From the tract '10 Reasons Jesus Came to Die' by John Piper
#6) To reconcile us to God
In an armed conflict, when someone approaches with a white flag people consider it a sign of surrender, but that's jumping the gun. A white flag is an internationally recognized symbol of ceasefire and temporary truce for negotiations. And that's it. People incorrectly associate it with surrender because many times a side only wants to negotiate because they're almost beat. It's better to think of the epic movies where huge armies gather and representatives from both sides meet on the battle field for final negotiations. Neither one is surrendering. They're just trying to work it out verbally one last time before they do some sword swinging.
In this religious context, God is sending Jesus out with the white flag of negotiation not because he's surrendering. He's negotiating our surrender. He can wipe us off the face of the earth in a nanosecond, but he'd rather that we come join his army.
Articles of Holy Surrender
The Most High God hereby sets forth the following articles to establish the unconditional surrender of humankind henceforth such that they be absolved of their sin against the Laws of the Lord of All the Earth and the associated repercussions of eternal damnation:
Article I: Due to the deficiency of humankind to rectify their current state of disobedience of their own accord, the Great Mighty Awesome God shall dispatch his premier negotiator, his only begotten son, to reconcile humankind by way of the resignation of his own life.
Article II: Humankind shall fully accept the resolutions of Article I and transfer allegiance to the Lord God Almighty.
Hold on a second. Let me get this straight. In order to be reconciled to God all I have to do accept the fact that he sent Jesus to do all the hard work? Just to be clear, if you read the fine print, there's a lot of work to be done throughout the rest of your life in appropriately following God, but as far as reconciliation goes, yeah, it's that easy.
If you try to steal the fancy pen used to sign the Terms of Surrender:
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