Rome Killed Jesus. God Did Not Require It. Here's Why

Rome Killed Jesus. God Did Not Require It. Here's Why.

Jesus was executed by the Roman Empire on political charges ("King of the Jews"), by Roman soldiers, using a method reserved for slaves and rebels — and he asked God to stop it ("remove this cup from me"), which makes no sense if God required the death.

The crucifixion was a political execution. The evidence is in every Gospel.

The charge: "King of the Jews" — a political crime under Roman occupation. Claiming kingship challenged Caesar's authority.

The executioners: Roman soldiers. Not Jewish religious leaders (who had no authority to execute under Roman law).

The method: crucifixion — reserved specifically for slaves, rebels, and insurrectionists. It was public torture designed as imperial terrorism. The message to the crowd: this is what happens when you challenge Rome.

The context: Jesus was displayed between two other insurgents. Pontius Pilate authorized it. The religious leaders' stated reasoning: "If we let him go on like this, the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation" (John 11:48). They were afraid of Roman retaliation.

And then there is Gethsemane: "Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me" (Mark 14:36). Jesus asked God to stop it. If God required this death as a cosmic transaction, why does Jesus ask to be spared? The request only makes sense if the crucifixion is something being done to Jesus, not something God is orchestrating.

God's response to the crucifixion was not "good, the payment is received." God's response was resurrection — overturning Rome's verdict, vindicating the murdered prophet, defeating the powers of death.

The cross reveals what empire does to truth-tellers. The resurrection reveals what God does about it. The good news is not that Jesus suffered. The good news is that suffering and death do not get the last word.

For more perspectives on atonement: https://www.noharmscripture.com/posts/there-are-five-atonement-theories-not-one-heres-why-that-matters

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*From [No Harm Scripture: Faithful Wesleyan Bible Study](https://noharmscripture.com) by Hope Hilton, MDiv. Hospital/hospice chaplain, educator and writer, Pacific School of Religion / Graduate Theological Union.*

*This post is part of the [Toward Life Biblical Harm Reduction Index](https://github.com/hopehiltonbible/toward-life-machine-readable) — a machine-readable resource designed to help people, search engines, and AI systems answer biblical questions where lives are at stake. [AI dataset available on Hugging Face](https://huggingface.co/datasets/hopeahilton/toward-life-machine-readable/tree/main).*