Why was Jesus crucified?
The cross was a public execution carried out by human courts, yet the Bible treats it as the deliberate act of God Himself. So the question "why?" has to be answered twice over — once from the side of the men who nailed Him there, and once from the side of the God who gave Him up.
The Charge Men Brought
At His trial Jesus admitted two things about Himself, and those admissions were what condemned Him. One writer traces the sentence back to what those two claims actually revealed:
J. T. MawsonHe was crucified, then, because He confessed He was the Son of God and a King. As Son of God He is the One who brought the revelation of God into the world; as the King He is the One who is to establish and maintain the rights of God in the world. The former is LOVE, the latter is RIGHTEOUSNESS. But neither the love of God nor the righteousness of God could be tolerated when they were set forth in all their perfection in Jesus. The love was spurned and the righteousness flouted.
The legal charge given to Rome was different from the real motive. The governor could see the gap between them:
F. B. HoleHere they changed their ground completely, and charged Him as being an insurrectionary and a rival to Caesar. Jesus confessed Himself to be the King of the Jews, yet Pilate declared Him to be faultless. This might seem a surprising declaration, but Mark gives us a peep behind the scenes when he tells us that Pilate knew that the fierce hatred of the religious leaders was inspired by envy.
God's Hand Behind Man's
Peter's first public sermon puts both answers side by side in a single sentence, and neither cancels the other:
Leslie M. GrantWhy had He been crucified? He had been "delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God." On God's side it was marvellous grace; but on man's side, they had wickedly taken and crucified Him.
That pairing is not a contradiction to be smoothed over. It is how God works without excusing anyone:
F. B. HoleHe had been delivered up to this by God according to His "determinate counsel and fore-knowledge," for God knows how to make the wrath of man to praise Him and accomplish His designs of blessing; though this does not diminish man's responsibility in the matter.
Why A Death Was Needed At All
If God simply wanted to forgive, why the cross? Because sin had put God's own character on trial, and every easier option would have cost Him something He could not give up:
J. N. DarbyHad God judged in righteousness, and destroyed all the wicked, there was no love. Did He spare them, there was no righteousness... Where was His truth which had pronounced death on the offender? where His majesty which had been trodden under foot? The whole character of God was in question by sin. The Lord offers Himself for His Father's glory, according to the counsels of God. His truth is made good. The wages of sin is death. The cross is an absolute proof of it.
One Standing In Another's Place
The reason He died was not His own guilt but other people's. That exchange is what Scripture calls substitution:
William KellyThus substitution is as certain a truth as scripture can afford; that is, one person standing in another's place, Christ bearing his sins in His own body on the tree, bruised for them instead of the guilty one, who is healed by Christ's taking the stripes. For "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6).
Why That Particular Death
Of all the ways to kill a man, this one had been marked out in the law of Moses centuries earlier as the death that carried a curse:
F. B. HoleIn the days of Moses, the curse had been specially connected with the one who died as a transgressor by hanging on a tree. Many a one in ancient days, reading Deuteronomy 21:23, may have wondered why the curse was thus linked with death on a tree, as distinguished from death by any other means, such as stoning, or the sword. Now we know. In due season the Redeemer was to bear the curse for others, thus honouring the law, by hanging on a tree.
What Moved God To It
It is easy to get the order backwards, as though the cross changed God's mind about us:
The Bible TreasuryWe who believe are reconciled to God, for we were haters of God; but God commends His love to us in that while we were enemies Christ died for us. So it is equally unscriptural to say that the cross reconciled God to the world. Love caused the cross, not the cross caused God's love. The cross was needed as the only way by which God's love for a lost world could be known. Sin had barred every other way.
Summary
- Love started it. The cross did not create God's love; His love created the cross, because sin had blocked every other road to us.
- Envy carried it out. The stated charge was rebellion against Caesar, but Pilate knew the real motive was envy, and declared Jesus faultless.
- Counsel governed it. Wicked hands crucified Him, yet He was delivered up by God's settled purpose — sovereignty and human guilt standing together, neither one cancelling the other.
- Righteousness required it. Destroying sinners would have shown no love; sparing them would have shown no righteousness. The cross paid the wages of sin and kept both.
- Substitution accomplished it. One person stood in another's place, hanging on a tree to bear the curse, so that the guilty are healed by His stripes.