How is Christ's death so significant? (the question title isn't quite right; I welcome any better phrasing - it is not intended to sound inflammatory)

This is a genuine question, that regularly occurred to me during my youth, and was recently reminded to me by an answer fragment:


  ... However, the death of Christ on the Cross is such an infinite payment...


I always had trouble with this. It is honestly not intended to dismiss the suffering of someone being tortured to death, but in the context of Christ as an infinite being in the trinity, capable of miracles, healing, resurrection and immortal heavenly life, this seems... quite a minor event. And indeed, many many people have suffered similar treatment on all sides of religious quarrel (or non-religious, for that matter).

Likewise, the sacrifice of God in "giving up" the Son - again, in the context of a being that is either many thousands of years, or ageless (in that time cannot be applied),  a 30-something year stint on the earth (where God is omnipresent anyway) before re-ascending seems... an inconvenient errand rather than truly giving something up.

It is probably way too late to save my wondering, but what is (/was) the reasoning that I missed on this?
You are exactly right. The conclusion you have drawn is based on a commonly made premise. Far too many Christians do not even realize the non sequitur on which they based their understanding of Jesus's time on earth. It is however, a false premise. I hope I can explain why.

For someone with the power and strength that we claim Jesus commanded, the actual process of death on the cross was a small thing. Even ordinary men could and did endure that. It was a particularly arduous and painful death, but some of Christ's later followers were fed to lions or burned alive and did it with a song on their lips. Yet Jesus sweat blood just THINKING about the ordeal he was going to go through on the cross1. Does this mean that Christ's followers had more stamina than he did? That the creator of the universe was scared of a little physical pain? No. There was something else at work.

What made Christ's death different was what happened behind the scenes. While the Romans were busy crucifying his body to a cross, something much more serious was going on. As he hung there, God measured out on him the full force of his collected wrath against sin and sinners. This was the infinite wrath of an infinitely holy God against an infinitely great offence. With this wrath God CRUSHED his own Son2. No mere mortal could ever bear that wrath even pared down to the punishment for his own deeds, much less those of another. And another and another.

That's a lot of infinites I just used. The infinitely holy part is hard to even fathom, but that's what we say God is. Just as he is pure, holy, and 100% loving, he must be 100% hating of anything that is not worthy of love. We have committed an infinite sin because our offense in refusing to obey God is an offence against an infinitely good being, hence deserving the ultimate consequence.

However the value of the sacrifice offered was also infinite. The person that who bore the infinite wrath was himself of infinite value, making his death valuable enough to pay the debt. The very person of God himself give himself up to death. That death was not just a physical terminating of his bodily functions either. That part happened as well at the hands of the Romans, but much more importantly he was separated from the Father. On the cross he cried out that he had been forsaken3. In that moment he experienced the death (separation from God) we deserve.

In doing so he conquered it and in rising he demonstrated his power over it.4,5

As for the second part of your question, it wasn't the measly 30 something years that made it a big deal, it was his position and stature. If I give you an hour of my time that's not much to you. If a friend gives you an hour that's something more. If some celebrity gives you an hour that might mean something more. If the President of the US gives you an hour (however not hard that is for him) that becomes a significant event -- even if you don't like that president.

Now who this God is -- is nothing less than the King of kings and LORD of lords6. His time and attention are of infinite value.



  Luke 22:44 (ESV) And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.


  Isaiah 53:10a (ESV) Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt,...


  Matthew 27:46 (ESV) And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”


  Romans 6:9 (ESV) We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.


  Acts 2:24 (ESV) God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.


  Revelation 19:16 (ESV) On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.