God killed Jesus.
While it is absolutely true that my sin and your sin caused the Lamb of God to be sacrificed, if one only focuses on our role in the horrors and glories of the cross, we make the story about us. The story is about us, but we aren't the main characters. My role and your role are insignificant in view of the overarching story throughout history. Before sin, before the Fall, before we were born there was God. The Gospel begins with God--Father, Son, and Spirit. At its very core, the cross is about God placing on Jesus the sins of mankind. God sovereignly orchestrated all of history in order to bring about the cross of Jesus Christ, where Jesus absorbed the wrath of God and upheld His Father's holiness.
Isaiah 53
4 Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken, SMITTEN BY GOD AND AFFLICTED;
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
6 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.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?
9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 YET IT WAS THE WILL OF THE LORD TO CRUSH HIM;
HE HAS PUT HIM TO GRIEF;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.
Consider these Scriptures as well:
Acts 2:22-24
1 Corinthians 15:3
Romans 3:25
1 John 2:2
I know it sounds harsh to speak of God killing Jesus. Killing so easily connotes sinning and callous cruelty. God never sins. And he is never callous. The reason I say that God killed his own Son is because Isaiah 53 uses this kind of language. Verse 4: ‘We esteemed him stricken, smitten by God.’ God smote him. Verse 6: ‘The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all.’ Verse 10: ‘It was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief.’ God smote him. God crushed him.
This is the very center of our Christian faith: God substituted Jesus for us.
John Piper Jesus Died to Gather the Children of God
