Expert: Griff Ruby - 6/18/2008

Question
Why did God have to be incarnated as a human and die on the cross for our forgiveness? Couldn't he have forgiven our sins another way? If so, why did He choose this way?

Answer
It is easy to say that "Well, God is God and He can choose to do whatever He pleases however He pleases," as if merely issuing some blanket forgiveness to everyone from behind the veil would suffice to save mankind.
But having sins forgiven is only one small part of the process of salvation.  I think people get this false picture of Heaven as being populated with souls that differ little (if any) from those in Hell, apart from the one difference that they met some arbitrary criteria, as if they are there because they picked door number three and got the grand prize while others who selected door number two or one got the donkey (poor donkey!).
But what makes Heaven truly Heavenly is the nature of the people who inhabit it.  God wants to mold us into His image, to make us of a sort to fit into Heaven and not turn it into another clone of selfish, thoughtless, unkind, disobedient, grasping, calculating human society as it exists here on earth.  Forgiveness is only about dealing with the fact that in the course of seeking God and seeking to be pleasing to Him we fail, and in our failures we learn, but we must still be forgiven for our failure in order that they may not be held against us in the Judgment.
And how is God going to mold us into His image?  He can't (meaningfully) just wave a magic wand and go ZAP! and now you are a completely different person, now totally pleasing to Him, but with no continuity to the person you have always been.  That would merely be just ripping you away and replacing you with somebody else.  What good would it do you being so ripped away (and to where, Hell?) while this new person God substituted for you goes on to enjoy all of Heaven in your name, and without you?  No, the process of conversion is necessarily a slow and painful one, beginning with the death of our Lord on the Cross and ending with ourselves crucifying in our own hearts all selfish and wrongful desires that would have rendered us unfit for Heaven, so that it is indeed we ourselves who finally end up in Heaven and not merely some strangers put in our place.
But still, could He not have just decreed what we must do from His own place of comfort in Heaven?  What kind of leader is it who demands of his followers what he himself is not willing to do?  God should be God to us not merely due to being the "big cheese whom you must please" but for also being truly worthy, for even more than obedience He wishes love, and while obedience can be simply demanded, love must be earned.