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The Purpose of The Passion

Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ is a violent movie to say the least.

To watch one man beaten, tortured, and murdered by dozens of other men for two hours is not entertaining. This film was not intended to entertain. It was intended to show to the fullest extent what happened.

If you have seen it—what do you think about it?

You may think it was gory. Or maybe you wonder how people could do such hideous things to one another.

If these are the only thoughts you get out of it, you don't understand the purpose of the passion. The purpose was touched on in the film—but only touched on.

What does the movie mean to you?

Before you saw any photography, some words appeared on the screen:

"He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities...by his stripes we are healed" Isaiah 53:5, 700 B.C.

The cause of Jesus' suffering was our transgressions, our iniquities. The effect of his sufferings is our healing from the cancer of sin. He was the sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sin that had to be paid, because we sinned against the loving yet just God.

The verse immediately after the one that came on the screen says we have all gone astray like sheep, "each of us has turned to his own way." There is absolutely no doubting man's depravity, his sinfulness. Remember the soldiers frenzied by the blood splattered on their faces as they scourged Jesus; recall their glee as they beat him on the way to Calvary. No one can watch all that and not think those soldiers were evil.

But we all are evil, even as Isaiah said. Everyone has gone his own way. Everyone does what he thinks is right, even as you saw Pilate do in the movie, because he did not believe there was objective truth. However, the very fact that Jesus died on the cross came about because of one truth revealed in the Bible: we all have disobeyed God. It may seem most people are not as bad as those Romans but compared to what God expects of us—perfection—we are just as evil.

Like Romans 6:23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. says, we do the work of sin, and our paycheck is death. Death in this life and death in the afterlife, where there is a physical existence in torment and flames with no hope of getting to heaven.

But Jesus stepped in.

The bloody torture he bore, as so vividly depicted in The Passion, was for me and for you. Jesus is the Son of God; he loved us so much (sin-infested creatures that we are) that he volunteered to step in and take our death penalty instead of us. This can be illustrated by a story.

A long time ago, there was a man named Ryan who was condemned to death. He had committed many heinous crimes and was finally arrested and tried. The jury had found him guilty and the judge ordered his execution. The guards led Ryan out of the courtroom and he was imprisoned on death row.

But another man, Joshua, when he heard Ryan was scheduled to be executed, was grieved. He wasted no time in contacting the judge. He pleaded, "Don't execute Ryan!"

"What I have ruled I have ruled. He was found guilty; he deserves to die," was the judge's reply.

Joshua persisted. "But please, Your Honor, don't let him be executed!"

"My good man, he is guilty of such terrible crimes; the law demands death."

Joshua did not flinch: "Then kill me. Only let Ryan go free."

This unusual request took the Judge by surprise, but after deliberations with other judges and lawyers, it was decided there was nothing in the law against such a substitution. The substitution was proposed to Ryan, who gladly accepted it.

On the appointed date, Joshua was executed to pay for Ryan's crimes.

To say, as some have, that The Passion is anti-Semitic is foolish. The Jews are not to blame for Jesus' death, nor the Romans. Jesus said, "No one has taken [my life] away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again" (John 10:18). He voluntarily gave his life. He was not obliged to die or to subject himself to the torture of others.

In the film, during the scourging and the trek to Calvary, Satan was pictured trying to tempt Jesus out of his sacrifice. Jesus had the power at any point during his suffering to stop it all. He said when Peter defended Him with the sword at his arrest, "Put your sword back into its place...Do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matthew 26:52-53). But He did not call for deliverance because, as he himself said, otherwise "how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen this way?" (Matthew 26:54).

As I watched the Roman soldiers nail Jesus to the cross, I was overwhelmed by grief for my Savior. At the same time, I was filled with joy because I knew that at that moment in history my sins were nailed to the cross also; Jesus bore them instead of me. He died with my sins on him, and I was set free. And not only me, but all who believe in him as their Savior, accepting the death-row substitution.

There is more that you need to know about Jesus than the film had time to portray. The scriptures tell us that

"God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16

This was the purpose for his suffering—that those who believe he died for their sins might have peace with God and eternal life. However, for those who do not believe, they must realize that the same Jesus who suffered is coming one day to judge with perfect, unyielding justice. John 3:18 says,

"He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

And again, in John 5:22:

"… not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son."

The scriptures make this judgment abundantly clear: it is eternal, painful separation from God and all that is good.

In summary, to the person who believes that Jesus died for their sins, The Passion means eternal peace and unending gratitude to the Lord Jesus Christ for bearing their sins. To the person who does not believe, however, The Passion should be a reminder that Jesus is coming again someday, but not to suffer. He is coming to judge.

What does The Passion mean to you?