Why Did Jesus Have to Die?
Why did Jesus have to die? I can image a young kid asking this question in Sunday school. The answer most commonly given is that Jesus died for our sins. He gave his life so that we can all go to Heaven… for those who believe of course. But that doesn’t really answer the question.
Your typical kid in Sunday school might press the issue simply by asking, “Why?” aver and over again. A smart kid however will ask that same question more articulately. How does Jesus dying get me to Heaven? This is a question that stumps a lot of Christians. Some may be able to answer a step further by talking about God’s need for a blood sacrifice. You see, starting all the way back in the Old Testament, God demanded blood sacrifices for his favor. But not just any old blood would do. No, God wanted the purest blood. He wanted the blood of an innocent lamb. Personally, I don’t know the difference between an innocent lamb and a guilty lamb, but I am sure there must be one. Maybe the guilty lamb stole a blade of grass. I don’t know.
The point was allegedly to show how much one loves God that they are willing to part with the best of the best of their livestock. In the story of Kane and Able, Kane didn’t slaughter his best for God so he was not in God’s favor. Later in the Bible God asked Abraham to kill his own son to prove his devotion, but then told Abraham not to do it after all.
So the idea of blood sacrifice is a theme that runs throughout the Bible. Jesus of course is known as the “Lamb of God” and so represents the purest of innocent sacrifices. That is the reason he had to die on the cross for our sins according to Christianity. By why does God need a blood sacrifice of an innocent as a payment for sin? Step back from the dogma for a moment and think about this. If someone lies, do we ask them to murder their pet as punishment for the lie? Of course not, that would be ridiculous. But that is what Christianity is really preaching. If you commit a sin, you need a blood sacrifice for forgiveness of that sin. However, instead of doing the killing yourself, you can accept that the Jews did the killing for you in the murder of Jesus on the cross. By accepting the sacrifice of Jesus into your heart, you have symbolically sacrificed his blood for your sins. But the question still remains, by is blood sacrifice needed for payment of a sin? That still doesn’t make sense.
The hope of Christianity is that through the complex story of replacing Jesus as the lamb and going out of the way to talk about how innocent he was and how much he was tortured, people would simply forget that the sacrifice of Jesus was a blood sacrifice and that all of Christianity rests on the belief that blood sacrifice is the proper payment for sin.
Filed under: blood sacrifice, Religion, sin
