Why Jesus?

A good friend of mine who has very recently become a believer has had a lot of questions, as is normal!! I had this response for her latest round about why Jesus had to die for us, and Why we have to have eternal death for our sins among a few others.... I really hope that she does not mind me posting this response. I really would like some feedback positive or negative regarding my accuracy and things I could say better or things that you liked about what I have said......

Simple answer: Because the wages of sin is eternal death (not literal death on Earth, but it separates us from Him in eternity), we deserve death in God's eyes when we sin against Him. Jesus died in our place, for our sins, so that we could have life (eternal life.)

My answer: In the old Testament times people sacrificed perfect animals to "atone" for their sins, or to try to balance them out on a sin vs.. "please forgive me" scale. We all Sin, and God knows that we can't help it, it's our nature and he made us with free will so that we would have the choice between sinning and doing what he really wants us to do. All He really wants is for us to realize our sin, and admit it to Him and then ask for forgiveness. It's a lot like being parents, we all want our kids to grow up happy and healthy and to have good lives, but when they do something that makes us upset, i.e.: breaking a safety rule or being destructive, they make us sad and all we really want for them is to admit what they did was wrong, learn to not do it again, and then move on with their lives, right? The big thing is we want them to know that what they did was wrong. God has similar rules for us. If you want to look back at the basic 10 commandments, they are all pretty much safety and do not abuse rules.... And when we do something that goes against those teachings, God wants us to realize it, admit to Him that we were wrong and tell Him that we won't do it again. Right, just like a parent! God had profits prophecy the First coming of Jesus. He knew that the old ways of "sacrificing animals" was not going to work for long.... He knew that they only way to get our attention back to Him was to do the most drastic, horrific, and unbelievable thing that a parent could ever do. Imagine the feelings he had to have gone through as the creator of that master plan!!!! But He did it because He loves us and He wanted us to find Him again!! Jesus was His perfect Lamb, and though it seems very savage and horrifying, He knew that the only way to get His peoples attention again was to be willing to sacrifice His son in the most excruciating death possible. You are probably thinking, why do we have to have death as the wage for sin? God is perfection, and we are not. God is perfect!! We are His creation, but we cannot stand before Him unless we have been washed clean of our sins. In the old testament they sacrificed animals to atone or compensate for their sins, After Jesus, the "New Testament" was created and died for us, it became possible for us to spend eternity with God if we only accept His Son into our hearts as our personal savior. This means admitting that we have sinned against God, Asking Him for forgiveness, Accepting that Jesus has already paid the price for our sins, and lastly accepting Gods Eternal Grace to clean us of our sins. No one can enter the presence of God with out Jesus standing by their side to "vouch" for them. I other words, we need to have the "Jesus stamp" on our hands to get in the gate :) Another way to think about it is Jesus was willing to take the call to die for us. God asked Him to do it and He accepted. God didn't make him do it, he wanted to!! And, since Jesus is God, it tells us that God was willing to Die for us to redeem us of our sins!!! We do have to take responsibility for our own sins, anyone who does this has accepted Jesus as the Son of God. Any one who hasn't admitted their sins to God, hasn't. And, Jesus can only save the people that have been willing to accept Him for who he was. They have to accept the gift that he is offering. If they don't accept the gift, then he has no choice but to turn away when it is their time to approach God. It truly is a gift, too, we don't have to do ANYTHING but take it and move on. Just as any parents dream is for their children to grow up to respect them and know that they did their best for them, that is God's dream too. But a child that grows apart from Him, mocks Him their whole life, turns away when He calls them and isn't willing to accept Him dying for them, can't be a true child of God. They have to be turned away. We have our whole life to figure this out no matter how long or short.... our life is our 1,000,000,000 chances to get it right. And if we can't figure it out by then.....we won't.

You are also right about it seeming sort of "tribal" but really the tribes were not far off, their idea of God had strayed from the One True God to the idea that there must be several to have created such a beautiful world. And Sacrifices have long been our way of asking God for forgiveness. Some tribes have taken this to extremes that God never intended, i.e.: human sacrifice.