Why would Jesus (an omnipotent creature) choose to experience pain when he could just as easily NOT?

Question

So Jesus is the blood sacrifice required to salvage our souls, etc etc, OK, OK.

But he was still "God" in the flesh, yes? And he was still endowed with magical divine powers, yes? So why did he choose to experience the pain of the crucifixion?

Basically, what I want to know is:

How would dying in comfort diminish the act of giving his life for the sake of all humanity? Or was the pain he suffered a key element in his "sacrifice"?

Answer 1

It was a con job and they blamed it on their God!

God, supposedly decided to have a half God half mortal son, who he was going to sacrifice as a way to forgive all the humans that he created in sin to begin with. Every one had their parts to play, with God pulling the strings and mouthing the words. Judas did what he was supposed to do and he became a pariah. All the other folks were manipulated to do their parts and Jesus gets nailed. Long story short, Jesus dies, gets buried in the tomb, tomb found empty next day, Jesus has risen and is now at Gods side. Here is the plot twist, was Jesus God's son and what did God sacrifice if his son returned to his side. A sacrifice is suppoed to be something that you give up forever or loose. So is this a con or do people really want to believe all this?

I find nothing wrong with anyone's choice to believe whatever they want, but they also have to give me the same right!

Answer 2

First, when God came to earth, the Bible says that he became a man, not a "god" disguised as a man.

He had all the weaknesses that every other person has. In fact, the Bible says that He was tempted in EVERY way as we are, yet without sin. That is to say, He resisted temptation. And how? Looking at his temptation in the wilderness, he countered EVERY temptation with Scripture, "It is written ..."

He was God insofar as before He took on a fully human body, He was the WORD of God. (Jn 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was WITH God, and the Word WAS God. This same was in the beginning with God." and vs 17 "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

But while on earth, He had no "magical divine powers". He had to rely on God just as we all do. And He did so for two purposes: 1. To give us an example to live by, and 2. To show that we have no excuse. "If I had not come, then you would not have sin."

The pain he suffered physically was part of the redemption, but the pain he suffered spiritually by being separated from God was what we go through when we go to hell, being separated from God and all that is good. "He who knew no sin became sin, so that we could become righteous before God."

In other words, not only did He die FOR and BECAUSE OF our sins, but He actually BECAME sin for us, and died AS us. "I recon that if one man died for all, then all are dead."

If Jesus had NOT died on the cross, first, the prophecy would not have been fulfilled. Second He would NOT have died, because He had never sinned, and "the wages of sin is death".

So His suffering was important.

You can go back to the Scriptures and read carefully the requirements, and discover what was purchased for each type of suffering. One example, "By His stripes we are healed", thus fulfilling the prophecy.

Answer 3

Think about the culture people lived in back then. Not only was sacrifice the norm, but it was part of the laws they lived by. No one would have believed Christ if he were not used as a sacrifice, especially when he arose from the dead.
I don't believe this was something God wanted, or needed. After all we are talking about God. God could obviously forgive us regardless of the Crucifixion of Christ. Obviously it was what people needed, not God.
Blessed Be

Answer 4

1. Jesus is not a creature...in other words he is not a created being. the 2nd person of the triune Godhead always existed as the "Logos" or the "Word" (See John 1)
2. The suffering part of the death of Christ, is representative of man's hatred to God. Man (in his uncoverted state), does not just ignore God, but Hates God (See Romans 1:30). So much so, that when given the opportunity, would torturously put Him to death in the worst way known to men at that time and for that culture. That was crucifixion. It also show what the punishment that men in their natural state (unconverted) deserve themselves as sinners agains a Holy God. Hope that helps...

Answer 5

It is the greatest love story ever told.. Jesus gave himself on the cross to undo Adam & Eve's original sin.. To completely grasp this, you would need to read the Bible to see the links in this chain starting with the Old Testament, the prophesizing of Jesus' coming and the culmination in the New Testament.

Even if you just read the Bible as literature with the goal of better understanding other people around you or better understanding Biblical allusions in literature, the effort would be worthwhile. The Bible is one of the great books (a collection of books) of Western Civilization - a foundational work which helps explain the history of Western Civilization, what happened in the past and why.

Answer 6

I can't answer you using the Christian rationale, so i'll use the information I have in my holy book the Koran.
Jesus is not an omnipotent creature. he is a human being just like the rest of us. He was chosen by God as a prophet just like Abraham, Moses and Mohammad. he experienced pain because he's a mortal who is as subject to turmoil and pain as all of us.
As for his endowment with magical divine powers, again he's not more than Moses who could split the sea in half, or Abraham who went into fire and came out safe or Mohammad who split the moon in half.

As for the sacrifice thing; in the Koran God says that no one is to pay for the sins of someone else. We can't sin our whole life then go to Heaven simply because an innocent human died in pain more than 2000 years ago. it's unfair and God is Fair.

Answer 7

Dying in comfort?
He was divine, yes, but he was also human. Which meant it hurt physically just as it would hurt any of us.
I don't think the physical aspect of the torture was all that contributed to the sacrifice. God sent himself as a human to the Earth to tell us in the flesh what was to come and to teach us what we were doing wrong. He only got 33 years to do so.
And it ended when he loved us to the end enough to let us kill him, torture him, let us HATE him enough to crucify him so that we would all learn our lesson later on. He let us murder him, and he loved us right the the end, forgiving us all as we did so. That was the sacrifice.

Someone on here said once that it
"is one thing to wake a child from a nightmare and another to enter the nightmare to wake the child."
In this case, the sleep is our death of faith and we are the children. God is the awakener. He entered our flawed world to let us know it's all a dream we're encountering until we're united with him in paradise.

Answer 8

I think that when jesus took on the sin of the world it was alot more painful than the blood he was losing. I know if I was being stabbed i wouldn't pay attention to a mosquito bite.

Magical divine powers? I dont think Jesus uses magic lol

More like miracles

Answer 9

Religion is a little screwy....he is supposedly his son but also God in the flesh...that doesn't make very much sense. I gave up on religion because I don't need to "be saved" to be a good person....I think the bible is just a way to get people to act a certain way....and a lot of people aren't really open minded to think outside the box. I am a good person...and if there is a Heaven...then why would I not be worthy of entering the "Pearly Gates"???

Answer 10

First, Jesus was not omnipotent. He gave up his omnipotence when he was born as a helpless infant in Bethlehem of Judea. Furthermore, as a man, he never had magical divine power. He asked God to do things, and God did them.

You are correct that Jesus chose death by torture, when he could have run away or simply renounced his claim to be the Son of God. He chose to die rather than to abandon his mission and his integrity.