Did God will Jesus to die?
Have you ever had to make a difficult choice, one that has poor circumstances and very little room to avoid unideal (if not morally problematic) outcomes or means? Indeed, the more our lives are consumed with sin the less ideal our choices become because we give up our freedom when we sin, inviting new, less-than-ideal circumstances into the picture. Morality as a whole can be understood as living the best life, simple and righteous. Those who love us are necessarily pulled into such circumstances. To answer this question, we first need to know Christ and His mission, and then understand that it is we who made the choice between Christ's death and ours.
Man, in all his depravity, could only be saved by Christ coming to stand in front of man running from God, all the way down. Yes, many still ran past Him but others stopped dead in their tracks and found the love that they were looking for and which they thought best to find apart from Him, until the moment God’s love was manifest to them. We tend to doubt God’s love insofar as we sin, we, in truth, lose ourselves, who we are, God’s children(Genesis 3, John 1:10-13). Yes, we left as though God could never love us and accounted Him gone. We could not face our hurt; we could not face the truth. But Christ interwove Himself into our humanity avoiding sin but taking on everything we run from (Hebrews 4:15). The Divine presence came to earth, the Light of light into the deepest darkness. He reminded us who we were and continues this in every Eucharist. In all this, then, we return to our question, did God have Jesus killed/did Jesus has Himself killed? Conditionally yes, the answer to this question derives completely from the state of man. “Nobody takes my life from me but lay it down of my own accord”(John 10:18). God knew what it would cost to stop and turn man around from his running away, and He did not spare his only Begotten Son, to draw us all back(John 3:16). Even the language of John 3:16, reveals it was necessary for our salvation and that God-willed indeed to pay the cost.
If this still seems outlandish, perhaps we should consider Abraham in Genesis 22 and understand the nature of the decision we gave God in our corruption. Of course, Abraham was told by God, under pain of potentially having God revoke His promises which had made a journey spanning decades worth it, to sacrifice in a grandiose way the son of the promise, Isaac. Watch Abraham as you read, you will notice great comparability to God the Father leading His only Begotten Son to His death. What does God do, He spares Isaac and Abraham seemingly in a pedagogical way as if saying, "This is what it will take for me to save you". Throughout the rest of time unto the present day, God clearly speaks to us "it will cost everything, but everything shall be gained for you as for Me." Perhaps, not assuredly, but perhaps this is what Christ meant when He said, "Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad" (John 8:56). I say this because, Abraham understood exactly what God was getting at, and saw the love of God, which spared his own and only son, Isaac, by sending the Only-Begotten Son of God and not only withholding as it were that love, which made our precious Savior cry out, knowing what perfect communion was like that Psalm, "My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?" (Matthew 27:46, Psalm 22). God the Father in His love of us and perfect and perfectly loving providence, completed the sacrifice which Abraham was spared, in an eternal way.
In conclusion, yes, God willed His death, if and only if, it meant our salvation while knowing He would take it up again (John 10:18). Sin brings such desperate ultimatums to bear. Our nature sought the bottom of depravity to obtain what it thought was missing and nothing would finally stop man from his fever dream, except God himself. God, in laying down His life, did not encourage evil but knew that its forces would not hesitate to seize the opportunity to hurt/kill God (goodness itself, love itself, truth itself, existence itself), that is, what was misunderstood from the beginning to be the enemy of goodness. When God is gone so is man. We do this in our every sin. Only God can finally take the punches and absorb our dysfunctional desire. He was willing to pay the price, it is not like God needed someone to punish but rather that He needed to draw us back from the self-destruction that sin is, which though deceived freely chose and continue to choose. Such a loud and unmistakable act of love cannot help but come at a great cost, it is the paying of this cost that due to Christ's infinite and pure love incurs another debt, one of love not destruction, one of honor, not restitution. This debt is nothing else than God’s love and call to be what we were made for not what we imagine ourselves to be. This paradox confounds many and we remain free to choose it or against it at any time. That is the purpose of time, to decide. God allows a second opportunity for man to come home even after He has strayed. Don’t let what Christ did and does go to waste.
Read more from the "I answer that" parts for the Summa here.
Written by Carter Carruthers & also available soon at Missio Dei
