Why Kill Jesus?

“The purpose of God’s divine love is to share his divine life.”

History is full of spilled blood and gore. Whenever we dig up the remains of ancient cultures we find in their records that warfare is standard behavior. One culture wars against another culture, and one warrior rises up to kill a dictator only to become the next dictator.

I am feeling a bit philosophical today. Bear with me while I wonder out loud at the mess the world is in.

When it comes to good and evil there are so many questions. So many questions…!

Where did the concept of “inhumanity” come from? From observing humanity, of course.

Got answers?

Why kill Jesus? Other famous people were killed in history. Why was Socrates killed? He lived about 400 years before Jesus as a simple philosopher who taught that civil morality based on human equality was more important than bowing down to the rich and famous. As a result of “corrupting youth” with these ideas he was convicted on charges of corrupting the culture of his day and was put to death on trumped up charges of treason.

Peter said that Jesus “went about doing good and healed all who were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him.” Why then was he killed? Why not find out what power he had and try to tap into it? None of it makes sense.

The Apostle Paul traveled through Asia Minor and preached that Jesus is the Savior. His common practice upon arriving in a city was to go to the Jewish synagogue. One of the major objections to his preaching was the fact that Jesus was killed.

And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. (Act 17:2-3)

The Gospel of John is a short book about the adult ministry of Jesus. Written later than the other Gospels, John’s book fills in spaces between the facts of what Jesus did, with commentary on the meaning of what he did, accompanied by the spiritual implications for all of us. John wrote,

He (Jesus) was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become the children of God, even to those who believe on his name: Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and lived among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory of the Only Child of the Father), full of grace and truth. (John 1:10-14)

So John admits right from the start that the large part of Jesus’ own nation did not receive him. Nevertheless those who did believe in him were radically changed. The others wanted to kill him.

John says that there was an epic struggle centered in Jesus. “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (John 3:19)

The questions continue:

Is the devil real? The apostle Peter wrote, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about seeking whom he may devour:" (1Pe 5:8). In Peter’s preaching, he spoke of a real life and death struggle in society. Could this by why Jesus was killed?

Let me ask you another question: Is the struggle of good versus evil a zero-sum game? A zero-sum game means one side cannot increase without a compensatory contraction by the other side. Is it true that the more contraction we see on the losing side of the equation, then the more that losing side is compressed and concentrated so that they fight that much harder? If the moral light from Jesus was so very powerful that John said Jesus was the light of the world, then wouldn’t the devil try to kill Jesus?

The battle is real. It encompasses the material world and the spiritual world. Contraction brings intensification of any battle. Warring factions protect their capitals the most as they are attacked. How could the Civil War capitals of the Union Army and the Confederate states be only 96 miles apart for almost all of the American Civil War? Meanwhile major battles between the two armies took place in New Orleans, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Georgia and Arkansas. Only at the last was the Union Army able to breach the defenses of Richmond, Virginia, the closest city of the South to Washington, D.C.

When Jesus began to expose the evil that was in the human heart, people freaked out. They were forced to take sides: to believe in Jesus or call for his execution. He was a polarizing figure.

There are many mysteries concerning the battles of opposites. But sometimes there are mysteries within the same side, too. Jesus told his disciples that they must be like salt and light (Matthew 5).

Salt is absolutely necessary to life. At times in history it was used as money. But salty ocean water when ingested can kill a person in days. Is salt good or bad?

Natural light awakens animals and humans every morning and blesses them with the ability to work quickly and efficiently. But darkness at night makes profitable work extremely slow and nearly impossible. Daylight is a blessing; but if we stare at the source of daylight, the sun, then we can go blind in seconds. Is light good or bad?

Humans derive life from the commonly distributed graces of God: he makes his rain fall on the just and the unjust. Light from the sun illuminates both the evil people and the good. And yet in the Old Testament God told Moses that no one can see his face and be left alive, for the purity of his being obliterates our impure selves. That purity is often depicted as intense light in the Bible. If no one is left alive in his presence, is God for us or against us?

The purpose of God’s divine love is to share his divine life. God’s original plan was to lead humanity through a training period on this physical Earth before giving them access to his eternal life. But after the entrance of sin through disbelief, rebellion and betrayal toward God by the first man and woman, God blocked the way to the tree of life. Humans could not be allowed to participate in eternal life while in rebellion. Oil and water don’t mix.

Jesus is the light of the world (John 8:12). He is the unique one who combines in himself the divinity of God and the physicality of human beings. He is the daylight. John wrote, “In him was light, and the light was the life of mankind.” Those who seek life come to Jesus by faith.

But no one can come without that light of life in Jesus shining all over and through themselves. It exposes every flaw and imperfection. We must cry out for forgiveness and mercy lest we be consumed by the fire within that light. God will forgive through Jesus.

God knows we are animated dust because he is the one that breathed life into us at the beginning. No one can see God directly and live, any more than we can stare at the sun and still see. Here is the paradox: What we need to live can also destroy us.

Jesus is like the daylight caused by the sun. We don’t need to stare at the sun. Daylight bounces around us in all directions. The unique Son of God was in a flesh and blood body like us. As the sun is refracted and diffused so that we can prosper in the daylight, and not be blinded, so God can be seen in Jesus in a form that will not destroy us. John said, “He was full of grace” and not condemnation.

John wrote, "No one has ever seen God. The only son who is intimate with the Father has revealed him" (John 1:18). Because "like father-like son" is true, Jesus reveals the Father through his own character. He told the disciple Philip, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father" (John 14:9).

He is the weird thing. When the light exposes our sinfulness, we instinctively seek to put out the light instead of use the light to wash away our filth.

John wrote,

And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest his deeds be reproved. (John 3:20)

But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become the children of God, even to them that believe on his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12)

So why kill Jesus? There is only one reason: to put out the light rather than admit our evil nature. But on the bright side, when humanity did succeed and kill him, Jesus turned the hatred into love. He loved us so much that he paid the price of our rebellion by shedding his blood to death.

God had it all planned out: Jesus could offer his perfect life as a substitution for the punishment we deserved. We have each killed Jesus, because we have all sinned. But now that he is resurrected we can repent and ask forgiveness. God promises us a new life now, with the promise of a resurrection like Jesus, with life extending to eternity.

On our part, we believe in him, and receive him into our lives as Lord and Savior. We begin a personal relationship in a spiritual dimension. On the other hand, for those who continue unrepentant, Jesus will return as judge. The offer of grace has a time limit.

Also, God planned that death could not hold Jesus in the grave. Jesus predicted his rising again, and then rose from the dead showing himself alive with many proofs to his disciples.

To those of us who believe in him, God is literally present with us as God the Holy Spirit. By his Spirit he comforts, instructs, inspires and reveals the will of God to us as we honor Jesus. We walk by faith, waiting to see Jesus return bodily from heaven, but it is not a faith without evidence, because God’s Spirit is with us, and we are changed.

For God loved the world in this way: that he gave his one and only Son, so that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through him.