Were He not so, He would not be God.
Justice is an essential attribute of God.
If at the end of eternity, any single sin is left unpunished, then God is not Just... that is, God lacks Justice.
But how is sin punished? Are we allowed to bring our crippled, our broken, our spotted lambs to the altar? By no means! This would be an insult to Him. He commands spotless lambs, whole, with no defect. God demands of us our best, not our broken.
And I am broken. I am crippled and lame. I am spotted by sin, and my own death is insufficient to pay my debt. This is the fundamental flaw in modern Judaism: God gave the Jews the Temple Sacrifice as a means of "covering" their sin, but for the last 1950 years, there has been no temple, and without the temple, there is no lawful sacrifice. There is no provision, under Judaism at all, to forgive sin. The Rabbis have said "your own death pays for your sin," but they do so in violation of Moses, who writes in Leviticus 19:2: "And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy."
God's standard is absolute holiness. The last piece of shrimp you ate, the last lie you told, the last time you were angry with anyone unrighteously... these are a violation of God's commandment to be Holy like He is Holy. These are rebellion against God.
And God establishes, in Genesis 3 when He makes animal skins to cover the sinfulness of Adam and Eve, that there is no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood. Most of the book of Leviticus is dedicated to this concept. Again, without the Temple, there is no Lawful sacrifice and no forgiveness of sin under the Law of Moses.
So God must be Just. All sin must be punished, and that sin must be punished by the shedding of blood.
But here's the rub: God must also be infinitely merciful. Any sin that is repented of must be forgiven.
How, then, can God be infinitely Just, demanding the payment in blood for all sin, and infinitely merciful, forgiving every sin which is repented of?
God, Himself must bear the burden. Humanity cannot. We are too small, too weak, too frail.
God, Himself must take on human form and become the sacrifice. In doing so, the debt of Sin is paid from an infinite account... Perfect and utter holiness, one who is pure and without sin, must pay the price. The lamb must be spotless and unbroken. But it must be more than a lamb, more than a man because the debt is so very great.
So from His infinite power, His infinite wisdom, His infinite Glory, God takes on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ and pays the debt for all of humanity.
In this way, and this way alone, can God be both infinitely Just and also infinitely Merciful.
Does this seem foolishness to you? Paul addresses your very concern in 1 Corinthians 1:20-30, which reads:
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
The Cross of Christ is the single most important event in all of human history. This moment unifies, in one final breath, the extremes of God's Justice, Mercy, and Love for each of us. We owed a debt we could not pay, so God paid a debt He did not owe.
Why?
Why would God do this?
Because without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. And your own blood is already tainted by sin. Mine too.
And while God would have been perfectly justified in throwing our sinful carcasses into the flames, He loves us as a father loves his children. So He went to these EXTREME lengths for us to be reconciled to Him.
All scripture quotations: ESV
