Have you ever asked yourself why Jesus had to die? Most people would answer, He died for our sins and they would be correct. But why couldn’t God simply look at us and say, I forgive you. We’ve all heard or witnessed incredible stories of forgiveness. We all interact on a daily basis with people who have hurt us emotionally, financially or physically and we’ve forgiven them and no one needed to die. So, why would God allow His Son to die? Why couldn’t He just do what we do? Just say, I forgive you and move on.

God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness.” Romans 3:25 NIV 

The reason God presented Jesus as a sacrifice was to substantiate that He is a just God. So that everyone would know that in the midst of an unfair world, God remains completely just. The problem is that we do not recognize a system of one hundred percent perfect justice. We have varying degrees of justice, and we deal with infractions accordingly. But God established from the very beginning a system based on perfection. A system in which any sin would disqualify us no matter how big or small. A system in which the wages of any sin is death.

When I was four years old my parents bought me my first bicycle, and on at least three occasions as I was learning to ride it, I would roll up the driveway right into the neighbor’s basement window and break it. Each time my father had to pay for the window because as a four-year-old I had no possible way to pay for the damages that I caused. On a grand scale, the same happens in our relationship with God. Every time we sin we ruin God’s glorious system of perfection. And since we do not have the means to pay for the damage, God pays the debt. A debt that cannot remain unpaid and God remains perfect at the same time.

In our fallen nature, we underestimate the nature of God’s perfect glory. But because God is perfectly righteous He could not leave sin unpunished. Because He’s perfectly just someone had to pay the debt. And to demonstrate that He is a righteous God, in His amazing grace, he paid the debt by allowing Jesus to hang on a cross to cancel out the debt for anyone who places his or her faith in Him.