Yesterday was Good Friday and that has me thinking a lot about Jesus, his life, his movement, his death, and his resurrection. And I think it’s important that we talk about this, because how we present “God” to humanity is important. And that starts with our understanding.
For centuries, Christians have wrestled with a haunting question: Why did Jesus have to die?
The answers, depending on who you ask, can vary wildly. But one of the most dominant explanations — especially in American churches — is something called Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA).
This is the idea that Jesus died in our place, taking the punishment (penal) we deserved for our sins, satisfying God’s wrath so that we could be forgiven. In short, God needed blood — Jesus’ blood — to satisfy divine justice and cool His wrath.
It’s a theory so embedded in the modern Christian imagination that many assume it’s the only explanation. Even further, most Christians believe that you have to believe this to even be saved or to call yourself a Christian. From Sunday sermons to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (or as I like to call it, Beating Up Jesus: The Movie), the narrative is relentless: humanity is sinful, God is angry, and Jesus took the beating we deserved. Roll credits.
But there’s a glaring flaw to this theory… Jesus never said that. What if that’s not the story that Jesus came to tell?
Let’s peel this back and start at the beginning.
What is Atonement Theory, Anyway?
The word atonement literally means “at-one-ment” — the process of reconciling humanity back to right relationship with God.
The earliest followers of Jesus, trying to make sense of his death and resurrection, developed different explanations for how this reconciliation might work.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the most common theories:
- Ransom Theory — Jesus pays a ransom to free humanity from Satan’s grip. Big in the early church.
- Christus Victor — Jesus defeats the powers of sin, death, and evil.
- Moral Influence Theory — Jesus’ life and death inspire radical love and compassion.
- Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) — Jesus takes our punishment, satisfying God’s supposed need for justice.
PSA, which is what I’ll call it for the rest of this post, didn’t actually become mainstream until the Reformation (thanks, John Calvin), but today it’s everywhere — especially in American evangelicalism. It’s preached so often and so passionately that questioning it can feel like questioning the Gospel itself.
But maybe the problem isn’t the questioning.
Maybe the problem is how we’ve been taught to see God in the first place.
The Problem with PSA: God or a Bloodthirsty Warlord?
Let’s just be blunt: PSA turns God into a cosmic child abuser — a Father so bound by legalism that He has no choice but to kill His Son to forgive the rest of His creation.
Imagine telling a hurting, broken person that God loves them unconditionally… but also required someone to die a brutal death to make that love possible.
It’s no wonder so many walk away from church when they realize how twisted this sounds. Especially when they realize that the type of “unconditional love” that this belief comes with… seems to have lots of conditions, rules, and expectations.
If God is truly love — the kind of love Jesus taught us to embody — then He shouldn’t require violence to offer forgiveness.
We are the ones who demand violence.
Empires demand violence.
Religions demand sacrifices.
God doesn’t.
The crucifixion wasn’t about satisfying God’s wrath.
It was the inevitable outcome of what happens when you confront the violent systems of the world with radical love and truth that renders external power systems as useless.
Who Killed Jesus? (It Wasn’t God)
Look closely at the Gospels, and you’ll see: Jesus wasn’t executed by God’s hand.
He was crucified by Rome, at the urging of religious leaders.
Empire and religion, working together, do what they always do to threats: they eliminate them.
They silence them.
They crucify them.
They declare them dangerous, and they snuff them out.
Jesus didn’t die to appease God — he died because he exposed the corruption of both empire and religious establishment.
His life was a living protest against systems built on power, exclusion, and violence.
- He ate with “sinners” and “outcasts”.
- He healed on the Sabbath.
- He forgave without a sacrifice.
- He called out the religious elite as “whitewashed tombs.”
They didn’t kill him because he was too holy.
They killed him because he was too loving, too dangerous, too uncontrollable.
The Symbolism of the Cross: A Bigger Story
If Jesus’ death wasn’t about paying off God, then what was it about?
Through a mystical lens, the cross is layered with meaning:
- It’s a mirror. It shows us what we do to truth, to love, to the divine when it doesn’t fit the systems and constructs that we’ve created.
- It’s an unveiling. It exposes the violence and corruption baked into both empire and religion. The need to be right and superior, rather than repentant and transformative.
- It’s a victory. Not the victory of punishment fulfilled, but of death and violence defeated — precisely because love resurrects.
- And it’s an invitation. To leave behind systems of fear and step into love and alignment.
Jesus didn’t die to uphold the sacrificial system of death and lack.
He died to end it and bring life and abundance.
In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says he came not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. And how did he fulfill it? By embodying what the Law was always pointing toward: mercy, justice, love, faith. He became the final sacrifice — not because God needed blood, but because we needed to see, once and for all, that sacrifices were never the point.
The divine doesn’t trade in blood debts.
The divine trades in grace, mercy, blessings, and mystery.
So… Does God Need Blood?
No.
God doesn’t need blood — we do.
We were the ones who believed sacrifices made us clean.
We were the ones who demanded violence and death to balance the scales.
The cross is Jesus stepping into our broken system and letting it do its worst, only to rise again and prove that love is stronger than hate, forgiveness stronger than vengeance, and life stronger than death.
The cross wasn’t about satisfying divine wrath from a sense of lack or separation.
It was about unmasking human wrath and showing us a better way through faith, abundance, alignment, and generosity.
Jesus’ LIFE … his radical compassion, his healing, his forgiveness… was the point all along.
The resurrection isn’t proof that God accepted the payment.
It’s proof that the powers of this world don’t get the final say.
That there is a better Way that’s been unfolding straight from the Source.
And it’s inviting us, leading us all somewhere greater in the here and now.
So let’s stop worshiping a bloodthirsty warlord and start following the revolutionary, resurrected Jesus — the one who taught us that God’s love doesn’t come at the end of a whip or a nail… but at the table for the least of these, with bread, wine, and an invitation to love like he did.
Because that’s the Gospel.
And that’s enough.
You are enough.
A Child of God.
What does this stir in you? Let’s wrestle with it together in the comments.
The Way of the Source 
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