Did Jesus Have To Die?

Metropolitan Kallistos Ware explains why the answer is "yes". For Holy Week 2025

The very first time I visited an Orthodox Divine Liturgy, I stayed late to speak at length with the priest. I told him that over the last year or so, I’d gradually become more interested in the Orthodox Church, and my interest had grown to the point where I simply had to visit one of these churches in person. During our long conversation, he recommended to me a book called The Orthodox Way by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware (1934-2022) to better understand the nature of what I was walking into.

Originally published in 1979, The Orthodox Way is a masterpiece of pedagogic writing. The first book I’d compare it to is C.S. Lewis’ classic Mere Christianity; both of them have the power to lay a completely new foundation for the reader’s life in a short length (less than 200 pages). Both of them are among the first books I would use if I found myself in the position of explaining to Non-Christians what Christianity is all about.

Reading The Orthodox Way was like re-learning my own religion after subsisting for years on usually more debased versions of that religion. Ware, who served for 40 years as a bishop in the Constantinople Patriarchate’s Diocese Of Thyateira And Great Britain, answers many questions about the nature of the Trinity Of God in this book that I’d had little understanding of before. Why might it be, for instance, that God’s nature is three Persons instead of just one? What would Jesus Christ be doing if mankind had not become fallen and in need of a Messiah? What is the nature of the third Person of God, the Holy Spirit, and what is His work? What will the Kingdom Of Heaven be like? And so on.

During the course of these answerings, Ware addresses a question that Christians and Non-Christians alike commonly ask: did Jesus Christ actually have to die to save us? “By taking up our broken humanity into himself, Christ restores it and lifts up the fallen image. But in that case, why was a death on the cross necessary?”

According to Ware, Christ’s death was necessary as an act of complete identification with human creation, in order to heal it. “In an unfallen world, the Incarnation of Christ would indeed have sufficed as the perfect expression of God’s outgoing love. But in a fallen and sinful world, His love had to reach out yet further…God saves us by identifying Himself with us, by knowing our human experience from the inside…Jesus Christ our companion shares not only in the fullness of human life, but also in the fullness of human death.”¹

Ware also writes that this death was also spiritual, not merely physical. "Full weight must be given to Christ’s words at Gethsemane: ‘My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death’ (Matthew, 26: 38). He is at this moment identifying Himself with all the despair and mental pain of humanity…a second glimpse is given us at the Crucifixion, when Christ cries out with a loud voice ‘My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken Me?’ (Matthew, 27: 46). We cannot begin to explain how it is possible for one who is himself the Living God to lose awareness of the Divine Presence.”² I remember being moved to tears with amazement as I read this passage, all those years ago.

“He descended into hell…hell is a point not in space, but in the soul. It is the place where God is not. If Christ truly descended into hell, that means He descended into the depths of the absence of God. Totally, unreservedly, He identifies Himself with all man’s anguish and alienation. He assumed it into himself, and by assuming it He healed it. There was no other way He could heal it, except by making it His own.”³ As the Apostle Paul wrote: “We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses.” (Hebrews, 4: 15)

The Monadnock Review wishes a blessed Holy Week to all readers. Christ Is King.

1. Ware, Kallistos. (1979/1995). The Orthodox Way. Yonkers, New York. Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press. Pages 78 to 79.

2. Ibid, Pages 79 to 80.

3. Ibid, Page 80.