Looking below the surface of the cross to see the central importance of the cross and the deliberate character of the cross, we see that the cross enforces three truths about ourselves, about God, and about Jesus Christ; our sin must be extremely horrible, God’s love must be wonderful beyond comprehension, and Christ’s salvation must be a free gift. God could have abandoned us to our fate. He could have left us alone to reap the fruit of our wrongdoing and die in our sins; that’s what we deserve. But He did not. Because of He loved us. He came after us in Christ. He pursued us even to the painful anguish of the cross, where He bore our sin, guilt, judgment, and death.
It’s on this point that some people have a hard time with; “Why did Jesus have to die at all for us to be forgiven of our sins?” Why doesn’t God simply forgive us without the necessity of the cross? The debate over why Christ had to die for our sins and why God couldn’t just forgive us with out the blood of Christ has gone on for centuries.
People who wonder why God can’t just forgive sin without Jesus needing to die on the cross have not considered the seriousness of sin and haven’t considered the majesty of God. The problem of forgiveness is the collision between divine perfection and human rebellion; between God as He is and us as we are.
The obstacle to forgiveness is neither our sin alone nor our guilt alone, but the divine reaction in love and wrath toward guilty sinners. At the cross in holy love God through Jesus Christ paid the full penalty of our disobedience Himself. He bore the judgment we deserve in order to bring us the forgiveness we do not deserve. On the cross divine mercy and justice were equally expressed and eternally reconciled. God’s holy love was satisfied.
The reason so many people have issue with the idea of us needing to be forgiven by God and that Jesus had to die on the cross and we need to accept this fact is that they don’t consider the seriousness of sin nor do they consider the majesty of God.
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