He Came That We May Have Life

What did Jesus teach was the reason for His coming into the world? Today, R.C. Sproul considers the gift of life that Christ gives to those who are dead in sin.

Many times, I’ve asked the question, “What was Jesus’s primary purpose for coming to earth?” And if I ask that question in a large group, I usually get a variety of answers. Then I like to ask the next question, “What did Jesus say was the reason for His coming?” To teach us how to be good, to die for our sins, you say. To show us what love was all about. All of those things He did. And all of those things are certainly part of His overall purpose. But when He specifically had the opportunity to say for Himself, what His purpose for coming was, what did He say was that purpose? That you might live. I came in order that, for the purpose of, you see, subjective. I came in order that you might have what? Life.

Life. Now that’s always puzzled me because Jesus is saying that His purpose for coming is that we might have life. Where would you expect a man to go with a message like that, and with a purpose like that, to provide life? Where would you send him? If a guy said, “I came to bring life,” where would you send him?

From the dead. Right, to the dead, to the cemetery, to the grave. Why in the world does He go to talk to living, vital breathing, thinking creatures? “Because I came, you might have life.” Already alive. But that’s obviously, not what Jesus was talking about. He was not talking about biological life, was He? He was talking about people that He described as being dead, not biologically, not physiologically, but in terms of a vital, living relationship to God, in terms of the spiritual life that He’s talking about, He was talking to people who were dead. Not just sleeping, not just critically ill, you see, but dead. And against this, what He’s coming to give is not a pep pill, not an aspirin tablet, not a penicillin shot, but life. Nothing less than resurrection, or to use the theological term, regeneration.

So, the person in Christ is what? A new creation. He is born again, because now He has a kind of life that He didn’t have before. It’s a particular kind of life, a qualitatively different kind of life, a new kind of life that is given to men who in terms of their relationship to God are dead.