Why the crucifixion?

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rosejmj

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I don’t want to offend anyone, but I read an article in which the author seemed to say that if Jesus is God it wouod be completely masochistic to choose to die by crucifixion… I’m not sure I’m phrasing it right but this is what it sounded like.

I have had related questions about the death of Jesus. I have always been told that he was crucified out of love for us and to show us his love… And he died to save us from sin etc… But if he is God couldn’t he have chosen a different way? What makes a cruel bloody death more meritorious? Is it just so we owe more gratitude to God for saving us? It is not like we needed or wanted him to go through that. Also it is not entirely our fault we need saving… We were made with concupiscence
 
Christ died for us by crucifixion because it was the best way to show his love for us. After all, who makes a bigger impression, someone who is willing to die for you or someone who is willing to snap their fingers for you?
 
With regard to concupiscence, our actions have real consequences on other people. If God nullifies these, he is not respecting our free will. Concupiscence is the consequence of the Fall. Therefore, for God to respect our free will, He must allow concupiscence.
 
Are you saying you’d be more comfortable if Jesus had just chosen a nice quick clean death by lethal injection instead, so you wouldn’t have to look at or think about his horrible physical suffering, the blood, the mess, the humiliation?

Our sins created all that mess. Sorry if that’s hard for you to deal with, but it’s the truth.
 
it’s not like Jesus asked to be crucified over some other form of dying. It was the common death penalty of the day in the Roman world. It is a horrible way to die, great suffering, humiliation… you name it. Romans used it as a deterence for anyone defying their authority…
 
rosejmj said:
But if he is God couldn’t he have chosen a different way?
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Of course he could have, but he didn’t.

Our salvation necessitated a perfect act of sacrificial love. We have that in the passion and death of Jesus Christ.

State executions were rarely pretty especially prior to the modern era. Would it have been more acceptable if he was hung by the neck until almost dead and then drawn and quartered? Or perhaps it would have been better if he was disembowled? Perhaps a botched electrocution in the electric chair?
 
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Why not the crucifixion? Are you thinking in human terms and not divine?

Love desires the good of the other.
Love does not count the cost.

I would immediately stop reading material that is corrosive to your faith. What is wrong with faith-building articles?
 
To fulfill the Old Testament prophecies. Read Isaiah 53. To usher in the new covenant. The new Passover lamb slaughtered to set free and save all humanity as the lambs of the Old Covenant saved the Jews in Egypt.

How else to repay the ultimate act of disobedience but with the ultimate sacrifice? No human could repay the debt, only by God becoming human and suffering like humans and bearing our sins could we be reconciled.
 
It wasn’t masochism that drove him to the cross, it was love. Just because he knows in advance what is going to happen, doesn’t mean he caused it to happen. God gives his creatures free will. When those creatures use their free will to do acts of evil, that’s not God doing that. The fact that Jesus was so brutally killed? He knew it was going to happen, but he didn’t cause it. And yet he was willing to pay that spectacularly high price, out of love for us. The cross is also the most powerful illustration of the fact that even when confronted with the greatest and most brutal evil, Gods goodness overcomes evil. He is victorious! And he shares that victory with us.
 
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rosejmj said:
Well he didn’t have to be killed at all
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Yes, He did.

Let’s go back to the root of it all. God created the world and made it perfect. He made man in His own image and likeness, and to never die. He also gave man free will. God gave man free will because God is perfect love, and love doesn’t force relationships. As much as He wanted man to be in a relationship with Him, He couldn’t force him — same as a person not forcing someone to marry them if they didn’t want to.

Man has free will, but there are consequences to our actions. The natural consequence of sin is death. Because man chose to sin, he no longer is able to never die.

God wanted to be able to forgive man for sin. But that didn’t change the fact that the natural consequence of sin is death. So, God took the consequence of death on Himself, to satisfy the consequence for sin.

Now that the debt is paid by the death of God, it’s possible for the soul to live on forever.
 
rosejmj said:
But if he is God couldn’t he have chosen a different way?
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If I remember correctly, I read somewhere that Jesus suffered the scourging specifically for sins of the flesh. Ever since reading that, I’ve always believed that each thing Jesus suffered was to pay the debt of each sin committed by each person ever to walk the earth, past, present, and future. I’m not sure if that’s official Church teaching, but that’s what I believe.

In other words, everything He suffered was the punishment each person should have had, but He took it in their place. And it wasn’t just one person’s punishment, it was the punishment of ALL people. That’s a lot of punishment heaped on one person, so, yes it’s going to be quite bloody and horrific.
rosejmj said:
It is not like we needed or wanted him to go through that.
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Yes, we did need Him to go through that. If He didn’t, we would have no hope of salvation after death.
rosejmj said:
Also it is not entirely our fault we need saving…
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Well, I guess you could say Adam and Eve ruined everything for the rest of us. But that doesn’t change the fact that we are sinners and needed a Redeemer.
rosejmj said:
What makes a cruel bloody death more meritorious? Is it just so we owe more gratitude to God for saving us?
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No, God doesn’t work that way. God is perfect Love. He does not manipulate His people into loving Him by making Himself the victimized hero so we’d be guilt tripped into being grateful for His sacrifice.

Remember the Agony in the Garden? Jesus begged God to let there be another way, to spare Him of the horrible suffering. But He accepted it because there was no other way.
 
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VeryBlessed said:
Gods goodness overcomes evil. He is victorious! And he shares that victory with us.
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Exactly. Because of the suffering and death of Jesus, all our sins are paid for and we are set free. Anytime we do something wrong, we can be forgiven, and we have the hope of living forever in heaven after death. We can go to Confession anytime and dump the burden of our sins. It is the greatest gift of all!
 
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God made the consequence of sin death.
Man has free will, bit he also has concupiscence so it is not possible not to sin.
Jesus did not have to die to pay the debt of sin. God can do anything.
 
rosejmj said:
God made the consequence of sin death.
Man has free will, bit he also has concupiscence so it is not possible not to sin.
Jesus did not have to die to pay the debt of sin. God can do anything.
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First of all, God cannot do a contradiction. I will assume you are familiar with the ins and outs of this. Now, my syllogism is as follows.
  1. Our actions have consequences to other people.
  2. This is an important part of free will, so important that God cannot override the consequences while respecting our free will.
  3. God wishes to respect our free will.
  4. The natural consequence of the Fall, which Adam and Eve chose, is concupiscence and Original Sin.
  5. Therefore, for God to miraculously override these would be disrespectful of our free will.
    Please reference the numbers you have a problem with in your answer.
 
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EZweber said:
The natural consequence of the Fall, which Adam and Eve chose, is concupiscence and Original Sin.
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What makes them the natural consequence? Obviously that is what happened, but it was God’s choice and he could have chosen some other consequence and wouldn’t it still be considered the natural one?
 
EZweber said:
Therefore, for God to miraculously override these would be disrespectful of our free will.
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I understand God wants to respect our free will, but how is making us without concupiscence taking away our free will? What about Mary? Didn’t she have free will?

Also why would God chosing another way to save us in anyway take away our free will?
 
Because of the nature of the Beatific Vision, love must be free and total. Falling from grace is the only possible result. They can only transfer the nature they have to their descendants, and their nature is fundamentally distorted by the Fall.
 
It is hard for me to accept that when God “preserved” Mary from original sin
 
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