Hi ross,

Let me just spit my popcorn all over the living room floor immediately :0) and say I’m not advocating the development of an idea you pursue in your 4th paragraph where you describe mankind as ‘…so unworthy that God cannot love us or forgive us until someone without sin dies in our stead…’ - Eeeeek!!

Now, I know John 3:16 needs no mention. For sure God has always loved us.
But what good would love be to us if it let us go to hell anyway?

That is the very nature of this world we live in: it is a world under law, and subsequently under law’s remit. It is not a world for weak stomachs - that much is certain.

Perhaps the reality of Who God is (whom we would apprehend) is muddied (in unregenerate portions of our minds!) by an initial covenant (Law) that continually finds fault with us. This alone would exasperate us. Furthermore, the Law articulates the exacting nature of God’s Righteousness and, indeed, Justice. But it doesn’t end there.

Thank Christ (!) that Jesus embodies Grace and Truth and so we finally get at what God wants, and how he wants it.
“But first, I have to do something…”, namely - die.

Jesus had to die IN ORDER TO set aside the terms of the first covenant to usher in the second (Hebrews 10: 8 - 10). This is the very nature of things that God, in Christ, had to address.

And, as eric says above, it’s a bloody business (i paraphrase but the gist is the same, i think).

One other consideration of Jesus’ death (Hebrews 2: 14 - 15)
reveals ramifications in (the 2nd?) Heaven that this discusion, thus propositioned, can’t even consider…