My grandparents were a big part of my growing up years. My grandma had a real faith in God. She read her Bible often. But she struggled to grasp the person and work of Jesus. She never seemed to grasp that Jesus was “the fullness of God in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9), as Paul puts it. And Jesus’ death on the cross troubled her as a senseless tragedy.
On more than one occasion, I recall hearing her bemoan the tragedy of his death by saying, “It’s such a shame that they killed him…he was such a beautiful person.” On one hand, she’s correct—he was (and is) a beautiful person and it was awful that they killed him. On the other hand, Jesus’ death wasn’t a senseless tragedy. It was quite purposeful and meaningful.
So, why did they kill Jesus?
In his Pentecost sermon, Peter includes a line that brings together all the main players in Jesus’ death, and it helps us answer this question. It’s a line that’s easy to pass right by and miss the theological freight it delivers. Speaking about Jesus, Peter says, “this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death” (Acts 2:23, NASB).
Notice whom all Peter implicates in Jesus’ death. God pre-planned it and knew ahead of time it was going to happen; Jesus’ death didn’t catch him by surprise. Peter pins the responsibility for it on the Jews in Jerusalem—“you nailed him to the cross”—because he’s talking to the Jews in the sermon. But the Romans—the “godless men”—hammered the nails. Considering each party’s involvement in Jesus’ death enables us to gain a fairly complete answer to the question, “Why did they kill Jesus?”
Jewish leaders
Let’s begin with the Jews, by which we most precisely mean the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. Why did they kill Jesus?
The record of history indicates that the Jewish leaders called for Jesus’ execution based on the charge of blasphemy. During Jesus’ trial, the Gospels recount how Jesus remained silent in the face of their accusations against him until those accusations concerned his identity. “Jesus kept silent. And the high priest said to Him, ‘I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of God’” (Matthew 26:63, NASB).
At this, Jesus broke his silence and affirmed his Messianic identity, linking it with the glorious Son of Man from Daniel 7.
“Then the high priest tore his robes and said,’“He has blasphemed! What further need do we have of witnesses? Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy; what do you think?’ They answered, ‘He deserves death!’” (Matthew 26:65-66, NASB)
They considered Jesus’ testimony about his own identity false and thus blasphemous. According to the court records, this is why they killed Jesus.
But the Gospels indicate there’s more to the story than that.
A few weeks before they arrested Jesus, the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem called a special meeting of the Council. Their deliberations indicate another concern: “If we let Him go on like this,” they said, “all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation” (John 11:48, NASB). So blasphemy may have been the prima facie reason for putting Jesus to death, but fear of losing control was the motivation for it. Caiaphas states it explicitly: it’s better for one person to die in order to save the whole nation (John 11:51).
“They considered Jesus’ testimony about his own identity false and thus blasphemous.”
These men weren’t whom we’d usually think of as “evil” people. They loved the scriptures. They led synagogue services and temple sacrifices. More than likely, they were the kind of people who made good neighbors and whom a Jewish dad would want his son to study under some day. But they were so convinced of the rightness of their cause that killing Jesus appeared to them as justified and right.
I know people like this. They seem like decent people. Most people around them would never consider them sinister. But their own “rightness” blinds them and causes them to act in incredibly unrighteous ways.
In the same way, the Jewish leaders conspired to put Jesus to death.
Roman soldiers
But they needed help. Roman law had technically removed the right of capital punishment from the Jewish government and retained it for themselves. So if the Jews were going to legally eliminate Jesus, they needed the cooperation of the Romans. They are the godless men Peter mentioned on Pentecost.
Rome itself was 1,500 miles away, so over the decades, the Romans ruled the Jews through a series of client kings (the Herods) as well as appointed Roman governors. And the Romans ruled their subjects with an iron fist. Their military was disciplined and merciless. Threats of sedition were put down swiftly and brutally. Any uprisings that unsettled their beloved Pax Romana—the Roman peace—were met with ferocious vengeance.[1] Therefore Caiaphas’s fear of losing their nation to the Romans was well-founded (and it became a reality in A.D. 70).
Pontius Pilate governed Judea at the time of Jesus’ death. So after the Jewish leaders had satisfied their own conscience that Jesus deserved death on the charge of blasphemy, they brought Jesus to Pilate in the morning.
They knew, however, that the charge of blasphemy would have little motivational appeal to the Romans. But sedition? Treason? Now those charges spoke powerfully to the Romans. So they presented Jesus to Pilate with this charge: “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King” (Luke 23:2, NASB). Any Roman governor worthy of Caesar must take such a charge seriously.
“Any Roman governor worthy of Caesar must take such a charge seriously.”
This charge also entailed “inciting rebellion” (Luke 23:14), a matter the Romans punished with stern violence. In fact, the whole reason Pilate was in Jerusalem on this occasion was that it was Passover, a Jewish freedom festival and always an event that made revolt possible. So Pilate beefed up security by coming to Jerusalem himself with a contingent of extra soldiers. And indeed, crucifixion was a form of state-sponsored terrorism used by the Romans in places like Judea as a way of controlling the masses, keeping them from this very kind of thing Jesus was being accused of.
So treason and inciting rebellion seemed like good reasons for the Romans to kill Jesus.
But Pilate claimed that after examining and interrogating Jesus, he could find no evidence of this crime, at least none that deserved death (Luke 23:4, 14; John 18:38). The Jewish leaders persisted. They turned up the heat by appealing to Pilate’s loyalty to Caesar saying, “If you release this Man, you are no friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar” (John 19:12, NASB). Blinded by their own desire to be rid of Jesus, they even made a statement that should’ve made any God-fearing Jew cringe: “We have no king except Caesar” (John 19:15, NASB).
So in the end, loyalty to Caesar won out and precipitated the killing of Jesus.
But lying behind that was Pilate’s need to placate Jewish leaders to keep his position, the desire to avoid even a whiff of treason to demonstrate his loyalty to Caesar, an opportunity to keep the masses under his thumb by reminding them what the Romans do to people who even consider revolt, and one more chance to demonstrate Roman power and superiority by killing the “king of the Jews.”
“So in the end, loyalty to Caesar won out and precipitated the killing of Jesus.”
And God
None of this, however, came as a surprise to God and none of it was outside his sovereignty. Peter says it all came about according to the “predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God.” Human agency and responsibility carried out divine purposes. From His vantage point, God could see what the Jews and the Romans would do before they did it, and so he was able to make his plan ahead of time.
That’s why hints and clues of this plan lie scattered throughout the pages of the Old Testament. The seed of the woman would somehow crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). Through the descendant of Abraham, God’s blessing would come to the whole world (Genesis 12:1-3). Passover, Sabbath, and feast days all foreshadowed Christ (Colossians 2:16-17).
Each one of these hints at why the Messiah had to die. The serpent needed to be crushed. Blessing must reverse the curse. Full redemption, rest, and purification must be provided.
And in the fulness of time God sent forth his Son to achieve all of this and more. This is the complete and ultimate answer to why they killed Jesus. So here by way of summary are a handful of God’s reasons for Jesus’ death, with a few supporting scriptures.
Six Reasons for Jesus’ Death
1. To ransom
“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45, NASB)
“You were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.” (1 Peter 1:18-19, NASB)
*Note that the word “redeemed” is from the same word as “ransom” in Mark 10:45.
2. To justify
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.” (Romans 3:23-25, NASB)
“Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.” (Romans 5:9, NASB)
“Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.”
3. To cleanse
“When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” (Hebrews 1:3, NASB)
“If we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7b, NASB)
4. To reconcile
“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” (Romans 5:10, NASB)
5. To conquer
“When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.” (Colossians 2:15, NASB)
“Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, so that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.” (Hebrews 2:14, NASB)
“…through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.”
6. To give life
“And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. The one who has the Son has the life; the one who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.” (1 John 5:11-12, NASB)
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” (John 10:10-11, NASB)
So why did they kill Jesus? At a human level, they killed him because of blasphemy and loyalty, but those reasons masked fear, power, and control. But at the divine level, they killed Jesus because God had a plan to ransom, justify, cleanse, reconcile, conquer, and give life. They meant Jesus’ death for evil, and they are fully responsible for that evil, just as Peter points out in his Pentecost sermon.
But God meant it for good.
So while Jesus’ death was awful and was originally a cause of great sorrow, it was not a senseless tragedy. It was the climactic moment of history, the centerpiece of God’s plan to restore all things. Out of the evil of that event, God has brought the greatest good possible to this world.
[1] There are accounts of hundreds if not thousands being crucified in one day.
For more from John, see johnwhittaker.net and the Listener’s Commentary.
