Easter Traditions: Making Secular what Saved us From Being Secular
Easter is always a special time of year for Christians. It is one Sunday where we put a special emphasis on our Savior, and the cross. We don’t focus on His birth, like we do at Christmas. We choose instead to focus on His death, burial and resurrection. I’ve never particularly liked the fact that we seem to over-emphasize His death at Easter. Certainly, His blood had to be shed for the remission of our sins, and it is important to us. However, I believe people focus on the traditional Easter crucifixion story so closely, that they miss the details and the reasons for why it means life for us. I was raised to focus on the blood, like many other Christians. If we are so focused on the blood and the cross, then our focus is not on the Father or on Jesus, but on the statements of His work, which by themselves, have no life. I’m going to talk in this teaching about a perspective on His death, that I believe will give you a greater understanding of the life that we have because of it.
Let’s face it, Easter has traditionally in many churches been a sad event. I can’t remember any Easter service in my life at any church, that I didn’t walk away from feeling like I had just sat through a funeral. I blamed it on the songs at first; Easter is full of songs about the “nails”, the “cross”, the “blood” and “the grave”, which are then followed by songs about His resurrection, albeit too late in the game to matter. Then I blamed it on the sermons; Sermons full of sorrow and filled with such recognizable material that you would swear the preacher was lip-syncing to a recording of last year’s Easter sermon. Then I did it! I did what the Devil wanted me to do. I blamed it on myself; I began to internalize the whole “Easter experience”, and make it more about me than about Jesus. I condemned myself and my self condemned me for not being sensitive enough to the sacrifice of Jesus. Because my Easter wasn’t filled with wailing and travailing, begging and pleading or crying and kneeling, I condemned myself for not being “emotional” enough towards my salvation. It would take most of my adult life until I learned that internalizing our faith doesn’t do anything but tear it down, and emotions aren’t an accurate representation of your spiritual attitude towards God.
Some of you might ask, what is wrong with Easter and why am I against one of God’s most important holidays? First of all, it isn’t “God’s holiday”; God is not responsible for Easter or Christmas. Many Christians give God the credit for both Christmas and Easter holidays, and yet we find no basis for the holidays, as we celebrate them, anywhere in the Bible. The single reference made to Easter in Acts 12:4, is actually referencing the observance of the Jewish Passover, and I promise you, Christians are not celebrating Easter in the time-honored traditional observance of the Jewish Passover. Second, I am not against celebrating Easter, but I am against a lot of what comes along with it and what it represents. Easter’s origins are of a heated debate among believers and non-believers alike. I am not going to discuss them in this article. However, there is no doubt that Easter has become one of the most secularly profitable holidays in America. It is a billion-dollar holiday. Candy companies produce tons of Easter-related candy, and it is the perhaps the most popular time of the year for eggs. Easter baskets with Easter candy and Easter gifts are usually given to children. Easter egg hunts are common, with real eggs that are both plain and colorfully decorated, and with hollow plastic eggs that usually contain prizes. Parents excuse the secular traditions because their children are encouraged by the world to be drawn into the holiday for carnal reasons. Who wants a picture with the Easter Bunny? How cute. Not! Sometimes the secular traditions are taught in church as relating to salvation and the sacrifice of Christ, but have no scriptural basis at all. Church Easter egg hunts are common as well, despite the fact that again, they are not based on scripture. Let’s face it, if children ran around the church lawn, digging in the bushes and dirt to find some plastic eggs with printed bible scriptures in them instead of prizes and candy, this Easter tradition would die rather quickly. For most children, especially younger ones, Easter is all about candy, eggs, baskets, toys, hunts and bunnies, and not the least bit about Christ Jesus. Some of you may be offended by this question, but you should really think about this. Why have Christians yielded to celebrating Easter so secularly? I don’t suggest that you not celebrate Easter, but as you read through this article, examine what Easter really means to you personally in your walk with the Lord. While you are thinking that over, eat some dark chocolate-covered marshmallow eggs, they’re awesome.
The Artist Formerly Known As…
If there ever was a sacrifice that has a status above all other sacrifices, it is the world artist formerly known as Jesus of Nazareth, now known only by his symbol, The Cross.
Okay, so Jesus is not really known as “The Cross” or the artist formerly known as Jesus of Nazareth, but why do we give the cross so much focus during Easter? Why do we give the blood of Jesus so much focus during Easter? I would have never asked these questions a few years ago. However, as I’ve examined my faith from the perspective of the Word of God, I can’t find any sacrifice mentioned that bears as much of a celebrity status as that which we give Christ Jesus. Did you know that no one under the Old Covenant praised the sacrifice? Not once did they write a song about the blood of the bullock that kept them in right standing with God. Not once do they revel over the beautiful blade that slit the throat of the bullock, pouring out blood for their sins. Yet, Christians sing about the blood, the cross, the nails, and truly revel in the torture of our Savior. Jesus truly is a celebrity by definition. He is famous, well-known, and someone of renown and distinction. However, why as Christians do we elevate His sacrifice to celebrity status? Every Easter, there are thousands of dramas being performed, “passions” of the Christ if you will. Many of them will attempt to show the brutality of our Savior’s death, and end with His resurrection. Designed to elicit an emotional response from the audience, many of these dramas will have a profound effect on those that experience them, but that effect is not always a positive one. These dramas and passions will no doubt be followed by what my friend Tom refers to as the “cattle call” down to the altars. However, this is no cattle call for feeding, but a call to the slaughterhouse. For some, this call to the altars represents a “re-dedication” to God. For others, it may represent a “deeper commitment” to God. I’ve heard altar calls for those that aren’t saved and those that aren’t sure if they are “right” with God. Ministers usually take the opportunity of Easter Sunday to preach a sermon on salvation. After all, people will attend church on Easter that will never attend church during the rest of the year. You probably will agree that preaching salvation on Easter is good, but you would be wrong. Churches preaching a salvation message on Easter are not preaching the Gospel message. For those that are tired of the traditional passion drama, they sometimes perform “shock dramas” that imagine what Hell is like for the unbeliever, or brutal high-school shootings that are meant to shock the youth and unbelievers to reflect on their mortality. Their purpose is to scare the Hell out of, or into those that may only come to church once or twice a year. “You’ve got to strike while the iron is hot!”, I’ve heard them say. Truly, many ministers are marking these “cattle converts” with their own “branding” of salvation, that excludes the Gospel and replaces it with an Easter confession, and Easter blessing. Afterward, they send them on their way, back into the world with no further discipleship than when they came in. Then there is what I like to refer to as “Easter Resolutions”. An “Easter resolution” is basically anything that you promise to God on Easter that you will stop doing, begin to do, do better, or seek to be able to do for Him or for yourself from Easter day forward. Easter resolutions are like New Year’s resolutions in that they are just as stupid, but Easter resolutions are even more dangerous. They condemn the Gospel message that is in a person, in favor of accepting a religious attitude. They truly have the ability to turn the person making the resolution into a spiritual schizophrenic. I don’t mean to offend people by using the word schizophrenic, but the term applies. I use the word schizophrenic as it is defined as a state characterized by the coexistence of contradictory or incompatible elements. The Gospel is not compatible with Easter resolutions. It is really not compatible with most of our Easter traditions, even some of them that seem “harmless”. Not only do Easter Resolutions dig a grave for your Christianity, but the Easter Bunny pushes you into it and covers you in dirt. The world, which I humorously referred to as the “Easter Bunny”, will literally take your Easter Resolutions, chew you up with them, and spit you out. James 5:12 says, “But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.”Making promises to God is not Godly, it is religious, and because of that, they are nearly impossible to keep. Promises are made out of our carnal flesh, not out of our born-again spirit. Before you start promising God, or anyone anything, you need to understand that it is your carnality that is doing the talking, or the Devil. It is not the Holy Spirit that is “convicting” you to make “new dedications” to God on Easter. Your born-again spirit doesn’t need to promise anything to God or man to gain approval, because it is the Promised Hope of Glory manifested in us already, which we should be releasing in our words and deeds as result of His presence. Our spirit is perfect and doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone. By its perfection, it does not even desire to manipulate or elevate its worth in other people’s eyes, because it has been made in spirit what no man has been made in the flesh, except our Lord, Jesus. Our born-again spirit is at the top of the spiritual food chain on this Earth and beneath it, because the power that raised Christ from the dead is in us by Christ Jesus. Do yourself a favor and avoid Easter resolutions by simply refusing to make them. You don’t have to make them for God to be pleased with you, bless you, use you, or have a deep relationship with you. Just do your best in your relationship with God, and don’t allow yourself to receive condemnation from anyone, especially yourself.
Sacrifice, Substitute
Jesus was and is the only sacrifice for sins that could deal with them completely. At Easter we magnify His sacrifice perhaps more than any other time of year. We are drawn of course to His blood, which cleanses us from our sins. We are also drawn to the crown of thorns, the stripes upon His back, the nails, and the spear which pierced His side. Which are most important? All have significance, all have symbolic meaning to fulfill prophecy. We write songs about His sacrifice, and we read scriptures like Isaiah 53:7 and Acts 8:32 about how He was led like a sheep to the slaughter. If we were to take these scriptures literally, it would seem that Jesus was not just led to His death, but specifically and deliberately forced to His death by the Father. However, Jesus couldn’t be forced to the cross or forced to be our sacrifice. If we look at the sacrifices of the Old Covenant, they didn’t have a choice in the matter. The bullock, the ox and the lamb didn’t get a vote! Their destiny was determined the moment they were found to be spotless and eligible for a sin sacrifice by God’s standards. Jesus wasn’t picked after birth the way that Old Covenant sacrifices were, and He wasn’t found to be eligible for a sin sacrifice. He is the only sacrifice for sin that there ever was and ever would be to come. No other could take His place, and yet He took our place. Jesus was given as a sacrifice to the human race by the Father. While we could not be a substitute for Jesus, He became a substitute for our judgment, taking upon Himself the wrath of God that was meant for us. One of the things that many Christians are not taught about the sacrifice of Jesus, is the fact that He gave His life for us willingly. Jesus was not on a road with no turns or riding the railroad tracks of life with no place to stop. No, Jesus had a choice. All throughout the Gospels, Jesus had been led by God into various circumstances. However, it is clear that Jesus had the option to reject that leadership at any time. Jesus says in John 12:27, “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.” He also says in Luke 22:42 “Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” Jesus knew what God wanted Him to do on this Earth. He knew that God wanted Him to die for our sins, and He knew that there was no one else that could take His place and accomplish the task. More than those things, Jesus loved His Father and His Father’s will more than anything. Those that believe in pre-destination claim that Jesus was pre-destined since before the world began to be our perfect sacrifice for sin.
They use 1 Peter 1:20 and Revelation 13:8 to show that God planned to send His Son to die for our sins even before the world was founded. While I can agree that God would have known that He might have to send His son should the human race fall, I don’t agree that these scriptures refer to a pre-destined path that mankind, and the Son of God had to follow without choice. I believe that these scriptures more accurately represent the fact that the sacrifice of Jesus’s blood covers sin all the way back to the founding of the world. I know that for some of you that may raise some questions. Unfortunately, I can’t cover them in this teaching, but perhaps I will cover them in another teaching. I also encourage you to study the Word for yourself and ask the Holy Spirit to give you a revelation of the Word.
Despite the way things may have seemed, Jesus had a choice. Many ministers fail to mention Luke 22:43 when they read about Jesus in the garden before His betrayal or study the order of events in context. Luke 22:43 says, “And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.” Having knowledge that He was going to be the sacrifice for the sins of mankind was not as “easy” for Jesus, as some may think. The garden was a pivotal time for Him. Everything that Jesus had done in His life had been building to this. He had to decide between standing firm in His faith or choosing to entertain His own desires above God’s will. When Jesus asked God to remove this cup if it was His will, the Father sent an angel to strengthen Him, seemingly as an answer to prayer. Jesus needed ministering to? Jesus had natural survival instincts that every human has. These are not selfish, sinful impulses, just a natural will to survive. His will to survive and avoid the spiritual and physical hardship that He was facing was fighting against His choice to do the Father’s will. It says that the angel strengthened Him. Then verse 44 literally translates the word agony as conflict. He was in conflict within His soul. Matthew 26:38 says, “Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.”
Before He began praying, He warned His disciples to pray that they wouldn’t enter into temptation. After He was strengthened by the angel, He prayed more earnestly, which is to say with a specific intent. I believe the angel brought not only strength to Jesus, but a clarity of God’s purpose for Him that would encourage Him to make the right choice. This seems evident by the fact that He prayed with specific intent, and as it is said, sweat great drops of blood after the angel strengthened Him, not before. This is when the emotional reality of His purpose set in. Up to this point, it had been prophetic, and now the time of His betrayal was at hand. Luke has always been the Gospel that scholars seem to agree was the most meticulous at keeping chronology accurately in his writings. Nevertheless, all of the Gospels have unique perspectives on the life of Christ on Earth. Matthew recounts that Jesus only took three of His disciples with Him into the garden of Gethsemane. It also notes that He prayed three times to the Father, and not just twice. The first time, He prayed and asked for the Father to let the cup pass from Him, but ended by saying that He would rather the Father’s will be done instead of His own. This must seem confusing to some, because we have been taught that Jesus being one with the Father, His will was the Father’s will all the time. In one way, his shows the human side of Jesus, having to reconcile a personal decision from a heavenly decision as we do sometimes, and His personal will, from the Father’s will. You see, Jesus didn’t have the corruption of sin to cloud His judgment, yet even knowing the heart and will of the Father, He is a unique individual in the Godhead that has His own ability to choose. Matthew says that the second and third prayers were worded the same, but they are slightly different than the first. In the second and third prayers, Jesus says that if the cup may not pass away, except that He drink it, then the Father’s will be done. I said earlier that after the angel came and strengthened Jesus, He prayed with a specific intent. What was that specific intent? Why did a burden seem to weigh more heavily upon Him when He prayed the second time, and then a third. The difference between the first prayer and the second prayer is a clarity of purpose. In the first prayer, Jesus is asking the Father for the cup to pass away from Him with the understanding that all things are possible with God, and that the Father could make another way. In the second prayer, it becomes clear that Jesus has come to the knowledge that the cup may not pass away from Him unless He drinks it. Again, He completes the prayer by acknowledging He would choose to do the Father’s will above His own. Does this mean that there was no way out for Jesus? Did He have no other choice but to drink the cup that He said the Father had given Him? What is the cup? This is the cup of the New Testament or New Covenant in His blood. This is the cup of God’s fury, the cup of God’s judgment, the cup of God’s wrath, the cup of trembling that was to be poured out upon mankind for our sins, that Jesus was choosing to take upon Himself in our place. Jesus certainly had a choice to refuse the Father’s will. Nevertheless, in these scriptures we learn a critical lesson about God’s integrity in keeping His Word. With all of the Father’s power and abilities, there was absolutely no other way that He could make for mankind, that would allow this cup to pass from Jesus. In order for God to fulfill His own Word and keep His own Word, Jesus had to drink this cup. If Jesus had chosen not to do the Father’s will, we can only speculate about where mankind would be today. Would we have been destroyed? It is not healthy to dwell on such a thought, since Jesus did choose to obey His Father. Nevertheless, Jesus was our only way back to the Father, if God’s integrity concerning His own Word was to be maintained. John 14:6 says, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Even before the garden, Jesus knew that according to prophecy His sacrifice would make Him our only mediator with the Father. Jesus had a choice, and He chose to do what the Father asked of Him. Based upon scripture, it is clear to me that between the first prayer and the second prayer, the angel ministered to Jesus that there was no way for the cup to pass away from Him, which meant no other way for God’s will to be accomplished. This certainly explains the change in wording between the two prayers and also the fact that He was so conflicted. Having learned that there was no way to avoid the cup than to disobey His heavenly Father, in such great pressure He sweat as great drops of blood. Later in scripture, we read how Judas betrays Jesus, and Peter cuts off the ear of the servant of the high priest. Jesus says in Matthew 26:53-54, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” You see, Jesus knew what the will of the Father was. He knew that the scriptures needed to be fulfilled in His obedience, and that they could be fulfilled in no other way. Had Jesus chosen to exercise God’s judgment upon mankind instead of upon Himself, the Father would have honored such a request because His judgment had to be satisfied against sin one way or another. However, it would not have been the perfect will of the Father to do so. John 5:22 says, “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:” John 5:27 also says, “And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.” Then we come to John 5:30, which says, “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” Jesus had the authority to execute judgment upon mankind because it had been given Him by the Father, but He says in John 5:30 that He only does what He Hears from the Father to do, and can’t disobey. He always had the option to disobey, but did not entertain it, because of His love and relationship with His Father. To some, it must seem confusing that Jesus could have destroyed mankind in judgment, but was constrained not to because of the love He had for His Father and His Father’s will. The Father could have destroyed mankind in judgment, but was constrained not to because of His Love for us. That is the truth of the Word of God, and it is a parallel to how we are constrained not to sin by God’s Love for us, and our decision to love Him. We always have the option to do things our own way. God will still love us, and even honor our requests that are in line with His Word and promises, but it won’t accomplish the perfect will of God in our lives for us to choose our own way over His.
Suicide Savior
The title of this section will either offend, grab your attention or both. Despite what people may think of me, I’m going to delve into a perspective of our redemption story that many Christians would never even consider to think about, much less speak it.
Up to this point, I’ve talked about how Jesus had a choice to make. He chose to do the Father’s will. He chose to be obedient despite His own will, because He knew that the scriptures could only be fulfilled in Him and His obedience. I’ve heard it said that God allowed Jesus to be handed over to sinful men to be tortured and killed. That is not accurate. Jesus allowed Himself to be handed over to those that wanted to kill Him. Again, Matthew 26:53-54 says, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” Jesus made it clear that He obeyed the Father, and not men. He went willingly, not against His will. John 18:4-6 “Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth, and said unto them, Whom seek ye? They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he. And Judas also, which betrayed him, stood with them. “As soon then as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward, and fell to the ground.” Here again in the book of John, we see that His Words were powerful enough to knock the mob to the ground when they came seeking to take Him. There can be no doubt that Jesus was not under anyone’s control, but only in obedience to the Father, and thereby restrained Himself. The bible says that Jesus was as a lamb led to the slaughter. Certainly He fits that description to an extent, but many equate the word slaughter in the bible to the word slaughter that we use today. However, the word slaughter as it is used in the bible refers to God’s judgment. It is therefore not wrong to say that Jesus was led into God’s judgment. Like a lamb, He didn’t open His mouth in reply. By the context of the scriptures, had He replied, it would not have been against those than sought to kill Him, but against God that had led Him.
Having discussed the choice that Jesus made to do the Father’s will, and His power which is above and beyond any human or Satanic influence or control, I come to the main point of this segment. Jesus said in John 10:17-18, “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.” This is an important statement. It goes along with John 2:19 which says, “Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
I’ve heard it said that the Jews killed Jesus. That is not true. I’ve heard it said that the Romans killed Jesus. That is not true. No man killed the Son of God. No devil or angel killed the Son of God. The Father didn’t kill His own Son either. In fact, when Jesus said in Luke 23:34, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”, He was actually referring to their forgiveness for not accepting Him as the Son of God, not for crucifying Him. Their rejection of Him as being sent from the Father, and thusly, their rejection of the Father, is the only charge that could be held against them after the New Covenant was made. All other sins were paid for in the atonement that was taking place. No one killed Jesus, and just as no one can claim credit for His death, no one can take any blame for His death. The doctrine that is being taught that we are all partakers in the murder of Christ Jesus, is pure fiction. The doctrine that the Jews are cursed because they called for His crucifixion is also false.
Jesus took His own life. By the definitions of our own language, Jesus committed self-murder, also known as suicide. Gasp! Gasp all you want, but it is more than plain and clear in the Word of God that Jesus committed suicide, albeit for the sole purpose of redeeming mankind by the will of the Father. The word suicide is often attached to those who foolishly end their own life, kill themselves out of depression and sorrow, as the result of mental illness or for the sole purpose of killing other people with them. You must be wondering how I can associate such a blatantly negative and even offensive term to our Savior. I don’t find the term offensive, but specific and descriptive of the truth in this case. When I read the definitions in several dictionaries, I was shocked to find that the meaning of the word suicide, has no moral or ethical attachments. In fact, it is quite different than what many people consider it to mean. Suicide actually is defined as taking your own life after years of discretion and being of sound mind. It means that you have thought long and hard about the decision, and that your judgment is not impaired at all when you choose to take your life. Put simply, we have taken the word suicide and misused it. We have attached moral, ethical and spiritual beliefs to suicide by extending and expanding upon its definition in ways that are not based in the Word of God. Society has accepted many of these extended definitions, but it purposefully chooses not to ratify them officially. Suicide has long been regarded as the ultimate sin against God, perhaps even more unforgivable in man’s eyes than blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Ministers for years have preached that a person that commits suicide goes straight to Hell because they can’t get the sin “under the blood” or repent from it. They teach that a suicide is given immediate judgment into eternal damnation, with no hope of redemption. Truly, this is a sensitive topic for many of you that may know someone that committed suicide. In fact, you might have been fed the same lies from a minister about suicide that I’ve mentioned here. I believe that the Word of God is true, and those ministers are wrong. I don’t think we can look at suicide, and attach a “sin-rating” to it, without also addressing other sins like homosexuality and murder and saying that they are greater sins than others as well. Truly, the Word of God tells us that all sin is equal in the eyes of God, and it is all paid for by Christ Jesus. Jesus did not commit a sin when He took His own life. It was His life to take and to raise up again by His own power and authority as God. The same is not true for us who are born-again, because we do not have ownership of ourselves according to the Word of God.
Samson committed self-murder when he brought down the temple upon himself. Samson had a choice to make, after the Philistines had blinded him and made him into their slave. Judges 16:30 says, “And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.” Hebrews 11:32 tells us that Samson is counted among those renowned for their faith in the Old Covenant. Samson had disobeyed God, and had told the secret of his strength. The Lord departed from him, and he was made blind and worked as their slave. He became a constant reminder to them of their god’s superiority over the God of Israel. Samson wanted vengeance, and prayed to God for it. The Philistines were enemies of Israel and had defied the Living God for years, and so it seems no surprise that God granted his request. Samson took his own life while killing more Philistines than he had in his entire life. However, Samson killed himself not to save others, but so that he might get revenge upon those that had hurt him and his people. Truly, he was a hero to Israel, and His faith was counted for him in God’s eyes. Nevertheless, Samson was a suicide. Anytime you take your own life, or take actions that will result in your certain death, it is suicide. Many will say that it is not suicide if something or someone else kills you. That is simply not true, but that is exactly what the world and most of Christianity wants us to believe about Jesus. They’ll say, “He didn’t take His own life. He was killed by everything that they did to Him leading up to and including the crucifixion.” That is a deception of the enemy, Satan. It is not the truth of what the Word says. The brutality of our Savior’s torture and death was not what killed Him. Let me explain to you just how important this point I’m making is to our salvation. If we believe that Jesus did not take His own life, and was instead killed by man, or by Satan or both, then He was not able to redeem us from our sins by His sacrifice, and we are not reconciled to God. You see, God didn’t just send Jesus to Earth to die for us so that we could better relate to Him through a man. Nor was it just about the shedding of blood. God would have accepted the blood of animals if they had been enough. Man had a critical role in the story of our salvation, and it wasn’t those men who tried to kill Jesus, it was the man, Christ Jesus, Himself.
Is suicide a sin? In the Old Covenant, several people committed suicide, and for them it was not necessarily counted as sin. For at least one of them, it was counted as faith/righteousness.
Judas committed suicide after betraying Jesus, but he was not condemned in eternity for committing suicide. He was condemned because he rejected Jesus as the Son of God. This is evident by the fact that Judas had allowed Satan to enter into him, and also from Jesus’ prayer in John 17:12 where He already counts Judas as lost, even before Judas betrays Him. For the New Covenant believer, it is certainly a sin, because we do not have the right to choose to take our own life, which belongs to God in Christ Jesus. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 as an example of this says, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
Nevertheless, the sin of suicide is paid for by Christ Jesus and doesn’t change a person’s right standing with God if they are saved. We are constrained not to commit suicide, just as we are constrained not to commit many other sins, by the Love and grace of God. As I’ve shown in this segment, Jesus committed suicide to redeem mankind, and as I will cover in the next section, it had to be done this way. However, nothing we can count as being a noble or righteous cause to take our own life, is greater than accomplishing the will of God for our lives in obedience. Jesus followed His Father’s will, and God has a destiny for each one of us on this planet. That destiny is not to die or kill ourselves in His name. We accomplish nothing by ending our own life, except failing to fulfill our full potential in Christ Jesus on this Earth. Jesus did not redeem our health and bring us life, to ask us to lay it down. If you study the martyrs and the deaths of the apostles, they were obedient to God unto their gruesome deaths, but they did not take their own lives. Satan comes to steal, kill and to destroy. Jesus came that we might have life and more abundantly. God isn’t killing Christians or leading any Christian to kill themselves or others. If we give our life willingly for another person, it is not by God’s design. Is suicide a sin for the non-believer? That isn’t a relevant question, since the unbeliever is already judged for the single sin of not believing on the Father by Christ Jesus. All other sins are paid for, including suicide, should it be considered such. It is tragic when an unbeliever takes their own life and doesn’t receive the Gospel.
The Sacrifice of Free Will
Until Jesus came to redeem us, there had never been a sacrifice made for sin that was of free will. Never, do we read in the Word about the lamb or bullock that jumped up on the altar, eager to die for man’s mistakes. We don’t read in the Word about the ox or the ram that was pleased to be the one chosen for sacrifice. They simply have no exercise of free will, nor the ability to make complex judgments. Animals obey man, and do not get to choose their destiny. Many believe that Jesus didn’t choose His destiny either. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Here it says that God gave His only begotten Son, so people naturally believe that God forced Him to come. The first part of Isaiah 53:10 says, “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him;” Here also, it seems God is taking an active role in the brutal crucifixion of His Son. Jesus knew full well what He was doing when He chose to follow the will of the Father. God gave His only begotten Son, but Jesus came. Matthew 20:28 says, “Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Jesus left heaven of His own free will to come to Earth to do the will of the Father, which was to give His only Son to and for mankind. Free will is critically important. It is what allows us to choose or reject God and His Son. Without free will, Jesus could not have done the will of the Father, and yet with free will, Jesus could have rejected the will of the Father. I cannot stress enough that Jesus had within His authority when He came to Earth to exercise judgment upon mankind. Certainly, the Jewish leaders and even the disciples thought that He would overthrow the Roman Empire and rule and establish an Earthly kingdom. Jesus chose not to place God’s judgment upon us, and instead take it upon Himself that we might have relationship with the Father. You see, there is no relationship in fear. Love does not work through fear. The bible tells us to fear the Lord, which literally translated means to have a reverence and respect for God, not to be afraid. However, under the law, it was not necessarily wrong to be afraid of God. If you were part of God’s covenant, then you feared the wrath of God. If you were not a part of God’s covenant then you feared the wrath of God still, and you were under Satan’s authority as well, which meant double trouble. I have shown in the previous sections that Jesus was deeply conflicted in His soul and troubled. Many Christians haven’t considered that Jesus could have said no to the Father. He certainly was tempted to do so and tempted to abuse His power by Satan. There are those that would argue that God would have found another way if Jesus had not obeyed His will. That simply isn’t true. Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s Word, and God only had one Son. Only begotten means unique and one of a kind. There was no other Son of God, than Jesus.
I said before that if we believe that Jesus did not take His own life, and was instead killed by man, or by Satan or both, then He was not able to redeem us from our sins. Man sinned by using his free will to choose Satan’s word over God’s. It is by free will that sin entered into man, and it is by free will that man spiritually and physically died. When we gave over authority to Satan by freely denying God by His Word, animal sacrifices could never redeem us, and God could not zap us with salvation by faith. I cannot fully bear out all of these statements in this teaching, but many of them will be detailed in my next book. In order for God to be able to accept His Son’s sacrifice for our sin, and have His judgment satisfied for that sin, Jesus had to freely give up His life. He had to freely commit suicide and take His own life, because we had given our life, physically and spiritually over to death and the Devil by our free will. Having Romans 5:15-19 in this article may seem long but read it. It says, “But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” It is clear to me that Jesus choosing to take His own life for mankind, goes hand in hand with being obedient to His Father. If the Father had taken Jesus’ life, it would not have been a sacrifice for our sin. If man or Satan had caused Jesus to die, then God’s Word would not have been fulfilled, and again the sacrifice would not have redeemed man. Make no mistake, God led Jesus to the cross, but Jesus followed. Jesus was delivered into the hands of sinful men by Satan, but Jesus allowed it and the Father willed it. Men drove nails into the hands and feet of Jesus, but God as a type and shadow had already fastened those nails into Jesus Himself.
Understand that Jesus had a perfect, sinless spirit. Mankind has not had that since before the fall through Adam and Eve. Man’s spirit was incapable of being the perfect sacrifice that God demanded for sin. If God had not sent His Son, we had no way to redeem ourselves. Jesus was the manifestation in the flesh of what mankind should have been from the beginning. By Him being the opposite of everything in us that died, and everything we lost by our own free will, He was able by His free will to be the good, acceptable and perfect sacrifice to redeem us. Luke 23:46-47 “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost. Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man.” Jesus gave His perfect Spirit into the hands of God for keeping, He took His own life, and in doing so, accomplished a perfect sacrifice for man’s sins. By free will we killed our spirit and body and gave authority over to Satan. Jesus became sin, bore all sicknesses and diseases and God’s full judgment was placed upon Him, so that through His death, His suicide, we could receive back the perfect Spirit of God by Christ Jesus to live inside of us. Our spirits are made alive in Christ Jesus because He gave His perfect Spirit to God, when man could not. We have life and health in our bodies because He paid for those things in His death. By His resurrection, we know we will obtain a redeemed glorified body someday, and we also are given the same power that raised Him from the dead. Romans 6:4-5 says, “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:” Jesus was raised from the dead by the Glory of the Father, and He was glorified that He might take up His own life and conquer death. This is the message of Easter. Not just the cross, but the full-blown sacrifice of a perfect man’s free will, that we might obtain righteousness, relationship with the Father, health to our bodies, and eternal life.
Easter is so much more than just the cross, the nails and the blood. You need to get into the Word of God for yourself and get a revelation of why God loved us so much that He would give us His only Son, and why Jesus loved us so much that He would take upon Himself the wrath of God that He had the authority to pass on to us instead. When you receive revelation of this by the Holy Spirit, it will change your life, and you will never look at Easter the same way again. You won’t be tossed by the emotions of Easter, and instead will have a discerning heart. Jesus took His own life for us. You may find my language and wording offensive, but Jesus has established by His death that He was, is and forever will be, the only “Suicide Sacrifice” that could atone for what man freely gave away and rejected. Truly, this is good news and is not the sad event that Easter is portrayed as in so many churches. We have life and life more abundantly because Jesus chose to obey His Father, and chose by free will to give everything for us. At the beginning of this teaching, I spoke about how Christians tend to focus more on the blood and the crucifixion story than on Jesus and the Father. Let’s remember this Easter, that His blood was shed for the remission of our sins, but that the forgiveness of our sins wasn’t His primary concern.
He chose to die so that we might choose life in Him and have relationship with Him.
– Bishop Joshua Maynard
