If Jesus were somehow constrained, if He had to say somebody does take my life from me and I do not lay it down on my own accord, in fact, I don't want to die for you, but I have to.

It be over folks, I mean.

Even if I got my sins forgiven that way, and even if I escaped hell that way, home again, be sure to be with that man.

It really matters whether he's free or not. It really matters whether he wants to do this for you.

Why is it utterly important that Christ let us freely?

That's the question John Piper answers from John 10, 14 to 18, in this episode of Light and Truth.

The sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on April 16, 1995.

Verse 17, we'll start there in John 10.

For this reason the Father loves me because I lay down my life. That I may take it again.

This is stuff there, you know. I want to make sure you don't stumble over this because it would be easy to come to a verse like this and say,

the Father loves him because he died for us and Rose.

So the Father's love is based on the Son's act of, how did he feel about Son before that?

I can imagine somebody asking a question like that, and let's just make sure that we understand that in John 17 verse 24, Jesus Christ's Father says,

now has loved me with a love before the foundation of the world.

The love of the Father for the Son, God the Father, didn't begin to love God the Son at the cross.

From all eternity the Son and the Father have been one in essence.

John 1, 1 in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

And they love each other and the reason the Father loves the Son is because the Son reflects back to the Father, the fullness of His perfection.

And when the Father looks into the soul of the Son, what He sees is glorious, magnanimity and beauty and love and justice all mingled in perfection.

And the cross is simply the outworking or the manifestation of who He is.

And therefore when it says, the Father loves me because I do that, it means the Father goes on loving me because He saw that in me from the beginning.

He knew I was that kind of a person.

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