CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION, P.11
Christ and the Concentration Camps
FIFTY REASONS WHY JESUS CAME TO DIE
1 To Absorb the Wrath of God, P.20
2 To Please His Heavenly Father, P.22
3 To Learn Obedience and Be Perfected, P.24
4 To Achieve His Own Resurrection from the Dead , P.26
5 To Show the Wealth of God’s Love and Grace for Sinners, P.28
6 To Show His Own Love for Us, P.30
7 To Cancel the Legal Demands of the Law Against Us, P.32
8 To Become a Ransom for Many, P.34
9 For the Forgiveness of Our Sins, P.36
10 To Provide the Basis for Our Justification, P.38
11 To Complete the Obedience That Becomes Our Righteousness, P.40
12 To Take Away Our Condemnation, P.42
13 To Abolish Circumcision and All Rituals as the Basis of Salvation, P.44
14 To Bring Us to Faith and Keep Us Faithful, P.46
15 To Make Us Holy, Blameless, and Perfect, P.48
16 To Give Us a Clear Conscience, P.50
17 To Obtain for Us All Things That Are Good for Us, P. 52

18 To Heal Us from Moral and Physical Sickness, P.54
19 To Give Eternal Life to All Who Believe on Him, P.56
20 To Deliver Us from the Present Evil Age, P.58
21 To Reconcile Us to God, P.60
22 To Bring Us to God, P.62
23 So That We Might Belong to Him, P.64
24 To Give Us Confident Access to the Holiest Place, P.66
25 To Become for Us the Place Where We Meet God, P.68
26 To Bring the Old Testament Priesthood to an End and Become the Eternal High Priest, P.70
27 To Become a Sympathetic and Helpful Priest, P.72
28 To Free Us from the Futility of Our Ancestry, P.74
29 To Free Us from the Slavery of Sin, P.76
30 That We Might Die to Sin and Live to Righteousness, P.78
31 So That We Would Die to the Law and Bear Fruit for God, P.80
32 To Enable Us to Live for Christ and Not Ourselves , P.82
33 To Make His Cross the Ground of All Our Boasting, P.84
34 To Enable Us to Live by Faith in Him, P.86
35 To Give Marriage Its Deepest Meaning, P.88
36 To Create a People Passionate for Good Works , P.90
37 To Call Us to Follow His Example of Lowliness and Costly Love, P.92
38 To Create a Band of Crucified Followers, P.94
39 To Free Us from Bondage to the Fear of Death, P.96
40 So That We Would Be with Him Immediately After Death, P.98
41 To Secure Our Resurrection from the Dead, P.100
42 To Disarm the Rulers and Authorities, P.102
43 To Unleash the Power of God in the Gospel, P.104
44 To Destroy the Hostility Between Races, P.106
45 To Ransom People from Every Tribe and Language and People and Nation, P.108
46 To Gather All His Sheep from Around the World , P.110
47 To Rescue Us from Final Judgment, P.112
48 To Gain His Joy and Ours, P.114
49 So That He Would Be Crowned with Glory and Honor, P.116
50 To Show That the Worst Evil Is Meant by God for Good, P.118
A PRAYER, P.121
BOOKS on the Historical Reliability of the Bible’s Record, P.123
NOTES, P.125
RESOURCES from Desiring God, P.127

The most important questions anyone can ask are: Why was Jesus Christ crucified? Why did he suffer so much? What has this to do with me? Finally, who sent him to his death? The answer to the last question is that God did. Jesus was God’s Son. The suffering was unsurpassed, but the whole message of the Bible leads to this answer.
The central issue of Jesus’ death is not the cause, but the meaning—God’s meaning. That is what this book is about. John Piper has gathered from the New Testament fifty reasons. Not fifty causes, but fifty purposes—in answer to the most important question that each of us must face: What did God achieve for sinners like us in sending his Son to die?