Many have allowed his sacrificial death on an executional stake to be an obstacle to their embracing Christian truth. Over nineteen centuries ago, the apostle Paul wrote: “The speech about the torture stake is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is God’s power. . . .

—1 Cor. 1:18, 23.

The apostle Paul’s words indicate that there is a grave danger in viewing Jesus’ death and what it accomplished as “foolishness” or in allowing oneself to be stumbled thereby. As he says, this is the effect it has upon “those who are perishing.” It is wisdom on our part, therefore, to consider just why Jesus Christ’s ransoming of humankind could be done only by the laying down of his life in sacrifice.