So why did Jesus die?

God originally created mankind as a perfect being, innocent and destined to live for ever. There was no death anywhere in the world.

One day, man (see story of Adam & Eve) was tricked into disobeying God, and from that point on nothing was the same. For thousands of years before Jesus, God's chosen people (the Jews), performed a variety of ritual cleansing ceremonies to try and wash away all the sin that was in them. (sin is any form of straying away from God's wishes - disobedience) And from that initial disobedience, men and women and all living things would now have limited life-spans, and eventually die.

These ceremonies would involve the slaughtering of animals, (bulls, goats, sheep, etc) and the pouring out of their blood brought temporary forgiveness to the Jews and protected them from God's wrath.

However, no matter how hard mankind tried to live by God's principles he failed. Again and again he failed - and of course we still fail today - constantly. In fact it is impossible for us to live by God's standards all the time.

And this is why God sent his son. Jesus died on the cross as the ultimate ceremonial sacrifice. The blood from animals had limited success, but the blood from the Son of God works forever. Once Jesus allowed himself to be sacrificed, no other sacrifice would ever be needed. Christ's death offers both forgiveness from our sins and permanent escape from God's wrath - and that means that those who receive it also have the promise of eternal life (just like it used to be in the beginning).

This is available to everyone who believes in Christ. The Bible says " if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9)

If you would like to find out more about your own forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus, send us an email and we will arrange for someone from a local church to get in contact.

Every blessing to you