Love Killed Jesus: John 10:1-18

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8, NASB).

It is that time of year again. It is the time in which the Christian church will celebrate the Easter holiday. It is the day that Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The church tradition is that Jesus was crucified on Good Friday. He was buried in a borrowed tomb by a secret disciple named Joseph of Arimathea (Jn. 19:38) along with Nicodemus another secret disciple and a member of the Sanhedrin Council (Jn. 19:39-42). On the first day of the week women led by Mary Magdalene (Jn. 20:1) took spices to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus, but they found the tomb empty. Later, Jesus revealed Himself to His disciples, showing that He was indeed alive.

While Christians celebrate His resurrection, others still ask the question “who killed Jesus?” Who was responsible for His death? According to all the gospels Jesus was convicted through an unjust trial by the Sanhedrin Council. The Jewish leaders found Him guilty of the crime of calling Himself a king. They could not find credible witnesses that Jesus had done anything against Jewish law, but these religious leaders had been trying to find a way to kill Him since the beginning of His ministry. “For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God” (Jn. 5:18, NASB).

The Jewish leaders wanted Jesus dead, but they were afraid of the people. They took Jesus to the Roman governor Pilate and accused Him of calling Himself a king. According to Roman law Caesar alone was king. The religious leaders incited the crowds to cry out for Jesus to be crucified. Crucifixion was the cruelest form of execution used by the Romans for only the vilest criminals. Pilate found no fault in Jesus, but eventually He gave in to the demands of the crowd to crucify Jesus. Jesus was given the sentence of death on the cross executed by Roman soldiers. The legal charge against Him was, “Jesus the Nazarene, the king of the Jews” (Jn. 19:19). So the debate through the centuries has been whether the Jews or the Romans killed Jesus. In this article I take the position that while the Jews and the Romans are to be held accountable for the crucifixion of Jesus, it was Jesus Himself that killed Him. It was the love of the Father and the Son that is the primary reason that Jesus was killed. This speaks to the providence of God. The people had their reason for crucifying Jesus, but God had His reason for using human hands to carry out God’s purpose. In regards to God we argue that love killed Jesus. Let us examine this claim.

We begin by returning to Genesis 3 that tells of the fall of the human race because the woman and the man had eaten fruit from the tree that God had commanded them not to eat. God called the man and the woman into accountability. They were found guilty, and God expelled them from the garden because they were no longer exactly like God. They were guilty of sin and God cannot abide sin. Before expelling them from the garden God pronounced a sentence on the man, the woman, and the serpent that had deceived the woman into eating of the fruit. God said to the serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel” (Gen. 3:15, NASB). Scholars agree that this was a prophecy that the seed of the woman (Christ) would gain victory over the seed of the serpent (the world and sin). Although the man and the woman and their descendants would have to live outside the garden in a world of sin and God would restore the human family to Himself through the sacrifice of the seed of the woman, Jesus.

When Jesus began His ministry, He came to restore the entire human family back to God. He demonstrated the love of the Father for all people through His teaching and His ministry of meeting the needs of the people. The scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and other religious leaders were more interested in the return to glory of Israel once enjoyed during the reign of King David and King Solomon. Jesus recruited no army to overthrow the rule of Rome. He violated their teaching of the Law; particularly He disregarded their understanding of what it meant to keep the Sabbath holy. Jesus broke all the rules, and the crowds followed Him. The people that the religious leaders considered to be sinners and without hope of being worthy of God’s love and provisions were being healed of sickness and diseases that had no known cure. Jesus gave them food to eat, and forgave them of their sins. Everything that Jesus did was a violation of the religion of the Jewish leaders, and they wanted Him dead. Thus, they persuaded Pilate to crucify Jesus.

Earlier, we mentioned briefly the providence of God. In the gospels Jesus taught what the love of God is like. He explained His role in the work of the Father on behalf of lost humanity. In John 10, Jesus told the religious leaders that He is the Good Shepherd of the sheep. Although they claimed to be the caretakers of Israel, they were in fact only thieves and robbers. Jesus would prove that He is the shepherd of the sheep by giving His life for His sheep. The sheep do not belong to the religious leaders. Like hired hands they run from the wolf, but the Good Shepherd protects the sheep. He will lay down His life to save the sheep from the wolf. In this parable the wolf is Satan and death. The Good Shepherd saves His sheep; the people that believe in Jesus. The Father gives the sheep to Him and no one can take them away from Him. So, how do we conclude that love killed Jesus?

One of the most popular verses in the bible is John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (NASB). God was motivated to act on our behalf for one simple reason. God loved the world including the human family and the whole of His creation that was suffering corruption because of sin. In this passage God was acting on behalf of us. We were doing nothing that could save us from the penalty of sin. Jesus did not need to come to condemn people because those who do not believe in Jesus are already condemned (3:17-18). Instead Jesus came as the “light of the world” (8:12) to reveal the love of God. Those that practice evil did not respond favorably to the light that Jesus gave. Those who received the light have the truth of God and accepted Jesus (vv. 19-21).

Jesus acted on our behalf because of the love of the Father. The love of God is not limited to a description of God’s feelings toward us. The scriptures more often describe God’s feelings toward us; His emotional attachment to us as compassion. Thus, Jesus shared in our infirmities emotionally. “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15, NASB). Although Jesus had great feelings for us, His feelings were not sufficient payment to redeem us from sin. Jesus had to do something. He had to die a vicarious death on our behalf; His life as a substitute for our lives.

The question at the beginning of this article was who killed Jesus. Did the Jews kill Jesus or did the Romans kill Jesus? Jesus says that neither the Jews nor the Romans could kill Him. Jesus said to the religious leaders that He voluntarily laid down His life for the sheep. He says: “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father’” (Jn. 10:17-18, NASB). Pilate thought that he had the authority to crucify Jesus. “So Pilate said to Him, ‘You do not speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You and I have authority to crucify You’” (Jn. 19:10, NASB). “Jesus answered, ‘You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin’” (v. 11).

In conclusion, we say that Jesus was killed according to the purpose of God. God used human plans and actions to bring about what God planned from the beginning. The death of Jesus was not something that the Jews and the Romans had control over. Rather, God planned before the world begin that Jesus would give His life for the sins of the world. God determined the penalty for sin. God determined the means by which mankind could be forgiven of sin. God loved the world. God cared about all that God created. God acted on behalf of man living in sin and separated from God. God would not be defeated. He would act to bring about the expected end that He planned from the beginning. The action that God took on our behalf for His namesake and His glory was God’s love; His attitude and His desire to do what was best for us. God demonstrated His love for us by giving His Son as a sacrifice of death for our sins when we were eternally condemned to perish in sin. Love killed Jesus.