Why Jesus Came
John 1:29-33 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
Matthew 1:21-23 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
Why did Jesus come to earth as a man? As the above verses show, Jesus came to save us from sin. The details of God’s plan of redemption needs to be understood however and we cannot take these verses alone and draw a conclusion that Jesus forgives all our sins just based on the fact He came to earth and died on a cross. The rest of God’s words and the whole of Scripture represent the whole counsel of God and that is what we need to understand to get the truth about Jesus’ ministry and the requirements He attached to entering His Kingdom. Later in the gospels, Jesus speaks directly and gives us more details on the purpose of His coming. Let’s take a look.
Luke 4:17-20 And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:
The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.
Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
These are the first recorded words of teaching by Jesus after His Baptism that initiated his ministry on earth in the flesh. In this passage Jesus states why He came. Bottom line, He came to set us free from captivity to sin, to heal our sicknesses (spiritual and physical) and deliver us from death. As we see elsewhere in the Gospels, part of this ministry includes forgiving sins for those that follow Him when truly confessed and repented. A key distinction is that Jesus did not come to excuse (forgive) sin but instead came to empower us to overcome (defeat) sin. There is indeed a huge difference in what it means in our walk with God. Forgiveness of sins is a byproduct of our following Christ. His more loftier purpose in coming was eliminating sin from our life by equipping us to overcome sin.
Matthew 9:11-13 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. Jesus did not come to excuse and forgive all sins, He Himself says right here He came to call sinners to REPENTANCE. This means we sincerely turn away from sin, and like He told the woman caught in adultery “GO AND SIN NO MORE“. This is a consistent pattern, when we come to Christ sincerely and repent first, He forgives us and tells us to go and sin no more. Our obedience post coming to faith is at the very heart of His message. Repent or we too shall perish sayeth the Lord.
Luke 12:49-53 “I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished! 51 Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division. 52 For from now on five in one house will be divided: three against two, and two against three. 53 Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” Jesus didn’t come to bring bliss and acceptance of sin. He came to stir the pot. His coming was to separate the wheat from the chaff, the sheep from the goats, the righteous from the unrighteous. Jesus came to show us how to WAR WITH THE FLESH and overcome our flesh and walk in holiness. When we accomplish this victory over sin, through the power of His grace, we have a peace that transcends all understanding. But first a war must be fought and a victory must be claimed. Christ showed us the way to life, He already delivered the victory for us, we just need to do our part which starts with faith (believing). He told us to cut off our foot or pluck out our eye if it makes us sin to make sure there was no misunderstanding on what we had to DO to reap eternal life. When His truth smacks you in the face, you must choose obedience and life or disobedience which leads to death. Joshua and his family chose to serve the Lord. What have you chosen to do?
John 18:37-38 Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” Jesus is our King, it is indeed His Kingdom and He came into this world to reveal that truth to us. He revealed it back in the Apostle’s days by His physical presence and the sinless life He lead and the many miracles He performed. He continues to reveal Himself through His Holy Spirit that is in us if we truly are His and love Him by obeying His commandments. He speaks to us today through His spirit. Are you hearing His voice? Jesus said we would if we were His sheep. As followers of Jesus, we are to bear witness to TRUTH also as those still captive to sin are looking at us for help and we must set the example and not be hypocrites.
Matthew 5:17-20 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. 19 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. The underlined verse does not say, those that keep sinning will be in heaven but will just be lower on the totem pole of heaven. What He meant here was that “believers” that continue to break His commandments will not be in heaven whatsoever along with the false teachers that teach this error. If we want to be righteousness in the eyes of God, we must practice righteousness. We do that by OBEYING HIS COMMANDS. There is not a single prophet in Scripture that did not preach obedience and turning from evil practices. God does not change.
John 10:10-11 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. 11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. 12 But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. Here the Lord speaks of the abundant life as the reason He came. This not only includes eternal life but a rich life here on earth; not in terms of material possessions but in relationship with Him and the corresponding freedom and peace that will befall us.
John 3:17-20 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. This passage follows the wonderful yet often misconstrued verse of John 3:16. The Father sent the Son not to condemn us but to save us through Him. If we really believe in Jesus, we will heed His words about loving Him, Obeying His commandment and overcoming the sin that controlled us prior to coming to faith. If we practice sin (evil) it means we do not really believe in the one the Father sent. We are slaves to the one we obey. Many professing Christians want a Savior but not a Lord. Jesus is THE Lord. Many Christians are Lord of their own lives and Jesus is Lord in name only. They worship Him with their lips yet their hearts are far from Him and Jesus said this is vain worship.
The Apostle John
The Apostle John made several clear and compelling statements about why Jesus came. His first Epistle was written to the early church, that in John’s own words was so they would know if they were saved.
1 John 3:4-6 Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. 5 And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. 6 Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Confirmation of why Jesus came is stated that Jesus came to take away our sins. A few verses later, John tells us how specifically Jesus takes away sin.
1 John 3:8 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. The works of the devil is sin. The thief comes to kill, steal and destroy and getting us to sin is the devil’s modus operandi. Jesus did not come to forgive all sins, He came to empower us via His grace to defeat sin in our lives. Through the power of Grace, we are given both the desire and the ability to defeat sin and overcome temptation. This is what Paul meant when he said “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” and “the Lord is faithful, he will give you strength and protect you from your enemies.” When Jesus said it was easier for a camel to go thru the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, the disciples asked Jesus “then who can be saved”. Jesus said, with God all things are possible. Defeating sin and overcoming it is possible, in fact we are called to do it. Many professing believers take pleasure in their sins and are deluding themselves they are going to heaven. You make God a liar and you deny Christ if you live in sin and feel no conviction about it or don’t even try to defeat it. You have a form of godliness but deny the power therein.
1 John 4:7-10 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Jesus coming to earth allowed us to live through Him. It allowed us to all have a personal relationship with the living God. That is why he came. John goes on to explain a little of how this worked. Jesus was a propitiation or substitute for our sins. Paul makes it very clear in Romans 3:25-26 that this is for PAST SINS, not future sins. Jesus never forgave future sins in advance, He only forgave past sins, even the thief of the cross’s sins. This is the imputed righteousness of Christ that applies for PAST SINS only. We can never be righteous on our own, we all have sinned at some point in our lives, we all need a Savior and thankfully God sent one to us – JESUS. But this did not change the Lord’s instructions to us which were and continue to be GO AND SIN NO MORE.
Conclusion
Getting back to the opening verses at the top: So how does Jesus take away the sins of the world? How does Jesus save us from sin? He accomplishes His objectives in freeing us from sin by giving us the ability to destroy sin in our lives. That means to cease from sinning, not that our sins are all forgiven. Make no mistake, forgiveness of sin is part of God’s grace to His sheep but most have missed the real message of the Gospel, which is we can defeat the works of the devil through the power of God. If we truly follow Him, He abides in us and we in Him and through the power of His grace we walk the narrow and difficult road to eternal life. We overcome sin, by standing in the power of His grace and being led by His spirit. If we sow to the spirit we reap eternal life and are saved from our sins. If we sow to the flesh instead, we reap destruction and eternal condemnation. Paul wrote in Romans that those who are lead by the spirit of God are sons of God. This is how are adopted into God’s family. If are lead by the Spirit we are IN CHRIST and will not practice sin.
May God Bless You Richly!!!
