Yes
And no one could do it forcefully except He chose to die - Thank God (for His Sacrifice)
John 10:17-18 King James Version (KJV)
17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
18 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.
Well; if you throw out the SPIRITUAL...
The PLAN was in place before the world began!
Ephesians 1:4
2 Timothy 1:9
1 Corinthians 2:7
And no one could do it forcefully except He chose to die - Thank God (for His Sacrifice)
17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
18 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.
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This is the true answer.
While Mr. Ferris points out many truths about the time of the crucifixion he misses the point.
Jesus was hated by the rulers of Israel, that is the rulers of the Temple, the leaders of Judaism. The Temple brought in huge sums of money from all over the world from visitors to offer sacrifice there. Jesus threatened this source of income to Jewish leadership. These men were not truly religious, they didn’t so much worship God as they did the money that the Temple brought in. They want to maintain the status quo.
Jesus on the other hand had a job to do, He was the sacrificial lamb to save the world. There was no way to do that other than to die. Not only must He die but He must die at the hand of those He would save. Because Jesus committed no Roman crime Pilate decided to wash his hands of the sentence after finding no fault in Him. Pilate instead of sentencing Him left His fate to the crowd. When the crowd shouted “Crucify Him” Pilate simply let it happen.
Typically it takes days for a person to die on a cross. Because the next day was a sabbath day and Jewish law said no capital punishment could be carried out on a Sabbath, the Jews explained this to the Romans and the Romans proceeded to expedite the death of the men on their crosses by breaking their legs which kept them from being able to stand, if they couldn’t stand they couldn’t breath, they suffocated quickly after that. Jesus though was already dead. Instead of breaking His legs they pierced him with a sword to make sure. That was a lot easier than clubbing the legs until they broke.
All this to say that while it is true that the Jews Caused Jesus to be executed by the Romans, that Jesus did indeed die on the cross, He was not killed. He was the master of His soul, He was the master of His body. He paid the price. He suffered in the Garden when His Father abandoned Him and felt the weight of our sins. He carried the pain of scourging in part of our punishment and finally suffered the pain of the cross as punishment for our sins. He however was not killed, He simply gave up the ghost. He had His spirit leave His body.
He did this so that when we stand before God as sinners, we all are, He will be able to tell His father not to punish us because we are His, He already paid the price for our sin. He was sinless yet paid the price. He did that for us. No other way could our sins be hidden. Either we pay for them or someone who did not deserve the punish would pay for them. There has only ever been one person who qualified to pay for them.
It is like taking a loan and not paying for the loan. In the old days our possessions would be taken and we would be thrown into debtors prison until we paid all. Since we don’t have the ability to pay we rot in prison. In this case our Friend does have the ability to pay and does so. Everybody is happy. The debt is paid, we get out of prison but now we owe The Savior, we belong to Him. He paid for us. We that are His want to be His so it works out well.
Nobody killed Jesus Christ, He simply did what He agreed to do from before the world was. He died for us. He paid our debt. Dying was only part of the punishment, all that led up to the crucifixion was part of it.
We have a tendency to sugar coat all this, it can’t be sugar coated.
Mathew 26:53