Dr Andy Bannister, director of the Solas Centre for Public Christianity, explores why he believes Jesus’ death on the cross was necessary 

At the heart of the Christian faith lies an incredible claim: that Jesus died on a cross to forgive our wrongdoing, our evil and our brokenness, what the Bible calls ‘sin’. From the very beginning of the Christian Church, Christians claimed that Jesus had died for our sins.

The scandal of the cross 

It is all too easy to miss how startling this Christian focus on Jesus’ crucifixion was. Jesus had claimed to be the Jewish Messiah. The first Christians—most of whom were Jewish—claimed Jesus was this Messiah. However, in common Jewish belief, the Messiah was supposed to overthrow the Romans who had conquered and oppressed the Jewish people, not supposed to get crucified by them… (Register to read the rest of the article)