Why did Jesus die?

Charles Simeon is someone I've grown fond of through various biographies.

He was a remarkable English pastor who lived in 18th century Cambridge.

Writing about his own conversion, Simeon mentions that of all the books of the Bible

that might have sealed his remarkable transformation, it wasn't any of the Gospels,

and it wasn't Romans or Ephesians, as you might expect. The book that did it was the Old

Testament book of Leviticus. He describes reading about the penitent man laying his hands on an

animal without blemish, and then seeing the

animal slain and its blood sprinkled around the altar. That image absolutely gripped Simeon.

Reading a commentary on Leviticus, one sentence in particular struck him deeply, and this was the

line that struck him. The Jews knew what they did when they transferred

their sin to the head of their offering. The transfer of sin that is being described here is the

essence of penal substitutionary atonement.

The idea that in order for our sin to be dealt with,

someone else must, as our substitute, take the penalty our sin deserves.

The fact that we all die is not accidental.

As Genesis chapter 3 makes clear, we die because the penalty for our sin is death.

So the only way to deal with death is to deal with our sin.

The entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament was put in place so that God's people would understand this.

God commanded that animal sacrifices be made as a way of showing that sin must be paid for.

As they laid hands on an animal, they were symbolically transferring their sin onto the animal,

which then died in their place.

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