The Love of God in Christ (Part 3): Why Jesus Went to the Cross

Was there another of His species anywhere in the universe? He looked at Himself. There is one thing that is lacking. What is it? Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it must forever abide alone. What would He have to do? He would have to die, and He would have to be divided, so that He would not be one, but two. Had God ever been divided? God had always been one. The decision was made in the garden of Gethsemane. The Lord was willing to risk everything. Where were your people? Lord, if we never see anything again, as long as we live, open our eyes right now, and Lord, keep them open for the rest of our lives.

In the Garden, the Lord Jesus had to face His own humanity once more, and this time, He faced an experience that no one had ever faced before. He faced the experience of the cross. Now, this was a new species. This was the God-man who would have to be limited by the experience of the cross, and He had never known the cross before, and He had to bear it. My brothers, there is one thing I want you to get clear. He had looked at Lucifer and had marked him. He had felt the emotion of the temptation. He had seen sin, and He had seen what sins had done. He had watched it ravage every creature. He could see men as dead men walking. He could see the skeleton, the dull eyes. He could see the emaciated soul, the wrecked, corrupted flesh. He could see us as no one else had, and He knew these things had to go if He was going to have a perfect counterpart. He had seen Israel in her fallenness, in her harlotry. He was determined. Listen. He was the lover of lovers, and He deserved a good wife.

Now all of this was in Him. There was also the eternal passion of love and the love He knew as a man, and He had no place to go because He had no species like Him. He was just like Adam; He was utterly alone in this universe. Adam finally got a counterpart; He had never had a counterpart. He looked around, and all that was around was wreckage. Wreckage. Wreckage. And yet, He wanted a wife like no other. He wanted a place to pour out love like no one else had ever had love to give, and He wanted that love back. But frankly, I tell you, I don’t believe He was even interested in getting the love back then. He just wanted a place for it to go.

I’ve been married for 18 years, and quite frankly, I love my wife. You better believe I love her. The first thought I ever have is not about receiving love from my wife. I tell you, it has rarely entered my mind. It has been that I have one in whom I can deposit my love. All day long, I pour out my love for her upon her. That was the only thought He had, but He also had to know the cross. He comes to the last moment, and He sees every enemy that stands between Him and having something that at this moment does not exist. It exists only in the passion of His heart and the passion of His Spirit. But He knows what must be done. I think He knew it before time ever began. I think He saw everything we had seen the last three nights.

And now the Lord wants to make sure it’s total. Will you please start believing? Believe anything you hear. Just believe. Just believe. He decided to make it complete. Rather than dealing just with the enemy and with the world system and with sin and so on, He would take it all and end it all. He would take the entire human race and end it. And to make sure that nothing was left, He would take the whole universe and end it. There would be nothing left but Him. Is He sinful? Is He fallen? What is He? He is God, and He is perfect man. He has won the title of perfect man. He’s Adam again, sinless, unfallen, and He is perfect God. There’ll be nothing left but Him, and it will all be gone.

They go back to the garden again; only there’s no garden because it’s even gone. And He says, “Alright, Father, let us finish it all now and forever.” Please get behind God. Get in God, and come up to God’s eyes. They took him to Golgotha, and they laid Him on a cross, and He went there for one reason. What was it? Because He had fallen in love with you. I’m going to repeat that. Why did He go there? Because He had fallen in love with you. He wanted to love you and love you and love you with a passion you never dreamed of. He wanted to kiss you with the kisses of His mouth. He wanted to hold you. He wanted to adore you. He wanted to love you, and He meant to have nothing to stop Him. Brothers, He was driven. He was a driven God. And He was a driven man.

They laid Him on the cross. He was killable. And they took the nails…now, brothers and sisters, please…they laid the Son of Man on the cross, and the Son of God took every enemy that existed in this universe that might ever once, even once, take His bride’s eye, or in any way more her, or take from her beauty. I want you to know that through that hand and that hand and those feet there hung on that cross: Lucifer. He hung there. He was nailed to the cross. Every marble corridor in every granite palace, and all the beauty and the gold and the silver of its treasures, and its power and its pulp and its authority and its glory, the world was nailed hand and foot…to the cross.

I am not telling a dramatic story. By the power of God, He swept eternity. He swept time past, and He swept time future. From the beginning of time in its womb, to the end of time in its grave, He gathered up sin and its sinfulness, and its hideous, nauseous creature, and He drove it to the cross. He took its hand, and He took its feet and nailed it, and He took your flesh, and He took my flesh. He took flesh, and He nailed him—this corruption, this monster, and He took all creation, and He nailed it to the cross. And He called forth one more thing, and He said, “Death, come, and kill them all.” And then they nailed the Lord Jesus to the cross, and they all blended as one. They became one and the same. I want to know if you believe that. Is there anything ugly left? Absolutely not. God called forth death and said, “Kill them all.” And death answered, “I only have to kill your Son, and they will all die.” And God said, “Yes”.

Listen, did Adam ever die? No, he didn’t. What did he do, brother? He “type” died. Adam is only a type, and everything about him is a type. Throughout the New Testament, over and over again, can you find any record whatsoever of a Christian dying? They all just go to sleep. There’s only One who ever died. Everything else is a type of death. There’s only One who completely ended, totally and absolutely. Can you comprehend that? When He went, He took everything with Him. How much did He take? Brothers and sisters, He took the atoms out of the space, and He took space. He took the composite of the totality of the universe. He took the whole fallen creation, heaven and earth. He didn’t miss anything, and it was all somehow in Him, incarnated into Him. And He hung there.

Take the eyes of God and watch the Lord Jesus begin to die. Now, don’t you look at anything else but God’s eyes. Look through God’s eyes and watch the Lord begin to die, and through the eyes of God, sin disappears and ends no more. And God looks more intently, and sins all go with Him. He looks again, and God sees the flesh go. God sees the demons of this world vanish. God sees Lucifer on the cross. Then go the principalities and the powers with him, and God sees the whole creation. There’s one thing left. No, there are two things left. What is left? Christ and death. God says…the eternal spirit, it’s not even God…the eternal spirit…I’m using allegory, I think you understand this. God says to death, “Now, death, you too.” I want you to know, hand and foot, he was nailed down, and He could not escape.

How much did He love? He loved you so much that He made a choice, that if one of us had to die, one of you had to die; if it had to be you or the Lord, it would be the Lord and not you. You’ve always heard He died in your place, but forget that. He said, “I love her so much, she will never die.” He made sure His wife would never die. She wasn’t born until death was dead. He didn’t even allow her into creation until after death was dead.

There’s only one Christian who ever died. None of the others will ever die. His bride will never die. He will have to tell her what death is like; she will never know. He chose that if one must die, He chose that it be He and not she. She would never know. She would not be born, she would not exist, she would not have consciousness in this universe, until death and sin and Satan and the world and all systems. And in the last moment, two faded. Who were they? The Lord Jesus and Death went into the grave grappling together, and both died with the same gasp.