Comradeship was not the reason that Jesus went to the cross.
Comradeship is the outcome of Jesus going to the cross.
He doesn’t die because we were friends to him, we become his friends through his death.
From Fleming Rutledge.
In the cross of Christ, we see something revolutionary, something that undercuts not just conventional morality but also religious distinctions across the board. Christ has died for the ungodly, the unrighteous. You and I, Paul says, would not do that. We might conceivably die for a “good guy” we would not die for someone designated as a “bad guy.” Jesus, however has “died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). This radical pronouncement is frequently not well understood in its full sense. At the Last Supper, Jesus says, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). This familiar saying has often been appropriated to honour soldiers killed in action. It is therefore easily misunderstood to mean that Chrisian sacrifice is for those who are on our side. It is difficult to get past this understanding, especially among men. War veterans speak with religious awe of the bonds they felt with their comrades in arms. This emphatically excludes the enemy, of course. If we think of Jesus’ sacrifice in the same way that me think of soldiers in wartime, therefore, we will miss the entire point. Jesus is speaking to a group of people who are not going to be beside him on the battlefield. Quite the opposite. They have consistently misunderstood him and are about to deny and abandon him. The twelve disciples are very poor excuses for friends. Only in the sacrifice of Jesus are they transformed from enemies into friends.
Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion – Understanding The Death Of Jesus Christ Eerdmans, Grand Rapids MI, 2015, pg 276.
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