Jesus Christ

35. There are some brothers who, while they are praying, thank God for killing His Son for our sake; what do you think?

I think that these brothers are wrong in saying this thing, because it is written that God gave His Son that we might live through Him, as it is written: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16 – NKJV), and again: “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him” (1 John 4:9 – NKJV).

But it is not written that God killed His Son, in that the Lord Jesus Christ was killed by the Jews, for Paul said to the Thessalonians that the Jews “killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets” (1 Thessalonians 2:15 – NIV). Peter confirmed this, for he said to the Jews who were in Jerusalem: “But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses” (Acts 3:14-15 – NKJV). And he said to Cornelius and his household: “And we are witnesses of all things which He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they killed by hanging on a tree” (Acts 10:39 – NKJV).

Therefore, when we speak about the killing of Jesus, let us use expressions like those I have just mentioned lest we use wrong expressions. Let us speak as the apostles Paul and Peter (the former was an apostle to the Gentiles, while the latter was an apostle to the Jews), to whom God made known “the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fulness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth – in Him” (Ephesians 1:9-10 – NKJV).

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