Why Didn't God the *Father* Die on the Cross? 

I would die for my son. To see my son suffer and die would be much, much more painful. God our Father’s sacrifice was MASSIVE.

That’s a great question honestly.

He didn't took his place because of his love for us. Out of his love he gave what was most precious, and that is his son. It was much more paintfull to watch his son suffer than to take it uppn himself. Every father would rather take suffering upon himself than to watch his son in pain.

1. Every person in the trinity is co-equal and co-eternal. 2. The Son is the substitution in atonement that we can be adopted as sons of God into His family. 3. The trinity is united in all actions. Perhaps, the question arises due to us extrapolating our experiences and imposing them on the trinity - which would be wrong. If we saw the Father as greater in nature or Son's obedience as that imposed and obligatory, we would fail to understand Christ's love and His willingness to die for us. We would diminish the personhood of the Son. On the other hand, if we saw the Son's death as a greater expression of love than the Father's love to send His Son for us, we have failed to understand that God is perfect (even in love) - even more so, that He is love.

What’s more sacrificial …? To sacrifice yourself … or to sacrifice your one and only son … 🥺

One reason is that Hebrews 5:8 states by being a Son, Jesus learned obedience, but obedience to the Father. If the Father did it, who would the Father be showing obedience to? Jesus said he came to glorify the Father, and Romans 6:4 states that Jesus was raised by the Glory of the Father. The purpose of obedience from Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus was to glorify the Father.

This was a cool question. I've honestly never thought of that before

The reason I’ve found best for explaining why The Son became man is because all of creation is His inheritance. St. Paul says “For in Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities all things were created through Him and for Him.” For Him. The Father created all things through The Son for Him to inherit. The Father doesn’t inherit creation, The Spirit doesn’t inherit creation, only The Son. When He came in the form of flesh, He did so as to suffer the Passion and reclaim His creation from the grasp of death and Satan. It HAD to be The Son specifically based on the dynamics of creation, of Whom created and Whom inherits.

Great question, and great answer!

Thanks much for this video.

Before even hearing the answer, i am always amazed by the thoughtfulness and the utterly different prospective that children have that adults simply do not. It's such a good question with a great premise that most adults would simply never think of

My goodness.. what a question.. i never ever thought about this before, that too coming from a child..

Interesting.

Oh Phillip I’m in the father and the father is in me for the father and I are one

When people say that the Son is God, does that mean that the Son and the Father are the same?

He almost reasoned himself to the Restored Gospel. The Father is embodied as well as Jesus, the Father has an audible voice that speaks of His Son and Stephen the Martyr sees the physical embodiment of God the Father with Jesus at His right hand. Love takes two separate beings with the free will choice to love and the important message the Father gives about Jesus is “this is my beloved son.”

I think this is a brilliant question in terms of the curiousity embedded in it. Very shocked at the spirit of this child.

The Son comes from the Father. The Father sends the Son. That is what makes them Father and Son. It makes no sense for the Son to send the Father because of what it means to be Father and Son.

I think of God asking Abraham to show his love for Him by sacrificing Isaac. God stops Abraham. God the Father allows His Son to be sacrificed to show His love for us. He did not stop it.

It was fitting for the Son to redeem mankind because we were created in his image. "All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. Jn 1.

It's interesting how Jimmy tackles this question in terms of aesthetics, or appropriateness, it just "looks better" this way. I think we could also give a truth based answer. According to St Thomas Aquinas, the Son proceeds from the Father due to the Father observing himself and the observation being perfect, therefore becoming God himself. We can only see an image of something inside our heads, but for God who is perfect, God sees himself perfectly. Furthermore we can go to creation which also comes from God observing himself, but not fully, instead contemplating himself at every level of analysis through abstraction, which gives rise to the least abstract, angels, through humans, then animals and finally the most abstract, matter. This suggests that creation proceeds from the Father in a somewhat similar way as the Son as they both come from God's image of himself, at different levels of perfection, and both reside within the Father's intellect. Therefore it would make sense for the Son, who is the Word of God proceeding from the Father's intellect, to come to us in human form. The Spirit proceeds from God's will, Love, towards the son, so the Spirit proceeds differently. I'm not certain if the Father could actually incarnate, because we exist within his intellect, it could be logically impossible, just like we can't enter our own imagination, only our image of ourselves can. But, if God makes a perfect image of himself to incarnate, then that is His Son and not Him directly...

This would be an epic New Testament 'fanfic' - the Son watches on from Heaven with command of the angels and has to hold them back as His Father dies for all humanity, but by the Spirit representative of Their love is risen from the dead.

It was to fulfil the scriptures, everything in the old testament pointed to the crucifixion of christ on the cross.

There’s this act of love going on in the Trinity amongst eachother and with us. Each person of the Trinity shows love to eachother and each person of the Trinity shows love to us… the Son loves the Father through his obedience to his will… the father loves the son by glorifying and raising him up and the Holy Spirit lives both by testifying to the Father and Son. God loves us in creating us and giving his Son for us, Jesus loves us in willingly giving up his life for us, the Holy Spirit loves us by faithfully doing the work the Father and Son begin in us. Each person of God actively loves us - so the Trinitarian God in whole loves us.

Very interesting question. Out of the mouth of babes..

Doesn’t matter if you’re Catholic or Protestant…this a colossal mystery of our faith.

John 14: 7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him." 8 Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." 9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, "Show us the Father'?

My man answered this question like he was a grown adult 😂

Great Question! My immediate thought is, Jesus’ sacrifice is a typological equivalent to Abraham and Isaac, properly fulfilled. Just as Mary saying yes to Gabriel is the undoing of Eve’s yes to Satan in the Garden of Eden.

What does he mean by 'the Father comes before the Son in the order of Persons'? All Three Persons have no beginning.

Theologically a difficult question because the Trinity is a deep mystery. There is such a mystery called the Perichoresis or the circumincession which means all persons of the Holy Trinity are one even if there are three different persons in the Holy Trinity. Jesus was chosen to he the redeemer for the human race. The Holy Spirit is the giver of life. The Father is the creator. But all were involved in the death and resurrection of Jesus. In the fullness of time, it was decided only then around two thousand years ago that Jesus would be crucified to redeem the human race from sins. The Divine Revelation, the only public revelation is simply God revealing Himself to us through His son.

Does God think? Or reactively?

Christ taught by example. He even grew up in and followed the Law of Moses, which was the law God gave. Before all that, God gave an order to Abraham, a trial of fidelity. He passed. Was God going to be less than Abraham? If the Logos did what he saw from the Father, then both Father and Son acted by following their own past examples, trials and Laws. Everything God tells us to do, He already did them, and we can do them too. And no one will say that we follow a God who does not feel his creation.

For God the father can never be limited to one location, time, or manifestation... Otherwise how is God ever present even before the existence of Earth, universe, "time" as we know it. The prophecies said how Jesus would come as the sacrifice to become sin as the father cannot be in the presence of sin. Otherwise God is less than perfect.

We offer our sacrifices to the Father. OK got it. thanks!

Father Son and the Holy Spirit are One God made into flesh. He died so we could live eternal life instead of eternal death !

The Father would then need to serve the Son. It would be innapropriate. Christ is the Word of God. The Word serves the Father for eternity

Aside from God knowing whose sacrifice would be most impactful to humanity in a positive way … it also very likely that humanity would have had a much harder time processing it, if it had been the father who was killed by people. I would expect Jews would have seen the father as being more powerful than the messiah, and the death of the father could have been really poorly received … with the history of the father being all powerful … I don’t think the father sacrificing himself would have been seen as a positive. It took centuries before people realized that Jesus and the father are both God … by that time we were ready to accept we had killed God

For me to think like that is to divise the 3 persons, and they’re not divided. It’s the same substance, the same will , the same movement (action) yet in distinct ways.

The Father and the Son are the same. That’s the short answer.

So, they all agreed that one would sacrifice, one would receive the sacrifice and the other would apply the fruits of the sacrifice. Why even make a sacrifice? What made them think one of them would need to sacrifice and the other would need to receive it just so they could open up heaven? Why can't they all simply open up heaven? Lot's of guess work again... 😊😅

So many cynics in the comments, unfortunately.

because imaginary things can't die. Curious how these cultists can't agree on what they each make up. It's notable that no sacrifice was made at all since a sacrifice is permanent.

Jesus takes our place so that we too can become son's and daughter's of the Father, therefore it has to be the Son who does this.