14 Reasons Jesus Went To The Cross - To Achieve Justification

14 Reasons Jesus Went To The Cross - To Achieve Justification

In Romans 3:23, we learn the most important lesson about mankind and why we struggle with God: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

That’s the problem that Jesus came to fix. How can we be restored God? We are sinners who need to be made right again. We call that justification and that’s exactly what Jesus accomplished on the cross. There was nothing simple or easy about that. It was excruciatingly painful and also very complicated.

Here’s why: there were many issues that had to be fixed all at the same time. Romans 3 tells us how Jesus did that on the cross.

Romans 3:24-26

“Being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

That brilliant passage of scripture is hard to digest but it lays down four elements of God’s plan of salvation that you and I could never achieve on our own. This is why we Jesus had to go to the cross. He resolved all of those issues there: justification, propitiation atonement and redemption.

I know! Those are all crazy-big words and they all sound like they are saying the same thing but they are actually uniquely different. Let’s take a look at what they mean, what issue they address and how they relate to each other in Jesus and the cross.

First of all, here are the 4 problems:

- We are sinners separated from God.

- We are guilty of treasonous rebellion.

- God’s wrath has been pronounced on us.

- We are slaves of the world in bondage to our sin.