HAVING told the parable of the workers in the vineyard which teaches that the gift of heaven and eternal life is all of God's grace, Jesus goes on to repeat again the ground on which that gracious gift is made possible. In our folly and vain glory natural human nature thinks that it can merit eternal life and acceptance from God. Natural human nature has no concept of the perfection which God requires, nor the abysmal failure of human effort even to come near to deserving God's favour and acceptance. The fact is we are dependent on mercy alone, and if mercy is to be shown it can only be shown if God can find a way he can show mercy justly.

What is so difficult for fallen human nature to understand is the fact that God can't overlook sin, so if he is to be merciful to the sinner, God must execute his justice against the sinner in some way which leaves the sinner unpunished. It is in Jesus Christ that this way was provided by God. In great and infinite love, God gave his only begotten Son to take our sin upon himself, and placing the blame for our sin upon him, punishing him in our place. God laid on him the iniquity of us all. However offensive this is to human wisdom, it is the only way God could remain holy, uphold his holy law, and still be merciful to sinners.

In these three verses before us we see Jesus telling of this plan and purpose of God for our salvation, and we see him willingly and obediently submitting to the will of God, the Father, and giving his life a ransom for sinners.

These three verses reveal to us that Jesus knew this purpose of God. It was in his consciousness throughout his life. He was consciously giving himself to the purpose of God for which he came into the world. He knew all his life here on earth and throughout his ministry that he had to give his life as an atonement for sin, and that the way that this was to be done was to go to Jerusalem at the time appointed by God, and submit himself to the hate of the Jews and Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, and allow himself to be crucified in shame and in pain on the felon's cross.

Jesus never shirked this great purpose of God, even though every moment he lived he lived with this awful death constantly in his consciousness. We can not estimate the horror of living with the knowledge of his suffering to come, yet he never faltered in this purpose God had given him. Make no mistake this suffering was very real. Make no mistake, Jesus could have avoided this suffering if he had wanted to. The fact is he did not avoid this purpose of God, even with all its suffering, because this was the only way we sinners could be justly forgiven by God.

In these verses before us Jesus is warning his disciples that this was his destiny. He says that he, the Son of Man, had to go to Jerusalem, and be betrayed into the hands of the chief priests and Jewish leaders. He tells his disciples that the result of this betrayal would be that he would be condemned to death, turned over to the Roman authority – to the Gentiles, to be mocked, flogged, and crucified. He goes on also to tell them that he would be victorious in his work to atone for the sin of mankind, because he would rise from the dead, showing that He had fulfilled all the justice of God on account of our sin, and so the punishment would be ended, and he rise again victorious.

The rising from the dead is the important thing about this testimony. Until the full punishment for our sin had been met by Jesus, Jesus had to remain in death, suffering the hell we deserve. That Jesus would rise again was Jesus saying that he would satisfy all the demands of God justice against our sin, and so bring the punishment for sin to an end. This is our assurance that as we believe in Jesus, God can and will justly show mercy to us, and so this mercy will stand for all eternity and we shall know eternal life in Jesus.

The title Jesus uses to speak of himself here is so important. He calls himself the Son of Man. It is a title that speaks of him taking our place. He took the role of being the Son of all sinful humanity. To do this he had to take our nature upon him. He had to be truly human if he was to be the Son of Man, the substitute and representative of fallen humanity. The name Son of Man speaks of the fact that Jesus came to be the second Adam. The first Adam plunged us all into sin and death, and we enter this world in death, separated from God, and sinful at heart, because of the choice Adam made for all humanity. Jesus came as the new head and representative of the human race, so that all who are in him by believing on him as Saviour, receive all the benefits of his life and death, just as we inherit all the curse of the first Adam, humanities' original father and progenitor.