Was the Crucifixion Good or Evil?

The Crucifixion was Necessary

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ was good for us in that God in His great love and mercy offers through Jesus and His death for our sins the forgiveness of sins and the gift of everlasting life.

The crucifixion of Jesus was evil on the part of all of us whose sins caused Jesus to be crucified. Your sins and mine drove those nails through His hands and feet, put that crown of thorns upon His brow, drove that spear into His side, and all of the other awful things done to Jesus at Calvary.

So, the crucifixion of Jesus is good for us, but was bad because we were the ones who caused Him to go to the cross. Thank God His great love overcomes all the bad for every person who repents of his sins and turns to Jesus.

In Philippians 2:5-7 we see that Jesus, as God, took upon Himself “the likeness of men.” Thus, Jesus became the one and only “God-man,” He was totally God and totally man at the same time. This is called the Hypostatic Union and is difficult to understand. But Jesus Christ, as the God-man died on the cross for our sins.

So, God the Son did die for sinners. It had to be this way because Jesus has always been God and always will be God. He could not have put away His deity to die on the cross even if He wanted to, because He is God. And He had to die as God, being perfect, to be a satisfactory sacrifice for us in the eyes of God the Father.

Jesus Christ also died as a man. This identified Him with all of us in the human race. He was “made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7) and therefore, He could be tempted in all things as we are and remain sinless (Hebrews 4:15). We praise God for this wonderful truth. Jesus Christ is now our high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses, because He knows exactly what we are going through.

God the Son is a person and as a person He died as God and as man He bore our punishment. Isaiah 53:5 says, “He was wounded for our transgressions: he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.”

In this chastisement Christ experienced what no other man has ever experienced. He became sin, taking on Himself our sins. And when He took upon Himself our sin on the cross, God the Father had to turn His back on God the Son, because of our sin which He had taken upon Himself. Thus Christ suffered the awful punishment of separation from God the Father at that time.

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Dr. Elmer Towns is a college and seminary professor, an author of popular and scholarly works (the editor of two encyclopedias), a popular seminar lecturer, and dedicated worker in Sunday school, and has developed over 20 resource packets for leadership education.His personal education includes a B.S. from Northwestern College in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a M.A. from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, a Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary also in Dallas, a MRE from Garrett Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, and a D.Min. from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.He is co-founder of Liberty University, with Jerry Falwell, in 1971, and was the only full-time teacher in the first year of Liberty’s existence. Today, the University has over 11,400 students on campus with 39,000 in the Distance Learning Program (now Liberty University Online), and he is the Dean of the School of Religion.Dr. Towns has given theological lectures and taught intensive seminars at over 50 theological seminaries in America and abroad. He holds visiting professorship rank in five seminaries. He has written over 2,000 reference and/or popular articles and received six honorary doctoral degrees. Four doctoral dissertations have analyzed his contribution to religious education and evangelism.

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