Why Did Jesus have to die?

Before I began reading Scripture, I used to puzzle over this question.  I have read and heard many explanations, including those who say that He did not have to die, but that others took His life from Him because they needed Him to die.  But none of these explanations really satisfied me until I read what Jesus Himself had to say:

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep...No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord....This command I received from my Father.

"How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!  Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?"  And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

Of course, these passages tell us only that Jesus had to die, that it was the will of God and foretold by the prophets---but does not explain why.   We know that it was for our sake, but it is hard to comprehend how his death helped us, except that He went before us into the ground and rose again, the first-fruits of all those who will follow Him in death and in resurrection.  That in itself---that He Himself has gone before us and has conquered death---would be enough, but there is indeed much more!

Paul tells us that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven, and Jesus told Nicodemus, "Unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven."  Now we are beginning to unravel the science behind what we have always believed by faith.  Since Einstein, we have begun to realize that the entire universe is held together by energy:  E=mc2.  On one side of the equation is Energy; everything else is on the other side.

Every field of knowledge has been affected by this revelation.  Now even medicine is beginning to tap into the energy field with radiation, laser technology, etc.  We used to believe that our memories were stored in our brains, but now we know that memory is stored at the cellular level---our bodies store our memories and react to triggers of past memory, even when we are not conscious of doing so.  Our bodies are repositories not only of our own experiences, but of the experience of generations before us.  We inherit the cellular memories of our ancestors!  That is why the "sins of the fathers are passed down to the sons" (and daughters).    Even those of us who had good lives, without significant trauma, still have "bad programming" in our hard drives.  What we have inherited from "the empty way of life of our forefathers" in Peter's words is what is sending stress signals to our cells and causing disease. 

Paul says, "The body must die because of sin," but we never realized how literally true this was.  Most explanations have dealt with the concept of punishment for sin; until recently, we could not have known how corrupted our energy is because of not only our own sins but those of our forefathers.

When the medical community began doing transplants, they also began to document cases of donor recipients having the thoughts, feelings, dreams, and even food cravings of the donors.  Today many scientists are convinced that memories are stored in the cells, rather than localized in one place -- in the brain.

That is why Paul can say in Romans 7, "I do not understand myself at all....in my mind, I agree with the law of God....but I end up doing the very thing I don't want to do.....and the things I do want to do, I fail to do....unhappy man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God!  ...through Jesus Christ, the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death."

So, being "born again" means that the cellular memories coming to us from the time of Adam and Eve will no longer control us.  Having died with Christ, the natural man is free to put on a new nature---that of Christ.  From now on, our inheritance is from the Spirit of Jesus, rather than from our ancestors.  Christ has taken onto Himself our cellular memories and has crucified them to the cross, where they no longer have power to control us.  Instead, He has given us a new mind and body, submitted to and controlled by the Holy Spirit instead of by the past.  "It was for freedom that Christ has set us free" (Gal.) 

Thanks be to God, who has delivered us from the slavery of sin and death and set us on a new course in Christ Jesus!