Question:
Did our Savior need to be holy? Why did our Savior need to be holy? Why couldn’t a sinful human being die on the cross for everyone’s sins?

Answer:
—“God is light and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). Light is the word symbol of God’s unchanging moral nature:absolute holiness.

Unholiness is darkness, which is sin. It is impossible for God to tolerate unholiness.

How could the Word who became flesh (this is Immanuel, God with us), who is Jesus, be anything but holy? “Thou art my beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22), proves Jesus was impeccably holy.

Every human being (except Jesus Christ) born into the world is “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). All are “dead” before God; they are morally dead, they are worthless toward God even though there is human life in them. How could a sinful man die for the sins of another when he cannot die for his own sins, when his own guilt will bring him into God’s holy judgment?

The only Savior there could be is the Lamb who was without blemish and without spot, whose precious blood has redeemed us. It is Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God so that through His blood shed on Calvary we may have a purged conscience in order to serve the living God. How could the absolutely and inflexibly holy God accept anything, or anyone less than His righteousness required? Indeed, outside of Christ there is no salvation.