Sermon Nuggets: Tue., July 22, 2025 - Death. - 1 Peter 3:18.

 

The Christian message is about DEATH 

 

1 Peter 3:18  

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.”

 

Christ was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit. There is body and there is spirit. The way the Bible explains death humanly is when man's spirit leaves body. The resurrection has no meaning apart from death. Jesus died once for all.

             

The resurrection story begins with the physical death of Jesus. There are many modes of capital punishment: sawing people in half; feeding them to lions:  drowning, suffocation, but crucifixion was considered the worst.

             

Good Friday is the traditional day we think of the death of Jesus. We reflect that Jesus was falsely charged.  We review His arrest, the trials, the mockery, the scourging with whips, the humiliation prior to the cross. We think about Jesus carrying His cross with a raw and ripped bleeding back, the nailing of His hands and feet to the cross.

 

The victims of crucifixions were offered a drug to deaden the pain, but Jesus refused that. He was left exposed to heat, bleeding, fever, headache, thirst, anxiety, but when all was accomplished and His work on earth was finished, He gave up His spirit according to Scripture.

                         

Peter told people who were suffering to think of Jesus suffering.  He suffered to bring us to God. His death is to introduce us to The King.  Jesus continually brings us to God.  In the name of Jesus, we have fellowship with Almighty God. He died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust.  He paid our penalty and removes our sin.

                       

Dale