If God Forgives Sins Without Sacrifice, Why Did Jesus Do It?

I recently got into a debate with a Protestant friend concerning the forgiveness of sins and how God, if He so chooses, can simply forgive sins by declaring it so. This rests on the fact that God, as all-powerful, can divinely decree all sins forgiven. We see Jesus use this power in His forgiveness of sins in the Gospels. This use of divine power eventually led (among other things) to His arrest and ultimate death on the cross. So, why did Jesus die as a sacrifice if a sacrifice is not required?

In this article, I examine the forgiveness of sins as presented in the Scriptures. As opposed to the penal substitution theory espoused by Protestants (and the Protestant friend I debated), the Catholic understanding of Jesus’ sacrifice demonstrates that God, while powerful enough to degree sins forgiven, allowed for Jesus’ sacrifice. In short, in Christ’s free act of love, not God’s punishment, we receive transformation and healing.

The Power to Forgive Sins

First, Christ’s power to forgive sins comes up in all four Gospels. Christ demonstrated His divine nature to the spiritual leaders of Israel by doing something retained to God alone—forgiving sins.

And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” Mark 2:5-11 (and Luke 5:20, and Matthew 9:2.) [emphasis added]
And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Luke 7:48-50 [emphasis added]

Moreover, Jesus then passed this authority to His apostles:

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” John 20:21-23 [emphasis added]

St. Thomas Aquinas also addressed the claim that forgiveness requires Christ’s sacrifice to free humans for sin. He replies:

Even this justice depends on the Divine will, requiring satisfaction for sin from the human race. But if He had willed to free man from sin without any satisfaction, He would not have acted against justice.

But God has no one higher than Himself, for He is the sovereign and common good of the whole universe. Consequently, if He forgive sin, which has the formality of fault in that it is committed against Himself, He wrongs no one: just as anyone else, overlooking a personal trespass, without satisfaction, acts mercifully and not unjustly. And so David exclaimed when he sought mercy: “To Thee only have I sinned” (Psalm 50:6), as if to say: “Thou canst pardon me without injustice.”

Therefore, this power to forgive sins did not require a sacrifice, as we see above. So then, why did Jesus need to die?

Why Did Jesus Need to Die?

O loving Pelican! O Jesus Lord! Unclean I am but cleanse me in Thy Blood! Of which a single drop, for sinners split, can purge the entire world from all its guilt. Adoro Te Devote by St. Thomas Aquinas

This beautiful poem by St. Thomas Aquinas declares the power in just one drop of Christ’s blood. If a mother pelican’s blood nourishes her young by her blood, how much more the power contained in the Son of God’s blood! So, why did He need to die in such a horrific way? Catholic apologist Trent Horn puts it perfectly:

Christ wanted to offer himself to the Father as the ultimate and perfect sacrifice of love to demonstrate his love for humanity and desire for the sins of humanity to be forgiven…

… rather than Jesus being punished with all of our sins and that’s why our sins go away, rather we would say that Jesus’s death on the cross is so good, it’s so meritorious, it’s of infinite value, because Jesus is God and man—he’s divine, so what he offers the Father in that act is of infinite value, because he’s divine—that it outweighs the harm caused by our sins. It outweighs the damage, the punishment due.

Jesus offers a satisfaction for our sin, not in place of our punishment, but out of an act of perfect love. In fact, the doctrine of penal substitution, the one most commonly taught by modern Protestants, makes God unjust in order to justify mankind.

The Problem with Penal Substitution

According to Protestant pastor and teacher John McArthur, penal substitution requires God the Father to punish God the Son for our sakes and our salvation. He states:

Penal substitution says God is so holy that every sin will be punished. Every single sin in the life of every Christian believer through all of human history was punished. All sin must be punished. Either the sinner will bear that punishment eternally, or Christ took that punishment on the cross. The only thing that protects the pure, righteous holiness of God is that sin is punished. That’s penal substitution. If you remove that part of the cross, then how does God reconcile His holiness with wishing sin away without a punishment? There has to be a punishment for God to maintain His justice. That punishment falls on His Son.

Of the numerous issues with penal substitution, two stand out. First, a just God never punishes an innocent man (Jesus). Jesus, as God incarnate, knew no sin. Second, and more importantly, penal substitution ruptures the relationship within the Trinity. Dr. Allison Low at The Catholic Stand sums it up nicely:

With the doctrine of penal substitution, however, it is held that God the Father ruptured His relationship with God the Son on the cross in order to punish Jesus. But this element of the doctrine is contrary to the doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity. If it were possible for God the Son to be separated from God the Father, even for a moment, then he would not and could not be God.

If Jesus literally took on all our mortal sins, we would have a situation where Jesus would be at enmity with God. But, as already pointed out, this is not possible because Jesus is God the Son.

Finally, God never changes. God exists without needs or passions, He requires nothing, including sacrifices.

Sin Changes Us, Not God

As stated above, God never changes, therefore, even our sin cannot change Him. Unfortunately, sin does change us. Dr. Low, again:

…our disobedience and rebellion do not causes any change in God by nature of who He is. Rather, we are changed by sin. If we reject God’s love and rebel, our hearts are hardened. Lacking God’s love, one will be tormented by the thought of God’s judgment and, as a result, will experience “God’s wrath.” But in both scenarios, what has changed is not God but us.

We require change, unlike God. Through Christ’s free and obedient sacrifice in love, He pleased God and merited for us our salvation. Therefore, Christ’s sacrifice was no punishment, but a free act of love, a free act of love that provides a way of transformation for poor sinners.

Final Thoughts…

As stated above, God allowed for Jesus’ sacrifice, not as an act punishing an innocent man in the place of the guilty, but as an act of freely chosen love. In Christ’s free act of love, not God’s punishment, we receive transformation and healing. We change, not God. God could have decreed forgiveness, but instead, He chose sacrificial love.