Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die

by John Piper

Christ died to save a great diversity of peoples. Sin is no respecter of cultures. All peoples have sinned. Every race and culture needs to be reconciled to God. As the disease of sin is global, so the remedy is global. Jesus saw the agony of the cross coming and spoke boldly about the scope of his purpose: “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). As he planned his death, he embraced the world. Christianity began in the East. Over the centuries there was a major shift to the West. But increasingly now, Christianity is not a Western religion. This is no surprise to Christ. Already in the Old Testament his global impact was foretold: “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you” (Psalm 22:27). “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy” (Psalm 67:4). So when Jesus came to the end of his ministry on earth, he made his mission clear: “that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:46-47). The command to his disciples was unmistakable: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Jesus Christ is not a tribal deity. He does not belong to one culture or one ethnic group. He is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). “There is no distinction between Jew and Greek [or any other group]; th...