The necessity of the cross

In their different ways they [the theories of atonement ] all want to say two things: owing to Sin, man’s situation in relation to God is dangerous, sinister, and disastrous. But man cannot alter this situation. God alone can do this; and He has done it in Jesus Christ, through His death on the Cross. There is a kind of inevitable connexion between this Event, and that dangerous, disastrous human situation, a sense that “this had to happen”. If man is to be brought back into contact with God, if he is to be able to receive the salvation which God has provided for him, then the Cross of Jesus Christ “must” happen. It is the necessary condition for God’s reconciling work. It is only because the Cross “must be”, that what seems to be an unintelligible tragedy becomes a significant saving fact. The knowledge of such a necessity, of the feeling that “it could not be otherwise”, was identical with the knowledge that the death on the Cross was no accident, no thwarting of the divine plan of salvation, no frustration of the divine government of the world, but, on the contrary, was itself an integral part of the divine saving history. “Therefore Christ had to suffer—the whole liberating truth is based upon this “must”. 286 (emphasis original)