The Bible tells us it is because of our sins which put Christ on the cross, so please do not “blame” God with “rather God's eternal plan”.
God’s Love has been shown many times already, with the greatest Love being shown with Him allowing a willing Christ to go to the cross to help us.
You have to keep the objective in mind all the time, because the objective drives everything and it is not God’s objective, but man’s objective, since God’s objective is doing or allowing everything that does happen to help willing individuals fulfill their earthly objective.
Christ going to the cross is not to help God out with some problem God is having (like unable to forgive without seeing blood first or a problem with satan), but Christ did it to help willing humans in fulfilling their objective.
Peter gives the first and very best, for his audience, “Christ Crucified” sermon in Acts 2 so please read Acts 2:14-41 which is very short and to the point.
Listen, not only, to what Peter said, but what Peter did not say. Peter did not say: Christ went in your place to the cross, Christ defeated satan, sin or death on the cross, do you (the audience) feel the Love or Christ did this to satisfy God’s wrath. What Peter emphasized was the fact: “You cruelly tortured and murdered the Messiah Jesus”, it was not to be a feel-good sermon, but a really hard sermon for the crowd to listen to. The sermon was to get them so far down they had no where to turn and desperately said: “What can we do?!” The crowd should have been expecting lighting to come down from heaven to destroy them, but instead heard the good news gift Acts 2:38.
When those first century people realized what they did they had a death blow to their heart (the worst feeling they could have and live), so should we not experience the same feeling when we come to realize what we cause Christ to go through.
God making and allowing this unbelievable huge tragedy the product of my sin, makes my sin debt unbelievably huge, but that helps in my fulfilling my objective, the greater the tragedy I initially caused the better for me. (I am not saying sin all the more, but my sins put Christ on the cross).
Man’s objective is found in the God given Mission statement of: Loving God (and secondly Loving others) with all your heart, soul, mind and energy. In order to fulfill that mission man must first obtain Godly type Love which will make man like God Himself in that man will Love like God Loves. Would becoming like God Himself not be the greatest gift we could get?
The objective is not to never ever sin, but to obtain this Godly type Love is the first of man’s objective.
There are just something even an all-powerful Creator cannot do (there are things impossible to do), the big inability for us is to be created with instinctive (programmed) Godly type Love, since Godly type Love is not instinctive. Godly type love has to be the result of a free will decision by the being, to make it the person’s Love apart from God. In other words: If the Love was in a human from the human’s creation it would be a robotic type love and not a Godly type Love. Also if God “forces” this Love on a person (Kind a like a shotgun wedding with God holding the shotgun) it would not be “loving” on God’s part and the love forced on the person would not be Godly type love. This Love has to be the result of a free will moral choice with real likely alternatives (for humans those alternatives include the perceived pleasures of sin for a season.)
This Love is way beyond anything humans could develop, obtain, learn, earn, pay back or ever deserve, so it must be the result of a gift that is accepted or rejected (a free will choice).
This “Love” is much more than just an emotional feeling; it is God Himself (God is Love). If you see this Love you see God.
All mature adults do stuff that hurts others (this is called sin) these transgressions weigh on them burden them to the point the individual seeks relief (at least early on before they allow their hearts to be hardened). Lots of “alternatives” can be tried for relief, but the only true relief comes from God with forgiveness (this forgiveness is pure charity [grace/mercy/Love]). The correct humble acceptance of this Forgiveness (Charity) automatically will result in Love (we are taught by Jesus (Luke 7: 36-50) and our own experience “…he that is forgiven much will Love much…”). Sin is thus made hugely significant, so there will be an unbelievable huge debt to be forgiven of and thus result in an unbelievable huge “Love” (Godly type Love).
In order to be forgiven of sin you must first sin, so sin is necessary but not desired.
This messed up world is actually the very best place for willing mature adult individuals to see, receive, give, experience, accept and know Godly type Love. All these tragedies provide opportunities for Love, but that does not mean we go around causing opportunities, since we are to be ceasing these opportunities (there are plenty of opportunities) to show/experience Love.
OK we can work from there, if you want to go deeper.
Paul in Ro. 3:25 giving the extreme contrast between the way sins where handle prior to the cross and after the cross, so if they were actually handled the same way “by the cross” there would be no contrast, only a time factor, but Paul seems to say: (forgiven) sins prior to the cross where left “unpunished” (NIV), but that also would mean the forgiven “sinner” after the cross were punished.
From Romans 3: 25 Paul tells us: God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. …
Another way of saying this would be “God offers the ransom payment (Christ Crucified and the blood that flowed from Him) to those that have the faith to receive that ransom. A lack of faith results in the refusal of the ransom payment (Christ crucified).
Paul goes on to explain:
Ro. 3: 25 …He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished
I do not like the word “unpunished” but would use “undisciplined”.
So prior to the cross repentant forgiven people (saved individuals) could not be fairly and justly disciplined for the rebellious disobedience, but after the cross if we repent (come to our senses and turn to God) we can be fairly and justly disciplined and yet survive.
God and Christ would have personally preferred Christ’s blood to remain flowing through his veins, but it is I that need to have that blood outside of Christ flowing over me and in me cleansing my heart. I need to feel that blood and know it is cleansing me.
Some might try to put the need for blood on God making Him blood thirsty, but Christ says: John 6: 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
It is not God needing that blood, but I am blood thirsty for eternal life and God/Christ have provided that blood. I personally need to physically feel Christ’s blood in the symbolic wine flow down my throat and over my heart to experience and know cleansing.
A lot is made of the word “for” being used in “Christ died for us” suggesting it must mean “instead of”, but any good word study of all the Greek words translated “for” would yield more likely interpretations of “for”. If the writers wanted to convey the idea of “instead of” they should have used the Greek word “anti” which can mean “instead of”. The Greek word translate “for” are translated mostly mean “because of” or “to the benefit of” and even anti has that meaning sometimes, so “Christ died for us” would mean “Christ died as a benefit to us” and “Christ died for our sins” would translate “Christ died because of our sins”.
