Expert: Messianic Rabbi Yochanan Levine - 6/8/2009

Question
Pastor John,

In a recent question that was posed to you...

How can you justify the Father in sending His Son to the cross as an expression of love?

You answered in part...

WHY this sacrifice was necessary, WHY God required it as the only means to restore humanity to fellowship with Him remains an unanswered and unanswerable question (on this side of Heaven). It's a matter of divinely revealed faith.

Could the answer to this question lie in the bible itself?

We know that God has 4 principle qualities...

Love, Power, Wisdom and Justice... Love being His predominant quality.

When God created the earth, and all the living creatures on it, including Adam and Eve, He saw that they were very good... perfect.

God gave them the commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.   Not because he did not want to instruct them in the ways of good and evil (obedience and disobedience), but because God wants us to acknowledge that it belongs to Him, and Him alone to make righteous standards, and not man.   In fact, Jeremiah 10:23 tells us plainly that it does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his own step.

God promised Adam and Eve that there would be consequences to their disobedience... that in fact if they disobeyed, they would surely die.

As we know, they did disobey, and in fact, sin was passed into the world, to all mankind, such that all sin, and all die.  We know the wages of sin is death, and that all have sinned.

Would God let Satan and his opposition sidetrack God's own original purpose? That of creating a paradise earth, and having righteous men and women living upon it?  Certainly not, God can not be defeated by sin and death!  Not at all!

Going back to God's justice... what do we know?   We know that God's justice demands soul for soul.  If a person kills another person, his soul itself is required for repayment.  Adam was a perfect man, before he sinned.  After Adam there were no perfect men around... that was until Christ came upon the earth.  Christ became that perfect human person, who's death, became that repayment.  He is mans repurchaser.   So God's justice demanded that payment for justice.   Like an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.

In being crucified, God's justice was satisfied, allowing God to open up the possibility of everlasting life to man once again.  It was never his purpose that man would live a finite time span, because he put eternity into our very hearts!   

In Christ, God also proved Satan a liar.  If you recall in the book of Job, Satan the devil said the only reason that mankind worship God was the God gave good gifts to those he loved.  That mankind only worshipped God because it benefited man.   Also, Satan said that man would deny God to save his very own soul.  Another lie that Christ proved to be a lie, because he remained obedient even to death.

So Christ death was necessary for God to fulfill his Justice and to prove Satan a liar.  To whom?  To all creation, both men and angels.

Certainly we know that Satan knew the identity of the Messiah while he was alive and on earth.  We know he tempted Christ in the desert.   Remember what those temptations were?   He offered Christ all of mans kingdoms on earth, if Christ would worship Satan.  What does this really mean?  It proves that Satan is the ruler of our earth right now, and not God.

Why is that?   Because Satan has set up a kingdom on earth in opposition or as an alternative to God's kingdom that we pray for in the Lords prayer...  Satan opposes the sovereignty of God, and wants us also to oppose it.   God did not crush this rebellion yet, because again He will prove Satan a liar.  Satan makes us think that his opposition kingdom is superior to God's kingdom, when in fact all of his subjects grow old and die!   So we wait, until the end of this current system, when all will come to know that only God should have the authority to rule.  That opposing rulers do not have our best interests in mind, and in fact are incapable of being a good provider.

So in summary, perhaps it is Gods justice that predicated that Jesus would need to be sent to die for our sins.  And in doing do, a perfect man (Christ) was sacrificed as a means of justice for the perfect man Adam that was lost.

Gods love was made manifest in so much that he rescued us from death, by providing his only begotten Son, to die on our behalf.

I too have a son.   And I can not imagine wanting to give my son as a sacrifice to save people who do not know him, or appreciate him.  But thankfully, God is infinitely more loving than I am, and more importantly, although Christ suffered and died, God was able to restore him to heavenly glory.

I look forward to hearing your comments on what I have posted.  Thanks.  

Answer
Hi Robert,

Certainly and Amen to what you have said... but you did not answer the central question either.

WHY.

I know what the Bible teaches as well. My point was that why God chose THIS route instead of another we don't fully understand.

Jesus was the sin atonement, the propitiation for our sins etc.... No question as I explained in that reply.

But WHY the sacrifice? Not what lead up to it, what prophecies it fulfilled,  how it was done...

But WHY.

-- Love being His predominant quality...

Hence the question. Since LOVE is God's predominant quality why not say, "In Love I chose to forgive you..." or better yet, "In Love no offense was taken in the first place. I know you are but clay."

When my sons were little they did "bad" things occasionally (told a lie, stole a cookie, made too much noise...) but my imperfect sense of justice was not offended: They were just being little kids. Compared to God we're not even infants and the Word acknowledges that we all sin and fall short of God's glory and that anyone who denies he sins "is a liar and the truth is not in him."

So WHY the blood?
WHY a human/divine sacrifice instead of something else?

Its a legitimate question.

To say its because of the blood sacrifices in the Law does not answer the central question. Why were they required? They were required, we believe, to point to Jesus' then-future ultimate sacrifice, as I explained.

But... why not a different kind of sacrifice?

-- In being crucified, God's justice was satisfied,

Why? How?

Think about it. God is... GOD! HE is the Potter, we are but clay and He made the clay. The BEST of our works are as filthy rags by contrast... whether we are saved or not. We have nothing boast of and 'in my dwells no good thing'.

That was my point and to my knowledge no one can satisfactorily answer that question, including the Holy Bible.

GOD chose this vehicle, the Sacrifice, to satisfy His sense of Justice we are told, I agree with you, so there is no question that it is right and efficacious.

But WHY did He choose it? That was the question.

When dealing with people who are sincerely seeking understanding I find it most effective in such cases to acknowledge upfront that:

Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Faith remains THE essential point and God's Ways are ALWAYS higher than ours. Humility and the realization that we don't understand everything is vital. This key realization is noted as missing in the Laodecian Church of the End times Rev. 3:14-19.

Isa. 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

WHY did God choose to require blood and a living sacrifice?

People who are looking at Christianity from a Muslim or Eastern philosophical mindset often find this the most difficult thing about Christianity to grasp. WHY the sacrifice. Not what it accomplished, what prophecies it fulfilled, but WHY God required it.

In the end THAT question is a matter of faith: 'God said it, I believe it, that settles it'.

We as Believers have FAITH that God knows best, even though we can not explain everything.

Perhaps the best answer is that God hoped that the idea of sacrificing ones own son would shake our sinful hearts into repentance... but biblically it was more than that as well.

I hope this clarifies my answer.

~ Pastor John