Why did God allow Jesus to be rejected and crucified?
Isn’t Jesus Christ supposed to be more precious than God’s project of
creation? (I mean the creation in Genesis) Was God pleased to let his son
be crucified and face death etc…? Didn’t God know the future and realize
that people would reject Jesus and crucify him?
You are describing the situation exactly. Yes, Jesus Christ is more
precious than his creation. To make a comparison, if you were to create a
beautiful work of art, you would still be more precious than the beautiful
work of art. Romans 9:20 says “who are you, oh man, to talk back to God?”
In other words, the created thing is clearly less than the creator.
You make the next step to question why, then, did the Father God allow the
Son Jesus to be crucified for us his creations. This is the center of the
gospel. It is also a stumbling block to the world (1 Corinthians 1:18-20),
especially to the Muslim world which absolutely rejects the idea of God
allowing even his prophet, never mind his Son to be crucified by sinful
men. That is because the Qur’an sees God as distant from mankind. The God
of the Qur’an is a God of justice, but not really a God of love. The
Qur’an emphasized that we are pre-destined by Allah. The Bible emphasizes
that we are called to a relationship with God by God’s love for us. The
death of Jesus on the cross shows God’s incredible and almost impossible
to understand love for us. How could God love us sinners enough to allow
his Son to suffer for us? 1 John 3:16 “This is how we know what love is:
Jesus Chrisrt laid down his life for us.”
Did God allow Jesus his Son to be crucified because we are more important
than Jesus? Of course not. He allowed him to be crucified because he wants
a relationship with us. Remember that Jesus went to the cross willingly.
The Father did not force him, but Jesus decided to do this for us.
Similarly, God is desiring that we will decide to respond to his love and
serve him with our lives. This is the exact opposite of the false teacing
of Muhammad who describes God at a distance from mankind up in heaven
laying down the rules and then deciding who will and who will not respond.
You ask if God knew the cross would happen. God knows everything. You seem
to think of what happened at the cross as a mistake, as if God’s plan was
changed by Satan and God was defeated at the cross. That is absolutely
wrong. The Bible describes how Jesus would come suffer and die for us
according to God’s will. For example, consider Isaiah 53, which was
written 750 years before Jesus was born, yet who describes how the Messiah
would suffer and die to save God’s people from their sin. The cross was
not a mistake. The cross was God reaching out in love to forgive us our
sins. God lost nothing at the cross. Jesus is still at the Father’s right
hand. God gained exactly what he wanted from the cross: a relationship
with those who will repent and be baptized into Christ.
The key to understanding the cross is to understand the love God has for
us. Please put away any pre-conceived false concept of the cross you may
have perhaps from a Muslim background. You should not assume that the
Muslims understand Jesus. If you want to understand Jesus, you should read
the letters his friends Matthew, Mark and John wrote. These present Jesus
as God in the flesh willingly giving his life so that we could have a
relationship with God. God gives us a choice whether we will serve him or
not. God does not force us to love or serve him. God did not force Jesus
his Son to sacrifice his life either. Let me finish with Romans 5:6-8
…at just the right time… God demonstrates his love…While we were
still sinners, Christ died for us.
John Oakes, PhD