It is right and proper for justice to require the guilt and punishment of Adam's race as sinners; but imputing the righteousness of Christ to believers rises as far above justice as the Divine nature stretches out in love. Justice cannot speak out against such an act; yea, justice stands speechless before the love and grace of God because justice must be fully satisfied and abundantly honored by it. This plan, this arrangement set forth before the foundation of the world did not originate in the justice of God, but in the love of God from the heart of God, which provided the requisite payment vicariously through the only begotten Son of God. This distinction ought never to be forgotten. And it is this very act that manifests the love of God, for God is love.

     In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. (1 John 4:9)

     Why was it necessary for Christ to die?
     What was the nature of His death upon the cross?
     Why would God devise such a plan before the creation of the universe?
     Why would the Son of God propose dying even before he spoke creation into existence and stooped down to form man from the ground?
     The answer to these questions is found in the one underlying attribute of God — love.
     Before the creation of this universe and all that is therein, before the creation of angels and all the heavenly host, there was only God. God, in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, inhabited eternity. God alone is eternal, without beginning and without ending. There was no Heaven wherein His glory does even now shine forth in brightness unto which man cannot approach.

     Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen. (1 Timothy 6:16)

     There was no earth, nor universe full of stars and galaxies, to engage His attention. There simply was nothing and no one, but God alone; and this not for just a time or an age, but from eternity past. God was self-contained, self-sufficient, self-satisfied; in need of nothing.

     “God was under no constraint, no obligation, no necessity to create. That He chose to do so was purely a sovereign act on His part, caused by nothing outside Himself, determined by nothing but His own mere good pleasure; for He 'worketh all things after the counsel of His own will' (Eph. 1:11). That He did create was simply for His manifestative glory.” We were and are created for His good pleasure.

     Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. (Revelation 4:11)

     “We love Him because He first loved us.” He did not love us first among His creation. The meaning is far more than that. The succession of events, although an inappropriate term in relation to eternity and God, starts with God before the foundation of the world. Before creation, He loved us. Before He created us, He loved us. He loved first — and then the thought of God concerning man and his salvation. He loved first — and then the creation of the universe and man. Even though He knew that we would sin and rebel against Him, He loved us and then created us already knowing and having in place the plan for our redemption.

     All of this was rooted and found its origin in God and His love. Springing forth from the love of God was the redemptive plan as the way chosen by God to manifest not only Himself to a creation of His doing, but also to manifest His love as only He could do and to communicate the breadth, depth, and height of that love as described in the most well known verse of the Bible, John 3:16. “For God so loved…” He “so loved,” an extent that reaches beyond the comprehension of man.

     “Greater love hath no man than this” than to die in another’s stead; the giving up and pouring out of life in the place of and in the behalf of another who is guilty and rightly condemned to die. God, in His infinite love, grace and mercy, prepared and planned to demonstrate to man and all creation so great love by the redemptive plan; He would die in man’s place to pay the penalty due for sin. God would die. That was how God chose to manifest Himself in love to all creation. It is no wonder that the angels wonder and marvel at such as this.