Mission Impossible

"Did Jesus choose to die for our atonement, or was he commanded by God to die for us?" This question came up recently as I had coffee with two of my co-workers. I knew what I believed to be true but was unsure of how to answer. I promised them I would get back to them on the matter soon. Later that night, after seeking the Lord in prayer and seeking His wisdom in the Word, I wrote this:

If you Google search enough you’ll find arguments for both sides. I personally feel that reading too deeply into the meaning of what is sometimes obvious scripture can wind-up being more of a hindrance to a believer’s walk with Christ than a release of revelation. What we seek to prove through humanistic rationalization usually becomes a basis for argument rather than an understanding of truth. My rule of thumb for reading scripture is to take my understanding from spiritual discernment first and literal understanding second. I once heard a pastor say, “On the day of judgment, I would rather be guilty of taking God’s Word too literally than not literally enough!”

These are the words of Christ himself:
"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me — just as the Father knows me and I know the Father — and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life — only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father." (John 10:14-18, NIV)

If you are familiar with the movie or old-school TV show Mission Impossible, you undoubtedly know the secret agent, Ethan Hunt…coolest character name of all time. Ethan Hunt is not a secret agent by order, he is an elite government agent who is willing and capable of doing the toughest and most dangerous jobs for the sake of national security or offensive-strike against terrorist organizations. His missions are presented to him as “…if you choose to accept”. He is not obligated to accept the mission. It’s not a command from his authority to risk his life. He accepts the mission only after having heard the objectives, directives, and possible risks. If he agrees, then off he goes - parachuting from a high-altitude plane into the jungles of some far-away country hoping to successfully complete his mission and make it back alive.

Like Ethan Hunt, Jesus Christ also accepted a seemingly impossible mission – reconcile all of humanity back into perfect fellowship with God the Father. Jesus’ mission was presented to Him as “…if you choose to accept”. The word says, “no one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord”. Jesus understood the objectives, directives, and risks involved. He knew that at the end of this mission, he would have to suffer horrific torture and experience the violent sting of death. Knowing these details, he still accepted the mission.

No mission this big can be improvised, and so it required directives, lest the mission be compromised. The “command” Jesus received from his Father were the careful instructions on how He would need to live and when and how He would need to die in order to successfully complete the mission.

While on his missions, Ethan Hunt would usually need access cards to special rooms and pass codes to hack enemy intelligence, so these were granted to him by his commanding authority. Likewise, God granted Christ the authority to both give up His life and more importantly, take it back up.

So with all the pieces in place , Christ entered the world as a baby, lived a God-pleasing life, and died a criminal’s death. Praise be to God that death on a cross was not the final objective. We know that on the third day after Christ’s death, he rose again! Jesus’ resurrection has freed us from death and now we can live eternally in fellowship with God and with the One who chose to accept a mission that for anyone else, would have been impossible.