Why Was the Sacrifice of Christ Necessary?

Why did Christ have to be sacrificed to pay the penalties for our sins so we can be forgiven?  Why could not God the Father simply forgive our sins without the sacrifice of Christ?  Death is the penalty for sin, but it is God who made that the penalty and He can make exceptions if he wants to.

As an illustration, suppose you owe a man $100,000 and you can't pay.  His son, who loves you, pays the debt on your behalf.  Now you don't have to pay.  The debt is cleared.

But the man you owe money to does not have to require that his son pay your debt.  He can simply forgive it.

This question sometimes comes up.

How would you answer?

If it were just a matter of legal technicality, yes, God the Father could have forgiven our sins without the sacrifice of Christ.  But there is another factor that makes that impossible.

It is God's will to do things the BEST WAY.  And simply forgiving our sins without the sacrifice of Christ is not the best way to save us.  Why?

God is not just saving us from death.  He is teaching us lessons.  He is building His character in us.

It is not enough that God gives us immortality and lets us live forever.  He wants us to have His character.  He wants us to be like Him in holy, righteous character.  He doesn't want His children to live forever in His kingdom fighting and sinning and creating pain and suffering for themselves and others.  He wants us to avoid sin and love each other.

He does not want another Lucifer in His kingdom who starts out right but then turns to sin.

So He requires Christ to pay the penalty for our sins to teach us two lessons, lessons vital for us to learn and lessons that cannot be taught as effectively any other way.

One lesson is the seriousness of sin.  In the kingdom, for it to be a perfect kingdom (and it will be perfect), there can be no sin, not ever, not even once.  We must NEVER sin once we are resurrected immortal and born into God's kingdom and family.  And God sacrificed His Son to show us the seriousness of sin.  God requires that there be penalties for sin and those penalties must be paid. The truth that God will not compromise on this drives the lesson home as nothing else can.

The second lesson is love.  God wants us to love Him with all our being (and love Christ too) and love each other as ourselves with a self-sacrificial love.  God teaches this by the example of Christ.  Christ and His sacrifice shows us what God's love looks like and how we are also to love, not just now, but for eternity.

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another" (John 13:34).

"This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another" (John 15:12-17).

No, technically, God did not have to require the sacrifice of Christ in order to forgive us, if He didn't care about building His character in us, if He only wanted to let us live forever.

But He wants us to live forever in happiness and joy, and it is God's righteousness and love in us as part of our character that will make that eternal existence happy and joyful.

Requiring the sacrifice of Christ for our forgiveness is the best way to forgive us because it helps to teach us the lessons of righteousness and love.

How great is God's wisdom!  How great is His love!