If Jesus really is God, why did He allow Himself to die on a cross?

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Andrew from Tanzania asked me in email, “If Jesus was really God, why did He not protect Himself and allow Himself to be put on a cross and die on the cross?”

The question Andrew asked is a great question because at first thought, why wouldn’t someone who is extremely more powerful than the ones attacking not just use their extreme power to overcome the ones attacking? For I know that I would do everything in my power to stop anyone attacking me from continuing to attack me.

So why if Jesus really is God didn’t He stop the attackers attacking Him and stop them from putting Him on the cross? Not only why didn’t Jesus not use His God power to stop the attackers from putting Him on the cross, why didn’t Jesus use His God power to stop Himself from dying?

The answers to these questions are found in the Bible. Possibly to your surprise, the book of Genesis is where the answer to these questions start. Yes, that’s right the book of Genesis (the Old Testament) is where we start finding the answer to these questions.

After Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which God told them to not eat from (Genesis 2:16-17; Genesis 3: 6), Genesis 3: 14-15 states; “Then the Lord God said to the serpent: ‘Because you have done this [deceived the woman], you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal. You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life. I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will strike your head, and you will strike His heel.'”

Genesis 3: 15 is the first (reference to) prophesy of Christ Jesus coming to earth to overcome evil once and for all forever. In this verse we learn that God has a plan in place to overcome evil and redeem mankind.

There are many other references to (prophesy of) Christ Jesus in the Old Testament. They all help answer the questions in this article. For example, Isaiah 7:14; Isaiah 40:3; Isaiah 53:12; Isaiah 53:9; Micah 5:2; Zechariah 9:9; Zechariah 11:12; Psalm 22:16; Psalms 41:9 to list a few. I suggest that you go read through each of these books in the Old Testament and learn more about what it teaches about Christ Jesus.

To keep the answer in this article abridged, we’ll skip now to key verses in the New Testament about Christ Jesus.

We learn about Jesus in John 1:1-5 that; “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

John the Baptist in John 1:29, “saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

In John 3:16 we learn that, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life.”

We see how in Romans 5:8 “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ Jesus died for us.”

We know from Romans 6:23 that, “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Hebrews 10:1-39 teaches us that no one can follow the Jewish Law enough to pay the wages of sin to have eternal life with God. It also teaches us that none of the Jewish sacrifices which were offered continually year by year, make anyone perfect so to pay the wages of sin to have eternal life with God.

In fact, Hebrews 10:1-39 teaches us that only the sacrifice of Christ Jesus’ blood and His death is sufficient to cover the wages of sin you and I each owe God. And it lets us know that only the sacrifice of Christ Jesus’ blood and His death is sufficient to have God see you and me as perfect through Christ Jesus.

The answer to Andrew’s question, “If Jesus was really God, why did He not protect Himself and allow Himself to be put on a cross and die on the cross?” is if Christ Jesus had protected Himself and not allowed Himself to die on the cross, you and I would be doomed without any way to get into Heaven to be with God. Thus you and I can have eternal life with God through Jesus’ not protecting Himself and stopping Himself from dying.

Jesus loves us is why He came to earth and died on the cross. As a prefect human pure and sinless; the only person ever sinless, through Jesus is the only means that you and I can be seen as perfect and sinless to God.

If Jesus didn’t accept to die on the cross, you and I would not have any way in which we could go to Heaven and be with God because neither of us are perfect and we both are sinful. God cannot have any imperfection near Him. Per Jesus’ loving act of coming here to earth and dying on the cross, God gave to us a Gift of love that when we accepted it, allows God to see us through Jesus! Our God loves us greatly indeed!

If you have not repented of your sin and accepted Christ Jesus as your Savior, why not do so right now?

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