Did the Father Force Jesus to Come and Die, or Did Jesus Have a Say in the Matter?

Did the Father Force Jesus to Come and Die, or Did Jesus Have a Say in the Matter?

In some circles the view that the Father is demanding and tyrannical, and that it was His idea to command Jesus to come and die on our behalf, and Jesus had no say in the matter, and simply had to blindly obey Him, is held and believed Others aren't sure what to believe, and are fearful this belief might be accurate, hoping and praying that it isn't. This picture paints the Father as being unwilling to suffer for us Himself - stingy with His love and cold - and willing to make someone else suffer instead (Jesus).

Is this really what happened?

No. This isn't the character of the Father at all, nor is it a correct depiction of the nature of Christ.

Christ is not like us. He is not a person who is under the Father's authority and law and must obey as a subject of that law. Rather, like the Father, the law comes from Jesus' own character of love, thus Jesus is where the law originates and comes from, just as it does with the Father. Both of their characters serve as the basis of the law, and so does the Holy Spirit's character as well.

This puts them on equal standing in relation to the law, meaning none of them have the authority to form a divine will that they then command the other to carry out. This dynamic where one has a divine will and the other is commanded to carry it out, occurs only with human beings. We are under God's law and His divine authority, so He commands us according to His perfect will, and we are under obligation to obey Him. But this dynamic is not the one Jesus is in with the Father.

All three of the members of the Godhead are the Standards of the law, not the subjects of the law.

They are actually the Origin and Standard of all truth, not just the law. The Father is called the "God of truth" Isaiah (65:16), Jesus refers to Himself as "The Truth" (John 14:6), and to the Spirit as the "Spirit of Truth" (John 16:13) - all truth, including the moral truth of the law - originate in all three members of the Godhead simultaneously. This means that none of the three are under the authority of any of the others the way a person is under the authority of God.

While they do possess different roles in the Godhead, and these roles do involve a certain divine order, and as well as them performing different functions - for instance it is Jesus who forgives sin, and it is the Holy Spirit with has the authority to create in us new characters once we've been forgiven of sin - these roles are parallelled in the human dimension by a husband and wife, and just as a husband and a wife are both equally human - and equally under God's law - all three members of the Godhead are equally divine, and equally the Standard not subjects of that law.

This is the concluding point I don't want you to miss: Because all three members of the Godhead are the Standard of all Truth, they are one in will, and desire, and purpose. Their eternal wills always align.

The different role that Jesus has in the Godhead from the Father, does not change the relation of Christ with the truth or with His law.

The Father did not command Jesus to come and do something that was the Father's will only; the sacrifice of Christ was the eternal desire and will of Jesus as well!

The truth about salvation and redemption, what the Bible calls the Mystery that was founded eternally before time began, and which has now been made known to us through Christ (Colossians 1:26, Revelation 16:25-26, Ephesians 3:8-9) - originated in the mind and will of Jesus - and the Holy Spirit for that matter - equally with the Father.

Jesus wanted to come and die, as much as the Father wanted Him to come and die. The Bible says He willingly offered up His life on our behalf!

Notice in the following passage in Isaiah how it describes Jesus deeply grieved that man was in a lost state, appalled to find that no one could help, and that man would remain in a lost state forever and die and be destroyed for his sin. This grieved the Son so much that He willed and wanted to come and die in our place so we could be forgiven and live eternally.

"The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice.

He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm achieved salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him.

He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head; he put on the garments of vengeance and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak."

Isaiah 59:15-17

We know for sure that this passage is speaking of Jesus and not the Father, because Jesus is the one who performed these actions of coming down to earth, clothing Himself with righteousness as a breastplate, and placing the helmet of salvation on His head as He carried out this wonderful will and plan.

Jesus plainly states that no one made Him come and die. He willingly laid down His own life on our behalf. Notice also how He refers to His authority as God to make this choice.

"No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again."

John 10:18

Unlike the angels who do God's bidding, or someone like Abraham who when God commanded him to leave his kindred to go to a foreign land that God would show him, was under obligation to obey the Word of the Lord, Jesus is not under the Father's authority in that way. Jesus doesn't obey the Word of His Father, rather Jesus originates and is that Word. So when Jesus carries out that Word He isn't obeying it, He's performing His will and Word in the world. He's carrying out His will and the will of His Father - which are one and the same - not obeying that Word as a subject under God.

Notice that it wasn't the Father's authority that Jesus used to lay down His life. It was His own. What Jesus means by this is that He wasn't acting under the Father's authority as an angel or person would have to do if we were commanded to do something by God. He was acting with His own authority, carrying out His own divine will with His own divine power.

Notice in the following verse how it was the Father's will to crush Jesus for our sakes.

"Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand."

Isaiah 53:10

It was both the Father's will and the Son's will for Christ to come and die for our sins. The Father did not command Christ to come and die. When Christ came and died He willingly of His own volition laid down His life and had the authority to do so - and carried out the perfect united will of the Godhead.

The scriptures tell us that Jesus did not consider equality with God something that was out of His reach that needed to be grasped or attained. Rather He eternally possessed equality with God and has it.

"Who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped"

Philippians 2:6

Hebrews 1:3 if you read it in the original Greek language, tells us that Jesus is the exact same substance or nature as the Father. What it's saying here is that Jesus is divine by nature. Unlike human beings who are not the same substance or nature and have created natures, Jesus has an uncreated, self-sustaining, eternal, omnipotent, divine Being and nature. One that is the same as the Father's

This is different from man who is in God's image. Rather than being in the image of God, Jesus is the very same nature and substance - not image - of God.

As touched on briefly above, the Son does have a different role in the Godhead than the Father, but this role while different is no less divine. It is not missing any aspect of divinity.

We know that the Father sent the Son, and the Son was the One who went, and the Father gave His Son, but also that the Son offered up Himself - these are how the roles manifested. It wasn't the Father who was sent and came and died; it was the Son. We know that the Father is the One who exalts Christ at the end of time and gives Him a Name which is above every other Name. But just as Jesus being sent did not mean that Jesus didn't carry out His own divine will, or possess His own divine authority, so Jesus being given a Name that is above every other Name is something Jesus carried out with His own divine authority. Thus the Father bestowing this Name upon Christ is not the same as when Jesus or the Father bestows honor upon a person, which is a divine-human dynamic, and is carried out under God's authority, not our own. Jesus won that Name on Calvary when He died as the atoning sacrifice willingly with His own authority. The Father bestows on Him something He already won for Himself - well for the whole Godhead really.

And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:8-11

We do know that the Father is over the Son in some manner, but the Father being over the Son is not in the same way that God is over us.

"Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ.

When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all."

1 Corinthians 15:24, 27-28

I don't fully understand the way in which the Son is subject to the Father, but it is not in the same way that we are subject to God.

In the Greek the verse says "when all things have been put in subjection to Him, then He the Son will be put in subjection to the One who put all things in subjection to Christ (the Father), so that God may be all and in all."

It really paints a two-way picture of love...with the Father putting all things in subjection to Christ - out of love for Christ - and then Christ subjecting Himself to the Father who put all things in subjection to Christ. And reminds us of the love of a husband and wife, where the wife commands the kids to respect their father, and out of love for her husband keeps the family in line, and then the husband requires the kids to respect their mother who has taught them respect for him.

The point here being that everything comes into perfect harmony and completeness to the glory of the Godhead.

The picture painted when we believe the Father commanded and sent the Son depicts Jesus as being a subject under the Father, as not possessing divinity, and this is incorrect.