We are told Jesus had to die for our sins. But why?

Jane Isley
Apr 20
9 min read

Updated: May 8

Valid questions from a reader that deserve an answer.

It was refreshing to get valid questions from a reader who made sure I knew right away he wasn’t out for a fight, and they are genuine questions that are well worth the time to answer. I also knew I could not answer them to the best of my ability in a comment section. So we are here now, to do my best to answer and hopefully not confuddle anything.

man looking up to the sky in front of a wall with the name Jesus painted graffiti style on it. — **Gift Habeshaw**

Asking questions should never be met with defensiveness, and never asked with ill intent.

Here are this gentleman's questions in response to my article “He died for all sinners.”

screen shot of a readers questions about why Jesus had to die. — Screenshot by Jane Isley

The straight-laced, non-answer answer to the first part as to why die for our sins would be to retort back and say something along the lines of “Well, He died so we could go to Heaven.”

Like I said, a non-answer answer and doesn’t necessarily clarify anything if you are a non-believer, the curious, or a believer scratching your head trying to understand it.

Wanting to know the reason behind the reason is perfectly normal; we don’t go to a car dealership and not pop the hood and ask a million questions first before we decide to buy the car.

The reason behind the reason —

So why would God, the creator of everything, need or want to do this? Why choose death for sins instead of something else?

I’ll be completely honest, entire books are dedicated to this one question, so there is stuff I will not be able to cover completely or even touch on. I’m just going to do this how I would in person, and take out the jargon and be human, because I, too, asked these same questions once. I wanted a teacher, not a preacher.

To begin, it ultimately boils down to two starting points from how I see it in my brain. (Others have different starting points, and that doesn’t mean any of us are wrong, just different.)

Sin became a part of our lives.
God cannot tolerate sin because He is just, and sin needs to be punished.

Sin can not and should not be tolerated; if God tolerated sin of any kind, He would have to tolerate all sin. If He did that, then good would no longer exist, sin would take over, and our understanding of good and bad would cease to exist completely and become a constant state of grey.

It had to stay black and white. If there was no firm line drawn between to two, I couldn’t even imagine what that world would begin to look like.

He outright refuses to tolerate sin, and for good reason, sin leads to death. We are told this from the beginning in Genesis. A death that is beyond just our heartbeat stopping, a death that results in all of us never being able to be within His presence again. A gap we are unable to bridge on our own.

First, we need to recognize that God didn’t want puppets. I mean, what’s the point of a real relationship if you are in control of every aspect of it, including their thinking? There is no point, we get to choose of our own accord and will, always.

He created something beautiful and perfect that He wanted to share, then sin entered. (Oh, and yes, lots could be written on that topic, and I’d barely scratch the surface because of the complexity, super in-depth is best left to the pros who have spent their lives diving into that subject, I’m nowhere near that yet.)

If sin had not entered our world, God wouldn’t have been put into the position He was put into. He easily could have snuffed Adam and Eve out and started over — or some like to think at least.

See, God connected with us through the breath of life, which was exclusive and unique to us. He made a point of setting us apart from the animals He created by giving us a soul, that connection and purity allowed Adam and Eve to be in His presence. We are given a hint of this perfection in Genesis 3:8.

If sin had not entered the world, we’d still be in Eden, walking and talking with God in His presence, like nothing happened, we would be in paradise without a moment's worry.

What kind of God would He be if He had just snuffed Adam and Eve out?

And this includes us btw, because from the very beginning He knew us, He knit us together, and appointed us. That's an intimate gesture towards us.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5

Would He have just left their souls, which are connected to Him, floating out there for all eternity, feeling the weight of sin with no possible way to be redeemed, no possible way to be reconciled, and no possible way to ask forgiveness?

— I’m not even going to pretend that I fully understand the “why did things have to go down the way they did in Eden?” My thought on that matter is maybe it had to play out that way so the ones who chose God are truly, completely, and willingly with God as individuals and not puppets? Probably an unpopular thought, but it’s what I got, I don’t know the why, and that’s ok. It happened, now we have to deal.

This is where those harder questions come in:

Why send Himself to suffer and die for us? Why was death needed? Couldn’t He have done something else?

This is epically one of the hardest concepts to wrap the brain around, trust me, I’ve been there. So, here we are now with sin in the world that separates us from God.

In order for us to even enter Heaven, we have to be resurrected and transformed with new bodies. Also important to note, we actually get a new Heaven and Earth (2); we need new bodies to be in our new Heaven and Earth. God will create a new environment free from sin for believers so we can once again be in His presence.

“Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.”

Now, sin has to go somewhere; sin is a transgression against God’s law. The sin in the world has to be conquered and separated from us, so that we are no longer separated from God. That black and white situation I talked about earlier.

To explain it as best I can, sin is a debt, a debt we can not pay on our own. Sin is too heavy, too dark, too unholy for a person (human) to carry to Heaven.

Jesus (the Son of God) came to literally carry that debt; He took it upon Himself, into Himself, so that we are free of it when we die and meet Him in Heaven because He was the perfect “vessel” for lack of a better word, to take all sin, carry it, and destroy it.

This was an act of mercy and love for all humanity.

We are not left hanging, trying to carry our sins with us for eternity, constantly separated from God. Sin strangles our soul with its weight. We now have the chance to be free of our sins and be with Him once again — if we so choose. (more on that later)

“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24

Did you catch that? “In His Body.”

He carried the full weight of every sin in Himself. Our death (the worse then heart-stopping kind of death) had to be defeated by His death. He paid that price (atonement) for us because sin has to be paid for, but the system was flawed; it is a transgression against God’s law, and God provided a way for us to be with Him again.

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” Romans 8:1

Now, what about Hitler?

First, we have no idea what Hitler was thinking when he killed himself, so I’m not going to theorize on that. But what we can know for sure is that he was a sinner.

A sinner like you and I.

As hard and unfathomable as it is, we do not have the right to deny God and His forgiveness to anyone. I’m sure if the victims of the holocaust knew Hitler repented, as in truly, and completely repented, some would have an extremely hard time with that.

How could God forgive a man like that, though?

Simple, the same way He did for you and me.

Here’s the catch, though, Hitler wouldn’t be able to just mouth the words “God forgive me for my sins and I give you mine and my wife’s life because I don’t deserve to live?” and expect to be in Heaven. Doesn’t work like that for anyone.

You want salvation? You have to mean it, otherwise, God will not recognize you on judgment day.

“Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” Matthew 7:20–23

“Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.” Matthew 10:32–33

Repentance is the only way anyone is getting into Heaven.

“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,” Act 3:19

Jesus’s death wasn’t some blanket atonement packet for everybody to get into Heaven; you have to repent, you have to want to follow Him, you have to want to change, you have to have faith in Him, His death, His resurrection, and His atonement for believers.

We want God to forgive us for our sins, and cherish knowing we will see Him on judgment day and hear, “I Know You.” We may not like it, but we have no right to deny this to anyone if they have chosen Him.

We are also told to forgive those who have sinned against us. Ephesians 4:32, Matthew 6:12, and Luke 17:3–4. As well as told “Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.” 1 John 3:15.

This can be hard, even painful to accept, and many will turn away just because of this last section alone. But we truly do not have any right to deny salvation to anyone.

If you believe you deserve it, so do they. We have no right to point fingers at someone else’s sin and deem it as worse than ours, and therefore, they are to be denied Heaven because it’s what we want and what we believe. Salvation doesn’t play favorites, and neither does God when someone turns and comes to Him.

We don’t have to like it, but you do have someone who can help you come to accept this, and that He loves us all. ☝

I hope I have done as well as I can in answering and didn’t go too squirrely. There is no way to cover the vast points that could still be included, but I hope this helps at least answer a few questions and get you in the right direction for further study.

I also recommend reading Why Jesus Has To Be Both Divine and Human To Atone for Humanity’s Sins by Mary Lou Cornish. Her article further expands on what I have not or only only skimmed the surface of.

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