We’ve already seen how Jesus disrupts Jewish expectations for the Messiah. Perhaps the greatest disruption of all, though, is how he secures the victory for God’s kingdom.
Not only does Jesus refuse to fight the Roman government as he liberates his people, but he willingly gives himself as a sacrifice to them. He conquers the powers of this world by absorbing violence in himself.
Victory for the Kingdom of God is wrought through the death of its Messiah.
Why did Jesus choose death? Is this the only way God could “win the fight”? And what might this example of our Messiah implicate for the rest of us as Jesus followers?
These are the questions we’ll explore at depth in this article.
The apostle Paul tells us in Philippians that Jesus became “obedient even to death” (Phil. 2:8). This seems to indicate that Jesus did not necessarily choose death as much as he chose the way of his father, and death was the way of his father chose to secure victory.
Key within all of God’s narrative is that suffering is the path to life.
Not only did Jesus walk the path of suffering and death, he walked the path of a humiliating death—the death of a criminal. The cross, in the Roman world, was for those condemned as criminals.
Jesus was a threat to the kingdom. Soldiers would rid their world of this “king of the Jews” by nailing him and hanging him on the cross.
The cross was the place where all those who rebelled against the Roman Empire—including many false messiahs—ended their lives.[1] Again, the Jews never expected their Messiah to work in this way. “Crucified Messiah” seemed an oxymoron, and the cross became a stumbling block to them (1 Co. 1:23).
But what the Roman empire failed to realize (as did most of the Jews) was that the Kingdom Jesus was about to inaugurate was not a kingdom of emperors and governors; it was a kingdom of redeemed citizens of creation (Eph. 1:7-19).
Redemption means to “buy back.” Back in Genesis 3, creation became slave to the serpent—slave to the powers of this world. Adam and Eve (and all of humanity along with them) chose allegiance to the gods of this age and not the God of Gods: Yahweh.
So if mankind is to be saved from the gods of this world and the bondage of corruption, there needs to be a redemption price paid. Since the one man Adam gave his life to the way of the serpent, the one man Jesus gives his life as a ransom to buy back mankind from the serpent and the gods of this world (Mark 10:45).
We need to understand, however, that redemption is about much more than paying a price or being punished for wrongdoing.
Scholars have long debated the nature of atonement in the Old and New Testaments, and we’re not going to get into it at length here. But to fully understand the victory Jesus worked for God’s Kingdom through his death on the cross, we need to realize that while there is on one hand a sense of punishment awaiting the disobedient (which is all of us) that Jesus took in our place, on the other hand there is a cleansing the disobedient need in order to enter relationship with God.
The Kingdom of God, established through his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and the Israelites, is about living in a loving relationship with God as Adam and Eve experienced in Eden. Because God is holy, sin cannot dwell in his presence. Those who carry sin would die if they ever came into his presence. So Jesus, cleanses us from sin through his death on the cross. He not only pays the redemption price; he makes it possible for us to stand in the presence of a holy God by removing our sin and making us holy (Eph. 5:25-27).
Jesus dying on the cross secures the victory of God’s Kingdom because through it God is reunited in his loving, benevolent relationship with man.
But here’s the deal. If we are going to inherit from the suffering and death of Jesus, what might a responsible use of that inheritance look like?
The New Testament gives the narrative that we cannot experience the resurrection of Jesus if we are not willing to also experience his death (Matt 16:24; Ro. 8:16-17).
There is first and foremost a death to self that must occur. Sin reigns within our beings and it must be crucified as was Jesus.
But there is also a death in as much a physical sense as Jesus experienced that we also are to be willing to enter into if we are going to participate in the glory of God’s Kingdom. After all, Jesus said that if they persecuted him, they will also persecute his disciples (John 15:20).
Yet, here within the context of suffering Jesus comforts us by calling us blessed and recipients of the kingdom of God (Matt. 5:10-12).
Peter also spoke of the power there is through suffering.
For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. -1 Peter 2:20-21
When the serpent thought it won because the Messiah had died (bruised heel), it had actually just lost all lasting power over mankind (head crushed).
In Jesus’ death, mankind became free to walk with God again. And this freedom is most graphically displayed when men and women willingly suffer physically so others can also experience the freedom of God given through Jesus Christ.
How does it make you feel when you consider that Jesus did not have to die, but obeyed the Father in coming to earth and dying so that we can have relationship with him again? Share in the comments below.
[1] Batholomew & Goheen, The Drama of Scripture (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), p. 163.
