Jesus' life for ours, is a message on grace. His substitutionary death lies at the heart of our salvation. In our quest to learn God's mind and heart, we should take care not to value interpretations that are popular because they sound logical but are not supported by scripture: And yes, we come under strong influences of reason whether ◆ Occam's nominalism as Abelard did that we cannot be held responsible for Adam's sin or ◆ The search for a non-violent justification based solely on God's wondrous love melting our cold, cold hearts as postmoderns want to believe or ◆ A justification that satisfies without punishing as Greek influences suggested or ◆ The logic of the courts that seemed to explain justice best, in legalese, which the reformers of the 16th century promoted or ◆ The language of finance because Satan deserved justice, too, as Gregory of Nyssa in the 4th Century surmised or ◆ The payment of a debt because it explains things in simplest terms, as Anselm of Canterbury argued. But Paul, himself, warned us not to get entangled in explanations that lead nowhere good. What is logical to our way of thinking might not be of faith. "See to it that no one carry you away with philosophical jargon after sheer human reasoning, and not after Christ" (Colossians 2:8). We enjoy discussing the Cross-and we ought to. ... at finding a reasonable explanation in contemporary terms not what happened on Golgotha's hill that Friday (we know what happened) ...but why. Why His death? Why a sacrifice? Why did Jesus have to die? We seek to learn the story of Calvary. Calvary is a story still being written on the believer's hearts and into their lives (Romans 8:29). Until there are more answers we rest only in this promise in John 20:31: "But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."