The cross revealed these things more clearly than anything else. I haven't spoken to "torture received at the hands of sinners." I've spoken of the cross, which encompasses more than that.

Your question, as asked, (i.e. "Also, is torture received at the hands of sinners an aspect of the inevitable result of sin?") strikes me as a bit vague. I would say that what happened to Christ was inevitable in the sense that this is how evil beings treat God given the opportunity, but I'm not sure if this is what you're getting at.



Again, the cross is no limited to "torture at the hands of sinners," although that's certainly a big part of it.

Regarding why Christ died at Calvary as opposed to Gethsemane, this question seems to me to be more pertinent to your point of view than mine. If Christ's death was simply for the purpose of earning the right for God to be able to legally pardon, why couldn't it have happened in Gethsemane as opposed to Calvary?

Assuming that Christ's death accomplished a revelation of truth encompassing God, Satan, sin, and ourselves, it's difficult to see how Gethsemane could accomplish this as the cross did. In particular, the cross vividly depicts the sinful heart of man, in choosing to free Barabbas as opposed to Christ, mocking Him, spitting on Him, scouring Him, and crucifying Him. It also publicly manifested God's character in such trying circumstances, in Christ tender regard for His mother, in His prayer that God "forgive them, for they know not what they do," and in other ways.

it does seem clear. but does it seem clear after the fact? i mean we have egw who explains it all. but according to her the unfallen angels didnt get it until the cross. go figure!

maybe we forget without egw we wouldnt know a fraction of what we know.

The revelation of God's willingness to suffer is clear, most vividly in the cross - that it was "for others" isn't quite that obvious, though, so why a Roman execution?

This bit

...is clarified by the Apostle Paul who writes that Christ was hanged on a tree to suffer the curse of the law for us, as us: it's what proved Jesus' Messiahship to a Pharisee!! - to one who knew the writte word b a c k to f r o n t; that was't possible in Gethsemane! Oh,...he's in the Bible, so his position is authoritative.

What does "the curse of the law" mean to you, for to me it means the barrier to forgiveness which Christ's death removes at no cost to me other than having to confess my sins to him directly.

If I understood you Colin, I agree. Christ's death had to be in a way that was a public revelation that He was the Messiah, which Calvary did, but Gethsemane could not have.

Christ's being a "curse" to me means that He was "abandoned of God." The Pharisees had the idea that if they could get Christ crucified, this would prove He wasn't the Messiah, because God would never allow His chosen One, so they reasoned, to be crucified (since he who dies on a tree is accursed). But, ironically, as you point out, to a Pharisee who understood the Scriptures more deeply, this actually proved what they were trying to disprove!

Here's a thought from Waggoner regarding Christ's being made a curse for us:

That "Christ died for the ungodly" is evident to all who read the Bible. He "was delivered for our offenses." Rom.4:25. The Innocent suffered for the guilty; the Just for the unjust. "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Is.53:5,6. But death came by sin. Death is the curse that has passed upon all men, simply because "all have sinned." So, as Christ was "made a curse for us," it follows that Christ was "made to be sin on our behalf." 2Cor.5:21, R.V. He bore "our sins in His own body" up to the tree. 1Pet.2:24, margin. Note that our sins were "in His body." It was no superficial work that He undertook. The sins were not merely figuratively laid on Him, but they were actually in Him. He was made a curse for us, made to be sin for us, and consequently suffered death for us.

To some this truth seems repugnant; to the Greeks it is foolishness, and to the Jews a stumbling-block, but "to us who are saved, it is the power of God." For bear in mind that it was our sins that He bore in His own body--not His own sins. The same scripture that tells us that He was made to be sin for us, assures us that He "knew no sin." The same text that tells us that He carried our sins "in His own body," is careful to let us know that He "did no sin." The fact that He could carry our sin about with Him, and in Him, being actually made to be sin for us, and yet not do any sin, is to His everlasting glory and our eternal salvation from sin. All the sins of all men were on Him, yet no person ever discovered the trace of sin upon Him. No sin was ever manifested in His life, although He took all sin upon Himself. He received it and swallowed it up by the power of the endless life in which He swallows up death. He can bear sin, and yet be untainted by it. It is by this marvelous life that He redeems us. He gives us His life, so that we may be freed from every taint of the sin that is in our flesh.

Christ, "in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death," "was heard in that He feared." Heb.5:7. But He died! Yes; but no one took His life from Him; He laid it down, that He might take it again. John 10:17,18. The pangs of death were loosed, "because it was not possible that He should be holden of it." Acts 2:24. Why was it not possible for death to hold Him, even though He voluntarily put Himself in its power?--Because He "knew no sin;" He took sin upon Himself, but was saved from its power. He was "in all things" "made like unto His brethren," "in all points tempted like as we are" (Heb.2:17; 4:15), and since He could of Himself do nothing (John 5:30), He prayed to the Father to keep Him from being overcome and thereby falling under the power of death. And He was heard. In His case these words were fulfilled: "The Lord God will help Me; therefore shall I not be confounded; therefore have I set My face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is near that justifieth Me; who will contend with Me?" Is.50:7,8.

Whose sin was it that thus oppressed Him, and from which He was delivered?--Not His own, for He had none. It was your sin and mine. Our sins have already been overcome--vanquished. We have to fight only with an already defeated foe. When you come to God "in the name of Jesus," having surrendered yourself to His death and life, so that you do not bear His name in vain, because Christ liveth in you, you have only to remember that every sin was on Him, and is still on Him, and that He is the conqueror, and straightway you will say, "Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." "Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savor of His knowledge by us in every place." 2Cor.2:14.

I also like this thought:

Never was the Son of God more beloved by His Father, by the heavenly family, and by the inhabitants of the unfallen worlds, than when He humbled Himself to bear disgrace, humiliation, shame, and abuse. By becoming the sin bearer, He lifted from the human race the curse of sin. In His own body He paid the penalty of that on which the power of Satan over humanity is founded--sin (YI June 28, 1900). {7BC 924.5}

Yes, that is nice. Shades of Isa. 53.

By paying our sin debt of death on the cross Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law. He thereby earned the right to serve before God as our Advocate. This important accomplishment seems to be missing from your list of reasons why Jesus had to die on the cross. As sinners, the human race was under the curse of the law, which means we were on death row.

But Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law, from death row, by living and dying the perfect life and death. His death satisfies the just and loving demands of law and justice, which require God to execute the death penalty in consequence of the sins of the world. Death must happen in consequence of sin. Justice must be served. Sinners must suffer in proportion and in duration to their sinfulness and then die eternally.

Law and justice, however, were served and satisfied by the substitutionary death of Jesus. So far as law and justice are concerned penitent sinners have paid the price of death for their sins in the suffering and death Jesus experienced while He was here. His death is accepted as if they themselves died in consequence of the sins they committed. They died and were buried and rose again as new creatures in Christ. They stand before God and the Universe as sinless as did A&E before they fell.

The following passages support this aspect as to why Jesus had to die, as to what His death accomplished in relation to law and justice and the death penalty:


Again, the quotes posted above make it clear that the most important reason why Jesus had to die, so far as our pardon and salvation is concerned, was to pay our sin debt of death, to satisfy the just and loving demands of law and justice, to honor and glorify the law and love of God.


By "inevitable result of sin" I'm referring to the way it is used in the following DA quote:


Is torture at the hands of sinners an aspect of the "inevitable result of sin" in the sense it is used above?


Why indeed? If sinners had embraced Jesus as their Savior and Sin-Substitute, instead of rejecting Him, His death would have still been necessary in order for God to earn the right to pardon and save them. Why? Because law and justice demand death for sin. Repentance and obedience are not enough to secure pardon for past sins. "Death must come in consequence of man's sin."

If sinners had embraced Jesus, the requirement of His substitutionary death would have played out very much differently. For example, it would not have involved torture at the hands of sinners. Most likely Jesus would have laid down and died on an altar. Such a nonviolent death would have satisfied the just and loving demands of law and justice.

Such a death would have also accomplished everything else He set out to do in paying our sin debt of death. For example, Satan would have been unmasked before the unfallen worlds. The justice and mercy would have kissed at the altar. The nature of sin and salvation would have been revealed. The loving, self-sacrificing character of God would have been demonstrated. Everything would have turned out the same as it did on the cross had Jesus been embraced by sinners and then simply laid down and died on an altar.


I disagree for the reasons stated above. Such a violent and cruel death at the hands of sinners was not necessary for Jesus to accomplish everything He needed to accomplish in paying our sin debt of death. Nor was such a violent death at the hands of sinners necessary to demonstrate the nature of sin and sinners or to expose Satan as a liar and a deceiver. Nor was it needful to more clearly reveal the love of God. All these important aspects were clearly revealed before Jesus suffered and died on the cross.

Here Ellen very eloquently explains why Jesus had to die. Jesus had to die to redeem us from the curse of the law because death must come in consequence of man's sin. Only thus could Jesus pardon and save penitent sinners.

In the Garden of Gethsemane Christ suffered in man's stead, and the human nature of the Son of God staggered under the terrible horror of the guilt of sin, until from His pale and quivering lips was forced the agonizing cry, "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." . . . Human nature would then and there have died under the horror of the sense of sin, had not an angel from heaven strengthened Him to bear the agony. . . . Christ was suffering the death that was pronounced upon the transgressors of God's law. {AG 168.2}

It is a fearful thing for the unrepenting sinner to fall into the hands of the living God. This is proved by the history of the destruction of the old world by a flood, by the record of the fire which fell from heaven and destroyed the inhabitants of Sodom. But never was this proved to so great an extent as in the agony of Christ, the Son of the infinite God, when he bore the wrath of God for a sinful world. It was in consequence of sin, the transgression of God's law, that the Garden of Gethsemane has become pre-eminently the place of suffering to a sinful world. No sorrow, no agony, can measure with that which was endured by the Son of God. {AG 168.3}

Man has not been made a sin-bearer, and he will never know the horror of the curse of sin which the Saviour bore. No sorrow can bear any comparison with the sorrow of Him upon whom the wrath of God fell with overwhelming force. Human nature can endure but a limited amount of test and trial. The finite can only endure the finite measure, and human nature succumbs; but the nature of Christ had a greater capacity for suffering. . . . The agony which Christ endured, broadens, deepens, and gives a more extended conception of the character of sin, and the character of the retribution which God will bring upon those who continue in sin. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ to the repenting, believing sinner. {AG 168.4}

The sword of justice was unsheathed, and the wrath of God against iniquity rested upon man's substitute, Jesus Christ, the only begotten of the Father. {AG 168.5}

This list if of things mentioned in the chapter "It Is Finished." Is this mentioned there? If it is, then you're right, I missed this. (If not, then you misspoke). This statement here is along the lines of Paul's thought expressed in Hebrews 2.

Regarding what you wrote after this, you view sin as something innocuous of itself, which only results in death because God kills those who practice it. I disagree, viewing that sin has "fatal effects" from which one must be "healed." (PP 431)



Not one of these passages says that Jesus had to die in order for God to have the legal right to pardon us.



Where do you get "most important reason" from?

Here's the PP statement I referred to earlier:



I submit that this is the most important reason Christ had to die, as far as our pardon and salvation is concerned, which isn't really disagreeing with what you wrote, since I believe this is speaking of the same thing.

The sinner receives pardon through faith in the atoning sacrifice. The "fatal effects" of sin can only be healed by this manner.



No. On the cross, Christ experienced the second death, which is the inevitable result of sin. This is what EGW is referring to in DA 764.



God, of course, has no need to "earn the right" to do anything; He is the Sovereign of the Universe.



So God is beholden to His law? Say God had not written out the law; would He still have had to earn this right to pardon?



For pardon to occur there must be willingness on the part of the offended party to forgive, and a desire to be pardoned on the party of the guilty party. God always had the willingness to pardon; that never changed. What was necessary for man to become willing to be pardoned, which God effected through the cross, as Fifield eloquently points out here:





The inevitable result of sin is death.



This is missing the whole point. If sinners had embraced Jesus, His substitutionary death would not have been necessary, because they would have already been reconciled! The purpose of Christ's death, was to "bring us to God."





It was the cross which unmasked Satan. How would laying down to die on an altar have unmasked Satan?



Nothing would have turned out the same if Jesus had been embraced by sinners. It is totally impossible for this to have happened; this is ignoring the reality of sin. The carnal heart is "enmity with God." It is not possible for enemies of God to embrace Him! What needs to happen is for enemies to be converted into friends, which is precisely what the cross does -- it leads us to repentance.