Mat 26:1 When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples,
Mat 26:2 “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.”
Mat 26:3 Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas,
Mat 26:4 and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him.
Mat 26:5 But they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people.”
When we define the Trinity we talk in terms of one who and three what’s. Language will always fall short in its ability to define an infinite God in its finite ability. One who would be the essence or nature of God, three what’s are used to describe the persons of the Godhead. We cannot divide the being of God, but he reveals himself in time and space through the persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In Matthew Jesus says that he will be delivered up to be crucified in two days. For those that hold he was an idea or plan in eternity past will have a difficult time crucifying an idea. The Unitarians claim that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh, that is correct as far as it goes. But a person, a man, a very unique man with two natures one human and one divine will be put to death on the cross.
Joh 11:49 But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all.
Joh 11:50 Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.”
Joh 11:51 He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation,
Joh 11:52 and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.
Joh 11:53 So from that day on they made plans to put him to death.
that Jesus should die for that nation; these words, with what follows in the next verse, are the words of the evangelist, interpreting the prophecy of Caiaphas, according to the sense of the Holy Ghost that Jesus should die, which was contrary to a notion the Jews had imbibed, concerning the Messiah; see Joh_12:34. But Jesus the true Messiah must die; this was determined in the counsel of God, agreed to by Christ in the covenant of grace, foretold by the prophets from the beginning of the world, typified by sacrifices and other things, under the former dispensation, predicted by Christ himself, and accordingly came to pass; and upon the above accounts was necessary, as well as for the salvation of his people, who otherwise must have perished; and yet was free and voluntary in him, and a strong expression, and a demonstrative proof of his love to them: and not only this prophecy declared, that Jesus should die, but that he should die for that nation, for the nation of the Jews; not for every individual in it, for all of them were not saved by him; some received him not; they rejected him as the Messiah, Saviour, and Redeemer, and died in their sins; but for all the elect of God among them, the sheep of the house of Israel, to whom he was sent, and whom he came to seek and save; and whom he blessed, by turning them away from their iniquities, and by taking away their iniquities from them: and moreover, this prophecy suggests, that Jesus was to die, not merely as a martyr, to confirm with his blood the doctrine he preached, nor only as an example of courage, meekness, patience, and love, but for, or in the room and stead of his people, as their surety; giving his life a ransom and himself a sacrifice to the justice of God, for them; there by fulfilling the law and satisfying it, and appeasing the wrath of God on their account.
John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Father decreed that a perfect sacrifice was needed in order for the sins of the world to be atoned to for. The Son volunteers to the will of the Father and surrenders his will to the point of death, death on a cross. We learned this in Philippians chapter 2 in the hymn of Christ.
In this account we learn… On the cross the person of Jesus Christ suffered and died to pay a debt of sin we owe. An idea or thought could not have physically accomplished what the person of Jesus Christ did.
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