In this Easter‑day sermon, Harry Pitts of 514 Grace Church presents a theological framework that explains why God incarnated as Jesus and how the cross fulfills both divine justice and love. He begins by rejecting cultural Easter symbols and poses the central question: why did God come Himself rather than sending a prophet or angel? Pitts argues that humanity’s fall was a governmental rebellion—Adam’s “declaration of independence” that transferred authority from God’s heavenly kingdom to humanity’s own rule, resulting in a legal and moral crisis. Because God’s word is immutable, He could not simply revoke the penalty of death; He had to honor the law while also expressing love. The solution, Pitts says, is the incarnation and the cross, which satisfy both demands. He outlines six specific decisions the King (God) made: (1) to come in the flesh, (2) to live under the law, (3) to honor His judgment, (4) to pay the price of reconciliation, (5) to sacrifice for redemption, and (6) to re‑establish kingdom governance on earth. Pitts supports his argument with extensive Scripture citations (Genesis, Numbers, Hebrews, Romans, Isaiah 52‑53, etc.) and emphasizes Isaiah’s prophetic accuracy centuries before the event. He contrasts the divine theocracy with human democracy, stressing that believers are called to be kingdom citizens under God’s rule, not merely church members. The sermon concludes with a prayer, an invitation to accept Christ, and church housekeeping: calls to follow on social media, give financially, and attend the local congregation.
Chapters
This program is brought to you in part by the friends and partners of 514 Grace Ministries. Coming up next on the Grace Nation Broadcast. Say amen. I want to ask you a profound question today. One question, one single question, and I— We don't just talk grace, we live it. Turn our faith all the way up. Speak through my vocal cords, think through my mind, all of you and none of me. And it's in Jesus' name I pray. And everyone said amen. I want to, I want to speak from this thought this morning, the King who kept his word. When we think about Easter, we think about Easter eggs and all of these things, and that's a beautiful thing, but unfortunately, that's not what Easter is all about. Right. And I want to give as a subtopic, he did not send someone, he came himself. And when you think about Good Friday, Good Friday is not the story of a man who died for a cause. It is the story of a king who became the solution he alone had the authority to provide. Can you say amen? Amen. I want to ask you a profound question today. One question, one single question, and I want you to sit with it for a moment before I give you the answer. Why did God come himself? Why did God come himself. He did not send a prophet. He did not send a reverend. He did not deploy angels. He had armies of angels at his command. He did not issue a new law. He had already given the law. He came himself in a body in history in flesh and blood into a world that had rejected His government and declared independence from His authority. And the question that governs everything we're going to say today is, why? Why was it necessary that He come personally? Amen. Why couldn't He fix it from a distance? Take, take. Why did the solution to humanity's problem, Mother Mary, require the King himself to become the solution? The answer to that question is the most important thing you will ever understand about Good Friday, uh, the cross and the kingdom of God. Good Friday is not the story of a man who died. for under— is not the story of a man who died for a cause. It is the story of a king who came, who became the solution he alone had the authority to provide. The king who kept his word. The colony in the crisis. What Earth was originally designed for. Before we can understand why the king came, We have to understand what he came back to. And to understand that, listen to me, we need to go back to the beginning. When God created the earth, he did not create it as a random piece of real estate. He created it as a territory. Listen to me. A specific domain designed to be governed under the authority of heaven's kingdom. God's original design— heaven was God's home territory, the source, the origin, the seat of his governing authority. Earth was designed to be heaven's extension territory, a place where heaven's government, culture, values, and provision would be made visible and real through people God placed here to govern. The governor himself, who was Adam and Eve. Adam was not created to be a religious figure, contrary to what people believe and teach in seminary and theological schools abroad and churches. Adam was not created to be a religious figure. He was created to be a governor, a representative of heaven's authority on planet Earth. Amen. Amen. He was charged with extending the kingdom's influence into every dimension of earthly life. His assignment was governmental, not ceremonial. Earth was not an accident or an afterthought. It was a deliberate extension of heaven's governing authority, designed to be ruled by the kingdom citizens under the direct oversight of the King himself. Amen. But what happened in the garden? What happened in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3? Something happened that changed the entire trajectory of human history. Adam and Eve made a decision, a decision that looked on the surface like a simple act of disobedience, but in governmental terms, it was something far more significant. Hmm. When Adam chose his own judgment over the King's command, he was not simply breaking a rule. He was issuing a declaration, a declaration of independence from the governing authority of heaven. Amen. He was saying, in effect, I no longer want to operate under your government. I will decide for myself what is good and what is evil. I know many people think that this was an act of disobedience. No, this was treasonous. This was governmental language. And I want— and I'm withdrawing this territory, is what Adam said. I'm withdrawing this territory from your jurisdiction, God. What is The Declaration of Independence. I'm glad many of you asked. I need to explain this precisely because it is the foundation of everything we say today. When I say Adam issued a declaration of independence from the king's governing authority, I'm not using dramatic language. Amen. I'm describing the legal and governmental reality of what took place in the Garden of Eden. God had given Adam one governing law: do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That law was not arbitrary. That law was the boundary marker of kingdom governance. Amen. It represented the fundamental principle that in the kingdom of God, the king defines what is right. and what is wrong. The citizen lives under the king's definition, not their own. I know we live in a democracy here in the United States, so you're not used to a monarchy. You're not used to a theocracy where the king rules. But unfortunately, if you are a kingdom citizen, you are under a monarchy. Amen. You're under a theocracy. In a democracy, the people have the say-so. They have the vote. But unfortunately, in the kingdom, it is not like that. So, when Adam ate from that tree, he was declaring, I will now determine good and evil for myself. That is the precise definition of independence from God's government, not just an act of disobedience, It was a transfer of governing authority from the kingdom, from the King of Heaven, to the self. And when Adam made that transfer, the consequences were immediate and catastrophic. The territory God had established as an extension of Heaven came under new management. That's right. And the King's own word had set the terms for exactly what that would mean. So when you look at Genesis chapter 2, verse 17, I'm reading from the English Standard Version. Listen to this. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. That's right. The crisis of humanity is not a moral failure alone. Please keep me posted on time, please. It is a government coup. Heaven's designated territory seized by the wrong authority, governed by the wrong king, producing the wrong outcomes for everyone in it. And now the king faces a problem He faces a problem, not a problem of power, family. He has all power in his hand, Mother Mary. A problem of integrity because the king had spoken and the king cannot take back his own word. Right. So the king's dilemma versus integrity and mercy, the nature of God's word. It's very important because there is one thing you can absolutely depend on about God, not just trust as a preference, depend on as an unbreakable law. God would always, without exception, keep his word. It's not just a character quality, it is the very nature of who God is. God does not have the ability to lie. That's right. Not because he lacks power, but because lying is the nature of a lesser being. That's right. And there is nothing lesser than God. That's right. Numbers 23:19, the English Standard Version says, God is not a man that he should not lie, or a son of man that should change his mind. Has he said and will he not do it? Or has he spoken and will he not fulfill it? Titus chapter 1, verse 2, the English Standard Version says, in hope of eternal life, which God who never lies promised before the ages began. Hebrews chapter 6, verse 17 through 18, English Standard Version. So when God desired to show more convincingly To the heirs of the promise, the unchangeable character of his purpose. He guaranteed it with an oath so that by 2 unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. 3 independent witnesses across 3 different books of scripture that I just read from you. 3 different books of scripture all say the same thing. It is impossible for God to lie. Amen. His word, once spoken, carries the full weight of his eternal character behind it. When God speaks, the universe bends to accommodate what he said. Amen. God does not talk much because every word he speaks is permanently committed to keep. The universe itself is held together by the integrity of his word. Now, here is where the crisis deepens. We're talking about Good Friday. and why the King came. When God said to Adam in Genesis chapter 2:17, in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die, Amen. God was not making a threat. He was not expressing anger in advance. He was establishing a governing law, a law with the full weight of divine integrity behind it. Amen. A law that once spoken, God himself was bound by his own nature to keep. Adam ate, and now God is in a position that no other being in the universe could fully understand. One side, his word, his law, his governing decree— death is the consequence. The law must be honored or God ceases to be God. Amen. On the other side, His love, His agape love, His design, His intention. He created humanity for relationship, for governance, for eternity. He wanted a family. He desired sons and daughters. He did not create humanity to be destroyed. He created humanity to reign. Amen. The dilemma is this, family: how does a God who cannot lie find a way to keep his word of judgment and keep his intention of love at the same The cross is not God changing his mind. The cross is God finding a way to satisfy his own word of judgment and to fulfill his own heart of love in the same single act. Amen. How can God satisfy both judgment and love? Since we're talking about this on this Easter day, this Easter holiday, this is the question, the center of all theology. And it is the question that Isaiah 53 and Romans 5 and the entire New Testament answers. God's word said death is the consequence of independence from my government. That's right. That word stands. It is immutable. It cannot change. It cannot be revoked. God's love said, I will not let my creation be permanently destroyed. That intention is equally real. The solution is not to cancel judgment. The solution is to find someone who can absorb the judgment on behalf of everyone who was under its sentence. Praise God. And that same someone must meet the very specific requirements that are stated. They must be fully human because the sentence was on a human. They must be completely without the condition that created the sentence. Because a guilty party cannot pay the debt of another guilty party. That's right. That's right. And they must have sufficient worth and weight to cover not just one person's debt, but the debt of every human being who would ever live. There's only one being in the universe who meets all 3 of these Requirements. Ah, and he is not a man, which is exactly why he had to become one. Their incarnation was not God deciding to visit Earth. It was God executing the only solution that could satisfy the full weight of both his word and his love simultaneously. Ah, so the king made a decision. Actually, he made 6. The king's 6 decisions. The king decided to act, decided to act personally. Before I give you the 6 decisions, I need you to understand the posture behind all of them. And this will make sense to you. Every one of these decisions was made not by a delegate, not by an angel, not through the— a program or a policy. Everyone was made personally by the King of Heaven himself. This is what separates the kingdom from every other government and every other religion on earth. Other governments send programs, other leaders build institutions, other religions prescribe rituals and requirements. But the difference is a benevolent king, a benevolent king does not merely provide programs for his citizens. A benevolent king becomes the program. He does not manage the problem from a safe distance. Ah, did you get that? He enters the problem personally and absorbs the cost of the solution himself. Every other government in history has said to its citizens, here is what I will do for you. Ah, but the King of Heaven looked at a broken humanity and said, here is what I will be for you. Now let's deal with the 6 decisions. The first, he decided to come himself. The King left the full glory and the authority of heaven and entered the physical territory He had created. He did not absorb from a distance the judgment and the penalty. He did not send a representative. John 1:14 says, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Amen. The governing Word of God took on the vulnerability of human skin to reach the people the law had judged and condemned. Amen. Number 2, he decided to live under his own law. What type of God do we serve? The King came himself. He entered the world as a human being, a human being who would be subject to every condition of human existence— hunger, grief, temptation, limitation. He did not use his divine authority to exempt himself from what it costs to be a human. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 15 says he was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. He qualified himself to be the substitute by living the life The first Adam failed to live. Number three, he decided to honor his own word of judgment. This is the decision that created Good Friday. Somebody shout Good Friday! God had said, "In the day you eat of it, you shall surely die." That word was not revoked; it was not softened. It was honored by the king absorbing its full. weight himself, Mother Mary. He did not excuse humanity from the sentence. I hope I'm preaching good. He stepped into the sentence in humanity's place. The word was kept. The law was satisfied. The judgment fell on him. Amen. He honored his word by absorbing it himself. I need to stop on decision 3 because this is where the entire theology of the cross stands or falls. And this is also where the most common misunderstandings live. People ask, why did Jesus have to die? Why couldn't God just forgive everyone without the cross? And those that are watching us online, I need you to hear me. Amen. If God is all-powerful, why couldn't he just declare the debt canceled? The answer is because God's word had established a governing law, and a king who cancels his own governing laws without satisfying their requirements is a king whose word means nothing. That's right. His entire government collapses. the moment his laws are shown to be optional. The death was required not as cruelty, not as vengeance, as honoring of a governing law that the entire moral order of the universe depends on. Sin produces death. That's right. That law holds true even today. The only question was, Whose death? And the answer is the only person whose death could cover the debt of every human being who ever lived is a person of infinite worth who had no personal debt of his own. And that is not a human being. That is God himself. Amen. In the flesh. Amen. The cross was not being cruel to his Son. The cross was God honoring his own governing word at the greatest possible personal cost so that his love and his justice could be both— could both be fully satisfied in the same exact moment. The God that arose from the grave, it is much more than an Easter holiday or about Easter eggs. God had to come and pay the debt himself. He decided to pay the price. Number 4, he decided to pay the price of reconciliation himself. Reconciliation means the restoration of a broken relation to its original intended condition. The broken relationship between humanity and the King Can I have the other mic? Required a price to be paid. Amen. Someone had to bear the cost of restoring what Adam's independence had fractured. Amen. The King— thank you, woman of God— the King decided that he could, that he would be that someone. Not a human sacrifice, Not a religious ritual. The king himself became the reconciliation payment. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 19, it says God was in Christ. Listen to this. Oh my goodness, this is so powerful. Listen to me, those that are watching. 2 Corinthians 5:19. If you don't get anything else, write this down. 2 Corinthians 5:19 says, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Number 5, he decided to sacrifice himself for the redemption of humanity. Redemption is a legal term. It means to buy back something that has been forfeited by paying the price the law requires For its release. Humanity had forfeited its position as kingdom governors. The moment Adam transferred his allegiance from the king to himself, the territory was under new and illegitimate management. Satan, who is the god of this world system, manipulated and tricked the governor, thereby giving up the authority. Not the planet. Not the planet, the authority. The authority. The delegated authority given to him by the King of Heaven. Ah, he gave it over to illegitimate management. To redeem it required paying the price of transfer back. The King paid that price with his own life. Yes. Not because he was defeated, because he chose it. Chose it. Number 6, he decided to reestablish kingdom governance on earth. The goal of the cross was not simply to get people into heaven when they die. The goal was to restore the original design: heaven's governing authority operating through kingdom citizens living on the earth. I'm sorry, but Jesus did not come for church members. Jesus came for kingdom citizens. This is why he said, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heaven's governing authority operating through kingdom citizens living on the earth. The resurrection was the King reclaiming the territory. The church, we'll get into that. Now I'm gonna— we may go viral on this next series, part 2. Amen. Because I've got to really give some history behind this word Christianity. So we love the church, we love the faith. The church is a word that many people don't— are not aware of. It is the word ecclesia, and ecclesia is the governing body he left behind to continue that re-establishment. Listen to Matthew 6:33. It is the standing order. Matthew 6:33 is the standing order. Seek what? What does God say to seek first? He didn't say seek religion. He said to seek what? The Kingdom of God. Not as a religious pursuit, but as the primary governing allegiance of your life. He didn't come to rescue you from earth. He came to restore the earth to its original purpose through you. The cross was not an exit strategy, not at all. It was a restoration plan. Now here is what makes this message impossible to dismiss, Mother Mary. None of this was improvised. 700 years before it happened, a prophet named Isaiah Isaiah saw all of it in detail, in sequence, in language that no human being could manufacture. Isaiah, the prophetic blueprint. Isaiah saw it all. The prophet who saw the future. Isaiah lived approximately 700 years before the birth of Jesus. He had no access to the New Testament. Not at all. He had no eyewitness account of the crucifixion. He had no forensic detail of what Roman execution looked like. He had nothing but the Word of God spoken into his spirit. Amen. And what he wrote in Isaiah 52 and 53 is one of the most forensically precise descriptions of the crucifixion in all of literature, not as a metaphor, not as a symbol, as a detailed advance report of what the King's decision would look like in history. There is no human explanation for this accuracy. The probability of one person predicting this many specific details about a future event 7 centuries in advance, and being right on every single one is beyond the reach of coincidence. Amen. This is God's signature on his own plan. So when we look at the preview in Isaiah 52:13-15, Isaiah begins with the outcome because God always establishes the ending before the beginning. That's right. Isaiah 52, verse 13 through 15. I'm reading from the English Standard Version. Behold, my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up. Listen to the words of this prophet. And shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance, and his Form beyond that of the children of mankind, so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand. Read that carefully. Before Isaiah shows you the suffering, God announces the exaltation. He shall be high and lifted up and exalted. That is not a description of a celebration. In context of what follows, being lifted up is a reference to the cross itself. Ah, people celebrate Easter and the cross as if it is a holiday. No, it is not. Amen. Jesus used this same language language in John 3:14 and John 12:32 when he said, and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. Isaiah saw the cross as the moment of exaltation, not in spite of suffering, but through it. Amen. And then Isaiah says something extraordinary. His appearance was so marred beyond human semblance. The word marred means disfigured beyond recognition. To be marred to this degree is to be so destroyed that the person no longer looks like a person. That's right. This is not poetic exaggeration. This is a clinical description of what Roman scourging did to the human body, the human anatomy. He was not human. He looked like flesh destroyed. What is the sprinkling of the nations? Isaiah says, so shall he sprinkle many nations. Teach, teach. This is one of the most theologically Dense statements that I've ever heard graduating from seminary, working on a PhD. What is God talking about? Theologically dense. What is he saying? This statement in the entire passage, it cannot be left unexplained. In the Levitical covenant, the priests would sprinkle blood. Mother Mary, you taught me right. Listen to this. Amen. In the Levitical covenant, the priests would sprinkle blood on the altar and on the people to make atonement for sin. Leviticus chapter 17, verse 11: For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. Amen. Blood was not incidental to the atonement. Blood was the atonement because life is in the blood, and the payment for sin requires the giving of life. The priest's act of sprinkling blood was a covenant act of transferring the sacrifice's life in the place of the sinner's life. When Isaiah says the servant will sprinkle many nations. He is saying this. Listen, listen, listen to me. The blood shed at the cross is not local atonement for one people group. It is cosmic covenantal atonement that reaches every nation on the face of the earth. Amen. The blood that poured from his body was not tragic. It was priestly. It was the High Priest of Heaven making atonement, not just for Israel, but for every tribe, every tongue, nation, and language that has ever existed. The blood of Good Friday did not just flow down a Roman cross; it reached across every century. Every continent, to cover every human soul that would ever draw breath on planet Earth. The detail of Isaiah chapter 53, verses 3 through 9. Now Isaiah moves from the overview to detail, and what he describes is so specific that the reading it after knowing the story of the gospel Feels like reading a transcript rather than a prophecy. Isaiah 53:3: He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised, and we esteemed him not. Isaiah 53:4-6: Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed We have seen him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted, but he was pierced for our transgressions. He was marred and crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has said, on him the iniquity— he has set and laid on him the iniquity of us all. Amen. You stop on verse 6. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Not some of us, not the most deserving, not the most religious. Us all. That may not be good grammar, but that's how we're going to work it. Us all. Every independent, self-governing kingdom refusing God, rejecting human beings. Whoever lived had their debt placed on the shoulders of the King. That's right. Isaiah 53:7-9, he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and Judgment, he was taken away. And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people, and they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, no wrong, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Notice verse 9. They made his grave with the wicked and with the rich man in his death. Jesus was executed between 2 criminals. The grave with the wicked, but he was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy member of the Sanhedrin who gave his own prepared tomb. 700 years before it happened, Isaiah Pardon the divide. This is not luck. This is not coincidence. That is the fingerprint of God who planned every detail of what his own decision would look like. The verdict of Isaiah 53:10. Now we reach the verse that answers the question we've been building towards since the opening. That was my introduction. Isaiah 53:10 in the English Standard Version says, yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul make an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Who actually killed Jesus? This verse stops everything. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. This is the single most important clarifying statement in theology of the cross, giving us understanding of Easter. The Romans did not kill Jesus. As I hasten to a close, they were the instrument, but an instrument does not determine the outcome. That's right. The hand holding the instrument does. The Jewish religious leaders did not kill Jesus. They delivered him, but delivering someone to death is not the same as determining that they must die. Isaiah says plainly, it was the will of the Lord to crush him. The Father crushed the Son so that we could have redemption and restore everything that was lost, not from cruelty, not from abandonment, from— Love. the deliberate, sovereign, loving decision to satisfy the requirements of His own law through the only offering that He could fully meet its demands. God had to show up and pay the debt Himself. Bow your heads. Father, we thank You this morning for the gospel. We thank You for Jesus our Savior. God, now we understand that you had to come and pay the debt to take back that which was stolen. The trickery of the enemy, the deliberate deception of the governors of this realm. Thank you for saving us. Thank you for the cross of Calvary. We bless you, Father. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Give God a hand clap of praise. I want to say this, those that are watching me online, if you don't know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, take this opportunity to ask the Lord to come into your life. Pastor Keith, if you'll come. And Father, I thank you for the salvation that is spoken of in Romans chapter 10, verse 9 and 10. Those that are watching, please Repeat after me. Father, come into my life. Save me. Redeem me. I for I admit that I've done things that have not been pleasing in your sight, and I ask you to forgive me. Jesus, become my Savior. I believe that you died on the third day and you rose. I believe that your blood, and I know that your blood can redeem and save. Jesus, come into my life. Save me. I denounce Satan. Forgive me of every transgression. Jesus, save me. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Bless you. Thank you so much. If you prayed that prayer with me, welcome to the family of God. Welcome to the family of God. And those that are watching, thank you for following us on social media— Facebook, Twitter, which is X now, Twitter which is now X, Instagram, TikTok. All the social media platforms. We're on Facebook. Follow us. There's a lot of good teaching that is being rendered, that is being posted weekly. Go to our website, www.514gracechurch, and you can even follow us there. And thank you for those that are supporting us financially, that are giving online. Thank you to those that are in Canada, the UK, that are watching us in Canada and the UK and the Bahamas. Those that are watching us, particularly in South Africa. We are developing a major following in South Africa, and thank you guys. Hopefully someday we'll come and visit you guys and fellowship. Thank you guys for giving. You can go to our website and give financially if you want to. Thank you so much for giving. God bless you. Tracy and I and the leaders here at 514 Grace Church are just getting started. If you're looking for a home church, come and visit us. We'd like to meet you personally and pastor both you and your children. I tell you, God is doing something here in the West Metropolitan Atlanta area, and God wants you to be a part of it. Thank you guys, we love you, and be blessed in Jesus' name. Amen.
