WHY DID JESUS HAVE TO DIE FOR US?
Perhaps this story can illustrate this for us:
There was an engineer who operated a drawbridge across a mighty river. With a control panel of levers and switches, he set into motion a monstrous set of gears that either lifted the bridge for river traffic or closed it for the oncoming train.
One day he took his young son to work with him. The fascinated boy hurled question after question at his dad. It was not until the span had opened to allow the passage of a ship that the father noticed the questions had ceased and his son had left the room. He looked out the window of his control cabin and saw the young boy climbing on the teeth of the gears. As he hurried towards the machinery to get his son, he heard the whistle of an approaching train.
His pulse quickened. If he closed the bridge, there would be no time to retrieve his son. He had to make a choice. Either his son would be killed or a train of innocent passengers would be killed. A horrible dilemma mandated a horrible decision. The engineer knew what he had to do. He reached for the lever.
It is true that God could not save mankind without killing His Son.
(Max Lucado, GOD CAME NEAR, pgs. 60-61. From a sermon by Rick Finitzer, "JESUS - THERE IS JUST SOMETHING ABOUT THAT NAME!" 1/13/2009)