Why did the Lord Jesus Christ have to die on the Cross?

By CopticBot.ai (Coptic Space Inc.) · Last reviewed 2026-10-10

The necessity of the Crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ is the central mystery of our salvation. In the Coptic Orthodox tradition, we understand the Cross not merely as a tragic event, but as a divine necessity to fulfill the justice and mercy of God and to heal our fallen nature.

According to the teachings of the Holy Fathers, specifically St. Athanasius the Apostolic in On the Incarnation, there are several key reasons why death on the Cross was required:

1. To Fulfill the Divine Sentence

When Adam sinned, he brought the sentence of death upon all humanity: "For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" (Genesis 2:17). God, being truthful and just, could not simply ignore this law. However, it was also "unseemly" that the beings He created in His image should perish and return to nothingness. Therefore, the Word of God took a body like ours, capable of death, and offered it as a sacrifice on behalf of all. As stated in Source 5, He "accepted crucifixion and death for us, and through His innocent death He actually" paid the debt of sin that we could not pay.

2. To Destroy the Power of Death and the Devil

Death held a "right" over humanity because of sin. By dying, Christ entered into the realm of death. However, because He is Life itself and was without sin, death could not hold Him.

• Source 1 explains that while the devil received power to "slay the Lord’s body outwardly," it was through that very death that the "inward power, by which he held us fast, was put to death."
• By dying, Christ "openly exposed the principalities and the powers, confidently triumphing over them in himself." He used the weapon of the enemy (death) to destroy the enemy.

3. To Sanctify the Air and Reach All Creation

St. Athanasius provides a beautiful theological reason for the manner of His death—being lifted up on a Cross.

• By dying in the air, Christ purified the air from the Prince of the Power of the Air (the devil).
• By stretching out His hands, He signified the joining of the two peoples—the Jews and the Gentiles—into one body, the Church.
• The Cross reached into the heights, the depths, and the breadths, showing that His redemption encompasses the entire cosmos.

4. To Uproot the Principle of Pleasure and Sin

As mentioned in Source 3, Christ died "unjustly" to "uproot the principle of our being conceived through unrighteous pleasure." Because His death was not a penalty for His own sin (since He was sinless), His death was specifically directed against the "just finality" of death that human nature encounters. He subjected Himself to "righteous punishment" to erase the power of sin over our nature.

5. To Grant Us Incorruption and Union with God

The purpose of the Cross was not just to take away a penalty, but to restore us to a state of incorruption and give us eternal life. Through the Cross, the path to the Tree of Life was reopened. As explained in Source 4, this sacrifice is made present for us today in the Mystery of the Eucharist. Christ commanded us to share His Body and Blood "for the forgiveness of sins." When we receive Communion, we are united with God through the true Body and true Blood that was offered once and for all on the Cross.

In summary, the Lord died on the Cross to satisfy divine justice, to demonstrate God’s infinite love, to destroy death by His death, and to grant us the garment of immortality.