© Wendy Clark, 2026

I was recently asked a series of “why” questions that are important to talk about because they are prevalent in our culture and underline many of the arguments that people make when they oppose Christianity or they walk away from it.

     Why do we need saving?

     Why does sin require a blood sacrifice?

     Why can’t God save us some other way?

God uses the physical world to teach us things about the unseen spiritual world. Though it is unseen, it is right here with us, and is just as real as all of the things we can perceive with our senses. We are all sometimes aware of things that aren’t physical in nature but are so close and so real. Some individuals seem to have a heightened awareness of things that are real, but are outside of our ability to perceive them with our physical senses. We know that there is something more than just the physical world. 

One of the things that we understand about the physical world is that it is governed by fixed laws, gravity for example. Gravity is a reality of our physical world, and we are subject to its force whether or not we know about it, understand it, or believe in it. I can live as if gravity doesn’t exist, but if I defy its reality, I will discover that it is just as real for me as it is for everyone who believes in it. Gravity is a fact, a truth of this physical world and living on the earth.

Studies in the sciences are only possible because there are fixed laws that we can observe. By scientific study, we seek to figure out what those laws are and how they operate and discover ways to work within those fixed laws. In the same way, we can use math and measurements only because there are fixed laws in the physical world. Two plus two equals four whether I know that truth or not, whether I believe it or not. Two plus two will continue to equal four. If I decide I have some better way of adding, and I create my own system of math with its own rules, I can use that system of math to build a bridge, and I will discover that the rules of math that exist apply whether I believe in them or not. I can’t build a strong, supportive, reliable bridge if I defy the fixed rules that govern our physical world.

God uses the Bible to teach us that just as there are physical laws that govern the physical world, so there are spiritual laws that govern the spiritual realm. There are fixed spiritual laws, and just like the physical laws, it does not matter whether or not I am aware of them, understand them, or believe in them. I am still subject to them because I am subject to reality and what is true, and I can’t escape the spiritual laws by ignoring that they exist.

Once we understand this truth, we begin to study that Bible in order to grow in the knowledge and understanding of what God says is true. We want to know what God says about Himself, about this world, about us, about holiness and sin and salvation. We want to know what God says is the way to live a full and flourishing life. We want to know the truth.

When someone says something like, “Well, if I were God, I would do things in an entirely different way,” this person has missed the point that there is a reality, a truth that exists outside of ourselves and our thoughts and desires and opinions about how things should be. We can’t make spiritual things operate according to some other set of laws. We can only seek to discover how the spiritual realm is set up and how it operates. What are its fixed laws? We want to know, and God has graciously revealed many things about the spiritual realm to us through the Bible, His word to us. The best we can do is to align ourselves with what we learn from God about how to live our best lives, both in this life and in Eternity.

What does the Bible tell us about what is true of the spiritual realm? What are some of these fixed laws that it is important for us to know about and understand?

God is holy and perfect in every aspect of His character.

He is perfect in wisdom and knowledge and understanding, in justice and in mercy, in compassion and in love. He is completely truthful and trustworthy and faithful, always keeping His promises. He doesn’t bend with the circumstances or change according to shifting perspectives and opinions. He is far above all rule and authority on this earth and far beyond our ability to comprehend Him. He is all powerful and all knowing. We cannot escape His view or hide anything from Him. He sees down into our hearts.

All human beings are sinful, and our sin separates us from God.

We were created in the image of God for the purpose of walking in relationship with Him and giving glory to His name. And every person has strayed from this purpose. There are no exceptions.

The Apostle Paul writes this in Romans 3:21-24 (NIV):

“But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

We were created to have complete and perfect fellowship with God, but because of our sin, our rebellion against God’s plans and purposes and ways, we are separated from God, who is holy and without any imperfection.

As a result of that broken connection, that separation, in this life we experience broken relationships, broken homes, and broken hearts. Our sinfulness affects our lives in the present physical world and at the same time, it affects our lives in the spiritual realm.

At the center of our sin problem is our rebellion against God and His plans and His purposes and His ways. If we acknowledge God, we often still want to make up our own minds about how things should be and about what would please God. If we don’t acknowledge Him, we govern our lives according to our own reason and understanding, our own sensibilities and feelings. We set ourselves up as gods in place of the God of the universe. God tells us that this is no small or insignificant thing.

There is only one way to bridge the gap between our sinfulness and God’s holiness.

God has provided the way for our salvation, a way that works within the fixed laws that govern the spiritual realm. God’s way is the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, taking our place for our sins, and shedding His blood for the forgiveness of our sins. Jesus said clearly and plainly, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me” (John 14:6).

Jesus, dying on the cross AND rising from the dead, is our way of salvation. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who study the Scriptures because God has been revealing this truth over thousands of years.

God set apart a people for Himself, the Children of Israel, and He laid out a canvas on which He demonstrated for us in the physical world the realities of God’s holiness, provision, and love, and man’s sinfulness and rebellion against God. Through His interaction with the Children of Israel, God shows us His willingness to provide a deliverer, a savior to rescue His people. He shows us the importance and necessity of our response to His invitation, to choose Him and His ways above all else.

Before He even gave His people the law, God chose them and set them apart as His own. Then He raised up Moses to deliver the people out of bondage. On the last night before their deliverance, there was a requirement that involved shedding the blood of a spotless lamb and spreading that blood over the doorpost of the house as a covering that would protect the firstborn of the household from death which would visit Egypt in the night. 

All those who followed the instructions and put the blood on the doorposts experienced salvation from the angel of death that visited that night, even those who weren’t among the people of God. But all those who did not follow the instructions, found out that God’s instructions still applied to them, and the first-born all over Egypt perished in the night, even in Pharaoh’s household. There was a fixed spiritual law that even Pharaoh could not escape. 

It is later that God gives His people the law and establishes a covenant with them. It is later that He will require a blood sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins and tell them that “the life is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11). He will reveal spiritual truths about sin and uncleanliness and what it means to be “clean” before a holy God, and He will teach about these things through physical laws and rituals and observances. 

Much later, after the death and resurrection of Jesus, the writer of Hebrews explains more of what was going on back when God’s people were delivered out of bondage, wandered in the desert for 40 years, entered the land that was promised to Abraham, and faced the enemies of God. It is in Hebrews that we learn that “without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22). We learn that the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin and only acted to cover sin and point the way to a more perfect sacrifice. (Hebrews 10).

What was always required, according to the fixed laws of the spiritual world, was the blood sacrifice of a perfect human being, willingly offered as payment for the sins of the human beings of the whole world. But in order for that sacrifice to cover for our sins, that person would need to be a perfect, “spotless lamb”, without blemish, as was always revealed to us in the Old Testament covenant that God established with His people. Since “all have sinned,” the only way for this sacrifice to be made, was for God Himself to take on human flesh, live a completely sinless life as a human being, and offer Himself, die in our place for our sins. (John 1).  His resurrection from the dead confirms for us that He is indeed God and able to die in our place, save us from our sin, and restore our fellowship to the Father.

Why is a blood sacrifice required for forgiveness of sins? Why doesn’t God come up with some other way? Why is free will a part of the plan? Why doesn’t God compel all people to believe and accept His plan and be saved?

We can study the Word of God and reason through all of these questions and come up with some theories and ideas and some understanding of why, but in the end, we our forced to rely on faith to bridge the gaps where we don’t have a clear understanding of why things are the way God tells us that they are. 

It requires faith to believe that God is telling us the truth about Himself, our sin, and the way of salvation. Do we believe that God is good, just, merciful, compassionate, loving, kind, trustworthy, faithful, powerful, and holy? He doesn’t ask us to have a blind faith. We see evidence of the truth all the time. The Apostle Paul tells us that “a man reaps what he sows” (Galatians 6:7), and we see this demonstrated in real life all of the time. If we decide to live as if this is not true, we will not escape reaping what we sow. We can test the things that Scripture tells us are true, and in testing, come to see how true they really are, but we are still required to exercise faith.

So what then about the people we know who do not turn to God but are so kind and good and generous and loving. Can’t that goodness be enough to save them? The Apostle Paul addresses this idea when he writes, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9, NIV). In the same chapter Pauls says this, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (verse 13). The way to bridge the gap between God’s holiness and our sinfulness, the only way, has always been through the blood sacrifice of Jesus. No matter how good a person seems to us, that “goodness” cannot save him. 

The Scriptures go further and teach us that no one is truly good apart from God. If you could follow every aspect of the law, keeping it perfectly, Jesus still points out that your heart would not be keeping the law perfectly (Matthew 5:21-43). We are sinful deep inside, rebellious against God’s ways, and that sin still separates us from God, even when we look pretty good compared to a lot of other people around us. 

Surprisingly, Jesus talked a lot about hell, and His teachings should make us deeply uncomfortable because He seems to be saying that it is very bad, that it lasts for eternity, and that many people will end up there, even people that we think are “good” and that maybe for whom we would like to devise a “plan B” method of salvation, even some who prophesied in HIs name and did miracles and cast out demons (Matthew 7:21-23). He speaks of hell as a very serious warning, that your own works of righteousness will not usher you into the eternal presence of God.

The problem that we often have in thinking about hell is that we have experienced the effects of the presence of God whether or not we seek after Him and walk in His ways. His Holy Spirit lives in His people and is to some extent, restraining evil on the earth. At times we see and experience things like self sacrifice and generosity and true goodness–evidence of the presence of God. But it is important for us to understand that in Eternity a great separation will occur. And those who reject the atoning sacrifice of Jesus for their sins on the cross will have rejected the only means available to be forgiven of sins and to live in the presence of God–with all the things that flow from His presence. The problem that we have is that we think we can have the things of God, apart from God. And Scripture tells us that we are wrong.

What are some of the things that flow out of the presence of God? Light, warmth, comfort, peace, joy, hope, honesty, compassion, love, healing–wholeness of mind, body and spirit– sweetness, fun, laughter, beauty, satisfaction, contentment, even pleasing fragrances and tasty foods. All good things flow from the Father.  We’ve all had moments when we felt these good things so intensely that we were overwhelmed by the wonder of it all. But these moments give us just a taste of what it will be like to live fully in the presence of God.

What then can we expect to find apart from the presence of God in that place where He is not?

Darkness, cold, chaos, corruption, deception, manipulation, bitterness, ugliness, decay, filth, stench, abuse, rage, malice, prejudice, hatred, pain, disease, suffering, torment. We have all experienced hints of these things as well. We have heard of and experienced such evil that we can’t even fathom it coming out of the heart of a human being. But even the most terrible thing that we have ever read about or heard testimony of, is only a small taste of the horror of living without the influence of the goodness of God. 

Can you see why our mission is to tell people, “Be reconciled to God!” and then to point the way to Jesus as the only way?

Jesus says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me” (Revelation 3:20, NIV). If you sense that knocking, in a spiritual sense, your next move is to respond to the invitation and open the door, not to go looking for some other way of salvation.

Probably of most concern to many are those people who live in a place where they are unlikely to ever hear anyone talk about Jesus or even mention His name. But the Apostle Paul says that every person has been invited to look around and see the evidence of God in everything that He has made. Paul writes, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools . . .” (Romans 12:20-22). God has shown Himself plainly to all of us through creation, and when we look at notice and acknowledge that what we see points to a Creator, and we reach out to try to know Him, He responds to our seeking by reaching out to us and revealing more.

In the times of the Old Testament, God’s people didn’t know specifically about Jesus or about the role Messiah would play in their ultimate salvation, but they were still saved by faith, faith that God was the only means for their salvation, faith that the blood sacrifice rituals were important and meaningful and essential for the forgiveness of sins. Not all who practiced these things did them by faith, however. God rejected the sacrifices of those who followed the rituals and confessed their sins, but never turned away from their sins or walked in God’s commands. Theirs were empty and useless sacrifices.

Peter tells us this about God: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.Instead He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9, NIV). 1 Samuel 16:7 reveals that God sees deeply inside a person: “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” God rejects some people that gain our approval because we simply do not see what He sees. 

Because we trust in the goodness and mercy and love and compassion and kindness of God alongside His holiness and justice and righteousness and judgment, we trust Him with those who we assume would not have heard the name “Jesus.” And at the same time we hear amazing stories of those we thought would never hear, but did. We can trust that those who seek after God will find Him because God tells us that they will. We can trust that He will deal with each individual to give them the best chance at being saved. Paul said that the exact time and place was chosen for each one of us to be born so that we might have our best chance at reaching out to Him and being saved (Acts 17:26-27).

It is not our job to come up with other plans or other ways for people to be saved from their sin. To tell people that God’s plan for salvation doesn’t apply to them–they can just be good–is like telling them that the law of gravity doesn’t apply to them and encouraging them to step off the edge of a cliff. Proverbs 24:11 says that it is wise to rescue a person from destruction, to turn them away from the path that leads to their demise. 

Because we believe that God is telling us the truth about the unseen spiritual realm, about His holiness, and about sin and how it harms us and separates us from God, we trust Him with the parts that we don’t fully understand, and we step out as ambassadors for Jesus, representing Him well, and pointing to Him as the way to be saved and reconciled to God. “Be reconciled to God!” is an important and urgent message, and it is all the more urgent because we know that having a personal relationship with Jesus, this side of Eternity, brings us to a place where we can live our very best possible life on this earth in this physical reality. We don’t root for the death-bed confession of faith–though we still celebrate it. How much better it is when people turn to Jesus to be saved and turn away from the sin in their life and walk in newness of life, long before they take their last breath and step into Eternity.

Again, why is Jesus and the blood atonement on the cross for our sins necessary for us to be forgiven of our sins and live in fellowship with God? Because it is a spiritual reality that we can’t escape that life is in the blood and that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. But why? It is enough that God says that it is so.