Question:
Why did God, Jesus, have to suffer for OUR sins? It seems God is punishing himself.
Answer:
God sent his divine Son not to punish him, which would more akin to Calvin’s divine wrath soteriological model, but because he loved us (John 3:16-17). And Jesus complied out of great love for both his Father and us.
The Father was not compelled to send the Son, but in his eternal wisdom deemed that Christ’s Paschal Mystery would show forth both the monumental grave evil of man’s sins, and the unsurpassed love of the Son in atoning for them.
Finally, while there are three persons in the Holy Trinity, in which all three wholly possess the one same divine nature, only one divine person became man. So only the Son suffered for our sins, not the Father and the Holy Spirit.
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