Why was Jesus Born and Why Did He Die?

Since the Fall of Adam and Eve, humanity has been living under the curse of death and trapped in a totally depraved state (Gen 3:16-19; Rom 3:10-18). The hearts and minds of humanity became fully defiled, utterly deceitful, full of evil, darkened in understanding, wicked in every intention, and completely without knowledge (Gen 6:5; 8:21; Eccl 9:3; Jer 17:9; Rom 1:28-31; Eph 4:17-18; Titus 1:15-16). As fallen sinners, we are all born slaves to sin (John 8:34; Rom 6; Titus 3:3). In our fleshly, fallen nature, we are therefore in a hopeless condition and have no means within ourselves to bring about our own salvation.

Through Moses, God sent the Law, but the Law only served to increase the sinfulness of humanity (Rom 5:20). Concerning our lost state under the Law, Paul notes, “For when we were in the realm of the flesh,[a] the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death” (Rom 7:5; cf. Rom 7:8). God’s holy Law brought death by awakening sin within us even while it teaches us to recognize sin (Rom 7:7-13). The Law, therefore, becomes a curse to those who rely on their obedience to its statutes as means of salvation (Gal 3:10). In other words, works performed under the Law will never make one righteous.

To overcome our sinful condition, “escape from the trap of the devil”, and become righteous, we need “God [to] grant … repentance leading [us] to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim 2:25-26). God, however, is holy and cannot abide in sin. Habakkuk 1:13 says of God, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.” God Himself is holy and requires us to be holy (1 Pet 1:16). Since fallen sinners are devoid of holiness and “powerless”, “we were by nature deserving of wrath” given God’s holiness (Rom 5:6; Eph 2:3). As Romans 5:16 says, the sin of one man brought judgment and condemnation. Instead of abandoning us and casting us away due to our sin, God chose to reconcile us to Himself through the shed blood of Christ. Romans 5:16 continues, “the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.”  Romans 5:19 adds, “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” As Colossians 1:19-20 states, “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in [Christ], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” By offering and accepting Christ’s death as a substitutionary sacrifice for our sins, “God demonstrates his own love for us (Rom 5:8). As Christians, “we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him (Rom 5:9). In other words, we have been made right and holy in the eyes of God, and now we no longer have to face His wrath in response to our sin. Our original right relationship with God that was broken by our sin has now been restored.