our lives; he has no power unless we give it to him.

Satan had nothing on Jesus. Jesus had no vulnerable spot, no weakness, no place where Satan could make accusation at all. Christ never sinned, so Satan had nothing against Him. He had no right to kill Him. Satan entered into a spiritual conflict against God Himself. Satan lost, and he will be destroyed.

Jesus’ Death Demonstrates His Love for the Father

John 14:31 But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave Me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.

If He had done nothing to deserve death, then why doesn’t Jesus stop Satan from slaying Him? Jesus said, ‘I’m doing it because God designed it, because that’s God’s plan and I am going to show the world that I love the Father by obeying the Father.’

He’s emphasizing His love for the Father. This is a strong contrast to the phony love of the so-called religious leaders. The religious leaders of Christ’s day, the Pharisees, were always going around saying they ‘loved God,’ yet constantly lying and disobeying God.

Jesus was truly and fully obedient to the Father.

This is the only time in the New Testament that Jesus ever spoke of His love for the Father as such. But He spoke of His obedience to the Father repeatedly, and latent in every one of those passages where He speaks about obedience is love.

Here, He specifically talks of His love for the Father. The supreme act of His love was to allow Satan who had nothing on Him at all to kill Him, just because it was the Father’s will. It was God’s will or plan to save us, and a perfect sacrifice was required—His Son.

How does that measure up to our own obedience? Where are we, if we stop to measure our love for Jesus by our obedience to Him?

God cures us of ourselves that we may see everything in the light of what it means to Jesus Christ.