Why Did God Send Jesus to Die?

[Question.Everything]

If God is to be all loving and unselfish, why would he send his son to die rather than himself?

 

[DCJazz]

If God is to be all loving and unselfish, why would he send his son to die rather than himself?

John 10:30, ESV
"I and the Father are one.”

 

[Question.Everything]

John 10:30, ESV
"I and the Father are one.”

Why call Jesus his son then?

 

[MyLordMySavior]

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

That is why.

And He did send Himself down. John 10:30 "I and the Father are one."

To understand why Jesus is called the Son of God, you would have to understand the Trinity. The Father, the Son, and The Holy Spirit which are all God! Research the Trinity a little bit, and then it will make sense for you!

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You are confused darling. You say God is being selfish because God didn't come down here and die for us, He sent His son to die for us. But, that is the mistake! Jesus Christ is the Son Of God, but He also IS God. He is the human form of God. He is all human and all God at the same time! God did die on the cross for us, and His name is Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ is God, the Father is God, the Holy Spirit is God. I wish I could show you the diagram, just look up "The Trinity" and you will see it! God did come down and die for us! He did!!!! That's how much He loves us! He died for you! Can you imagine that? Someone sinless, PERFECT, and then to die for every single last persons sin! He was so undeserving! We deserved to be hung where He was, but He took our place to save us! Learn more about the Trinity and read the Bible, I promise you will see it is perfect.

 

[DCJazz]

Why call Jesus his son then?

You have to understand the trinity for that to make any sense whatsoever.

 

[Question.Everything]

You have to understand the trinity for that to make any sense whatsoever.

This doesn't answer my question.

We know the father/son relationship and what it means in terms of humans, God taught us this apparently. Why wouldn't God create a different word if it were a different sort of relationship?

 

[Question.Everything]

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

That is why.

I realize why, what I don't realize is how this is unselfish. Why wouldn't God sacrifice himself to save humanity? He clearly does not sacrifice himself because he sends his son, Jesus.

 

[ViaCrucis]

If God is to be all loving and unselfish, why would he send his son to die rather than himself?

The Son, who is Himself God with the Father, gave Himself. It is God offering Himself.

The Son is as much God as His Father; the same and one God.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Question.Everything]

The Son, who is Himself God with the Father, gave Himself. It is God offering Himself.

The Son is as much God as His Father; the same and one God.

-CryptoLutheran

To me this begs the question: how is God still alive if he killed himself?

Of course this leads the answer: God resurrected himself and is alive again as well as Jesus. Which begs two questions:

1) Why are Jesus and God both alive in [heaven] if they are both the same? Wouldn't it just be God?

2) What is the purpose in dying if they do not actually die?

 

[DCJazz]

Emmanuel means "God with us". Just some food for thought there.

Also, God is three persons, one being.
Humans are one person, one being.
Individual animals and such would be zero persons, but one being.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Why call Jesus his son then?

I've found the reflections of Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar to be particularly good in addressing in depth Trinitarian thought, these come from his work Credo.

"That he is Father we know in utmost fullness from Jesus Christ, who constantly makes loving, thankful, and reverent reference to him as his Origin. It is because he bears fruit out of himself and requires no fructifying that he is called Father, and not in the sexual sense, for he will be the Creator of man and woman, and thus contains the primal qualities of woman in himself in the same simultaneously transcending way as those of man. (The Greek gennad can imply both siring and bearing, as can the word for to come into being: ginomai.) Jesus’ words indicate that this fruitful self-surrender by the primal Origin has neither beginning nor end: It is a perpetual occurrence in which essence and activity coincide. Herein lies the most unfathomable aspect of the Mystery of God: that what is absolutely primal is no statically self-contained and comprehensible reality, but one that exists solely in dispensing itself: a flowing wellspring with no holding-trough beneath it, an act of procreation with no seminal vesicle, with no organism at all to perform the act. In the pure act of self-pouring-forth, God the Father

...

As a Christian, one can venture an initial answer (nobody else can do so): If there must exist within God himself (in order that he can be called “love”) a One and an Other and their Union, then it is “very good” that the Other exists, then the world is not, as in the rest of the monotheisms, a fall from the One. That is something, but by no means sufficient."

Balthasar, Hans Urs von (2011-10-20). Credo (Kindle Locations 306-308). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.

It is a far better read if read entirely.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Publius]

If God is to be all loving and unselfish, why would he send his son to die rather than himself?

Jesus is God.

Why call Jesus his son then?

Two reasons:

1. As a reference to Christ's nature
2. As a reference to Christ's submission to the Father

Both are used in scripture.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Just so there's no confusion (as can happen): the Son, who we call Jesus after His incarnation in the womb of Mary, is God.

God has sent God. God has given us God.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Question.Everything]

Just so there's no confusion (as can happen): the Son, who we call Jesus after His incarnation in the womb of Mary, is God.

God has sent God. God has given us God.

-CryptoLutheran

Then why is Jesus in heaven?

If God is in heaven, and Jesus is God, there is no Jesus in heaven because it's just God in heaven. But the Bible tells us that Jesus is not only in heaven, he is at the right hand of God. God is at the right hand of himself? How does that make sense?

 

[salida]

Why Jesus died;

Why did Jesus have to die for our sins? | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

 

[ViaCrucis]

Then why is Jesus in heaven?

If God is in heaven, and Jesus is God, there is no Jesus in heaven because it's just God in heaven. But the Bible tells us that Jesus is not only in heaven, he is at the right hand of God. God is at the right hand of himself? How does that make sense?

The Son is at the right hand of the Father.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Question.Everything]

The Son is at the right hand of the Father.

-CryptoLutheran

If the Son is the Father, this means the Son is at the right hand of himself. How does that make sense?

 

[ViaCrucis]

If the Son is the Father, this means the Son is at the right hand of himself. How does that make sense?

The Son isn't the Father. He's the Son.

Both the Father and Son are God, the same God.

The Son shares in the Father's eternal essence, what the Father is so is the Son also. This is the Father's own unselfish outpouring of Himself into Another, from His indivisible essence, His Being being poured out, begetting the Son. This begetting is eternal, it is without beginning and without end. The Father has always and is always begetting; the Son has always been Son of His Father, having His Origin in the Father who begets Him. As there has always been Father, there has always been Son; the Father never becomes Father and the Son never becomes Son.

It is because of this that the Son is God. Of the same nature, essence, and/or Being as the Father. The same God, the same Substance, the same Thing. What the Father is, so is the Son.

If it helps: We confess God is Love. In a Trinitarian sense that means there is Lover, Beloved, and The Union. The Father is the Lover, loving Another, the Son who is the Beloved who loves in kind; and the Union of this love is the Spirit who proceeds from Father to Son and back again.

Thus God's love is always Other-Love. It is always an unselfish, kenotic love, being poured into Another; Father to Son, Son to Father, and the Union, the Holy Spirit.

When the Son condescends to unite Himself to our human nature, being born of Mary, it is both out of His eternal love of His Father as well as His desire to bring the world into the eternal relationship of the Holy Trinity. The Father has given of Himself to the world by His Son in whom the world is redeemed and reconciled and we are joined to Son, and in Son, brought into the untold depths of the Father's love and made sharers of that most Ancient Life and Love: God.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[hedrick]

I doubt that anyone thinks God is actually a guy sitting on a throne. Sitting at God's right hand is thus a metaphor for the Son reigning with the Father. I don't think you can use this image to get much about the actual way in which Father and Son are connected.

Also, when we talk about Jesus being in heaven, I think we're speaking of the human. At least I assume that's your intent. So more than the Trinity is involved here. We're speaking of the Logos' human existence. That involves the Incarnation as well.

 

[ViaCrucis]

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