Need for Christ's Crucifixion?

          Why was their the need for Christ’s crucifixion when God can forgive the sins of the people from His throne itself?

a)      God is an all powerful, infinite Being perfect in everything and there is none like Him.  All the positive things that we can think about, God possesses that attribute in perfection.  For example, let us consider love; everybody loves, but God’s love is perfect and infinite.  Among all the attributes of a divine Being, love, mercy and righteousness are three major attributes in my understanding.  If God can forgive any sins of men, then he is infinitely merciful, but if the sins are not dealt with justice or compensated, then though God is merciful, He is compromising with His perfect righteousness.  For a just and perfect God, He cannot forgive sins and overlook it by simply commanding it from His throne in heaven.  Having said that we know that our God is an infinitely loving Being.  In the Old Testament, we can see time and again, that our God is rigid against sins like disobedience, idol worship etc.  He is uncompromising and deals harshly with people who have sinned.  He simply cannot overlook the sins, because of His perfect nature.  Christ’s life, death and resurrection are crucial steps for our God to be perfect in all aspects.  With the crucifixion of the Son, God can love and show mercy to sinners without compromising His perfect righteousness, because every sin was paid by the blood of the Lamb.  God can now be merciful and at same time uphold His perfect righteousness.  The fact that our God came in the flesh, lowered Himself to our level and suffered and later rose again, shows us His perfect love for His creation.  Thus Christ’s crucifixion is also a requirement of our infinitely righteous, infinitely merciful and infinitely loving God to deal with His creation.

b)      We understand from the Bible, the Second Person of the Trinity, our Lord Jesus Christ was from the beginning (John 1.1).  However, He took on flesh and manifested to us in the old creation as the Second Adam.  In His resurrection, He became the firstborn Son, which means there will be many more sons to follow Him.  Hallelujah.  This happened after His resurrection.  Now, we in this age needs to be in the resurrected Christ to become the brothers of Christ.  This corporate entity will culminate into the final glorious New Jerusalem (Rev 21.2) which will be the bride of Christ.  The whole point of the Lord’s life and death is to produce the New entity the church which will issue in the New Jerusalem, which will be the partner of the Lord for eternity.  Again, we can see that the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ is accomplishing this.  Hallelujah to the wisdom of the Lord.

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God's residence is the Glorious Church

The Church is the foretaste of the coming Kingdom of God.  It is the most precious living entity on Earth today and we are fortunate to be part of it.  When the church gathers, the Lord is in her midst (Matt 18:20).  This shouldn't be a mere assumption or a vague idea, but rather, the fact that the living God is in our midst like every person gathered in the name of Lord should be our firm belief.  But, most often we search the altar, or ponder over some message to vaguely feel the presence of God and in reality living Christ is in our midst. 

Church is the right setup to experience the presence of God where saints gather to glorify God and help others to glorify God effectively.  There is no other place on earth where one can experience Him richly.  When I attend the church, my focus is not on the material, physical stuff, but the invisible but definite presence of God.  The physical and material things are nothing but expressions to worship God in the spirit.  He is not even at a distance from me as far as the altar, but He is near me and He is in my spirit.  These words should not be a mere soothsaying, or an objective wish, but rather, a real experience because it is the truth.  

When we see the church as an Entity which is already in the Heaven (Eph 2:6), we will start appreciating it because the Lord is in her midst.  We know that God resides in an inexpressible glory, in the middle of an unapproachable light (1 Tim 6:16).  When God is among the people who have gathered in his name, He is in such a glorious state.  If only we have a vision of the glory that we are participating, we will lead our church life with a joyous trembling as we are experiencing something that is more real and meaningful than our own lives.  When we fail to see the true vision of the church, we would engage with the fellow believers in a careless, evil and in a futile worldly way.  Our conduct in the church is not a matter of being an exemplary, rather respecting the presence of God in a real way.  May God grant us the vision of the church life and how much He has blessed us to become part of His holy Church.  Hallelujah for the church life.