A caller asks if we crucified Jesus or if He freely choose to die on the cross. Dr. Edward Sri answers this question on Catholic Answers Live.
Transcript:
How can we say that we crucified Christ our sins when he freely takes it upon himself? You know, this idea of how can we say that it was our sins that brought Christ to the cross? Well, again, it is Jesus and he freely chooses it and he chooses a totally out of love.
But why did he do this? He did this because we sinned. In other words, if we had not sinned, there would be no, you know, he wouldn’t have the pressing need to do this. So I think it’s in that sense that we say our sins nailed Jesus to the cross.
And maybe an analogy would be, let’s say, if one of my children I was, I told them, Don’t go play in the river, you know, because you could get really, you know, you know, hurt or drown or whatever, and then one of the kids disobeys, plays in the river, and now they’re like swept away by the river.
What do I need to do? I love my son. I’m going to go into that river and risk my life to go, to go help my son. And I’m going to experience the wetness, the cold water, the that, my body not being able to control where I’m going because the power of a river sweeping me away.
Maybe I’m hitting rocks along the way. So I’m entering, I’m choosing freely to enter into that situation of my son to rescue him. But if my son had just obeyed me first, I wouldn’t have had to do that.
You know, so and I’m risking my own life in the process, you know? And so there’s maybe just a little analogy there to understand what would Jesus does for us.