Christians: Why did God kill his son to save you when he could save you without killing him?

Question

Jon M: So God didn't want Jesus to die?

OKIM: I thought he was omnipotent.

Mike B: God sent Jesus to die for your sins. He knew the end result and sent him anyway. That's the same as killing. He's omnipotent so he didn't need to do this. He could save you without it.

Answer 1

God didn't kill His son. Conservatives and fundamentalists of Jesus's time killed Him.

Answer 2

I like all of the answers on here, and I don't think there can really be any one right answer. There's the scholarly answer and then there's the understanding that I have been given. My answer is based off of a theological understanding that Jesus, The Holy Spirit, and God are one. This is not a scholarly viewpoint and I do not refute the scholarly opinions or the viewpoints of other faith traditions (it does not bother me that there is no God but Allah), but this is my belief. And from this belief then, the God's "killing of His Son" was the killing of God's self for all of humanity. So the question for me is, why would God kill God's self to save humanity? The answer for me would be to show the level of commitment between us. To kill yourself to save someone else would be a sign of unconditional love for that person. Not a love that is without flaw, but a love none the less. This is my feeling on the matter, I'm not trying to convince anyone, I'm just offering what I have. Peace.

Answer 3

God did not killed His Son it was the evil part of the Jews and the phariseans who ask for him to be killed and the Romans crucifyed him; There was a need of a blood sacrifice to clean the sins of all mankind, in the same way the jews would slay sheep every month as a sacrifice for their monthly sins, He (Jesus) also brought us a higher law, higher than the Law of Moses to end with the blood sacrifice.

Answer 4

God tells us that He will not look upon sin, and that the penalty for sin is spiritual death. C.S. Lewis puts it this way, "Only a bad person needs to repent: Only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person - and he would not need it. . . .The same badness which makes us need it, makes us unable to do it.. . .unfortunately we now need God's help in order to do something which God, in His own nature, never does at all - to surrender, to suffer, to submit, to die. So that the one road for which we now need God's leadership most of all is a road (that) God, in His own nature, has never walked. God can share only what He has. This thing, in His own nature, He has not."

So God became a man, embracing a human nature that can suffer and die.

Answer 5

He couldn't save us without blood sacrifice! When Adam and Eve sinned, God saw the works of their hands (fig leaf clothing) wasn't sufficient for the covering of sin, so He KILLED TWO GOATS and made them proper clothing from their skin. As sin progressively got worse from generation to generation, God saw that sin would have to be REMOVED, not merely covered, so He had to devise a way for a holy sacrifice to enter the world legally without the curse of original sin born on it (hence the reason for the virgin birth of Christ), that could WILLINGLY give Himself for those sins (animals can't do that obviously, no matter how purely they're bred).

Answer 6

Because according to His own perfect laws sin must be perfectly atoned for, and no unclean thing can dwell with God. Such a requirement does not negate omnipotence, which power does not apply to moral choices (God cannot lie), and yet God provided redemption at His own expense and credit, on Christ's blood and righteousness for those who truly repent and believe.

(Isa 53:4-6) "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. {5} But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. {6} All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."

(1 Pet 2:24) "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed."

(1 Pet 3:18) "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:"

(Acts 3:19) "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;"

Answer 7

Hello,,you poor confused soul, God did not kill his Son! He allowed the Jews to do this deed to fulfill the prophecy, the fact is that Jesus could have fled far away to the shore of France and had children with Mary whats her name and the Holy Grail would be just another story.

Answer 8

Or, conversely, he could have killed us to save his son. Any other parent would...

And he theoretically had already killed all of us but one family before anyway...

Bit of a sadist this God...

Answer 9

I really wish people who posted these questions trying to prove that Christianity doesn't exist actually had basic comprehension of Biblical text before doing so. It really irritates me.

Answer 10

Where would the fun and bloodshed be in that? Don't you know ANYTHING about the history of that god?