Was God Reluctant to Save Us?

Tough Questions for Christians #13—Why was God reluctant to sacrifice Himself for sins?
Tough Question #13

AZ presents a complex theological question: God is omniscient and knows all things ahead of time and planned for himself to die for sins. But he waits 4000 years to do it, offering a lot of other options before that. Why is God reluctant to do this?

I think AZ is partly right here. God really is reluctant to have Jesus die to establish God’s kingdom. He could have done it sooner. But two things: first of all, God primarily wanted us to establish our own sovereignty and bless the world ourselves. It’s like raising a kid—you want them to do things themselves. You want to see them walk on their own, go to school on their own, establish their own projects and eventually get a job and decide on a spouse on their own. It is only with great reluctance that we, as parents, step in and do for our kids what we hope they can do for themselves.

This isn’t to say that we could die for our own sins, but God was hoping that it would be a one hundred percent human, with no divine, that would establish His kingdom. He called many people to attempt it: Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah—but they all failed. They proved too weak for the task. So He finally sent His Son Jesus. Sure, Jesus, the human, wouldn’t want to suffer torture and humiliation. No human would. But God wasn’t reluctant to suffer. Only reluctant to pay for his kid’s mistakes. He waited until the other options failed.