What, it must be asked, is the ultimate meaning of this Crucifixion itself? Why did Christ have to die?

There were two principal interpretations in the medieval period.

Gregory the Great’s view was that the Devil was thereby tricked.

When Man fell to the Devil, the Devil came to hold a legal claim over Man, breaking up the tradition of creation. How is God going to get Man back? The theological notion is that God offered his own son in exchange for Man’s soul. That is the Redemption. Through it God redeems a bet, as one would say about something that was lost, “I’m going to redeem it.” God bought Man’s soul by giving the Devil Christ instead, but the Devil could not hold Christ because Christ is incorruptible and so the Devil was cheated.



The second theory is that God the Father was so greatly offended by the sin of Adam and Eve that atonement had to be made for it. The only atonement that would be equal to the terrible sin would be rendered by God himself, because Man was unready to atone to the extent required. So Christ became a man so that Man could atone as God, through Him, and then receive the benefits from this atonement that Christ himself could not use. He passes them on to mankind. We have in this theory the vicarious atonement and the benefit for mankind through Christ himself.