Reasons for the Crucifixion of Jesus

For those unfamiliar with Christianity or those only culturally tied to it as a religion, there can be some confusion and uncertainty about the meaning and purpose of Jesus' crucifixion as it pertains to the Christian Faith. I'd like to offer four primary reasons for the death of Jesus, in brief:

Reason 1: Servant - In this, Jesus obeyed God and followed the divine will perfectly throughout his life even to the point of death.  Jesus was the perfect human being as God always intended, representative of both God and Man, selflessly denying himself for the love of his fellow man and God, giving himself in obedience to God, even into death, for the purposes of God's saving work. Here, the grace of God is shown in that for whoever trusts God and follows Jesus, God recognizes in them the same selfless obedience that God sees in Jesus.

Reason 2: Moral-Theological Example - Jesus' obedience and selflessness is the ultimate expectation that God has for humanity, both as individuals and as a community. If Jesus is the ultimate human and a sign-post pointing forwards to God's consummation of creation, disciples of Jesus are called to follow his example in their daily lives, even to the point of self-sacrificial death.

Reason 3: Defeat of Evil - The resurrection that followed Jesus death from crucifixion ultimately shows that evil and all the dark forces that the world can muster can never have the final victory over Jesus and his followers. If killing is the ultimate act that one can do to another, if death is the worse destruction that evil can do, then the fact that Jesus overcame death by crucifixion and was resurrected into a glorified body means that evil can do its worse and not have victory over good. Jesus defeated both evil and death and all those who follow Christ participate in that victory. This is also the reason why there cannot be any justice in the world without a resurrection of the body from death.

Reason 4: Enacted Parable - This is a difficult one. In order to grasp it, we must peal back centuries of established theology (both correct and incorrect) in order to look at the immediate role and self-understanding that Jesus had of himself as a prophet in first century Palestine, warning his contemporaries about the threat of Rome and God's imminent judgment upon the nation of Israel. Jesus was deeply steeped in the Jewish prophetic traditions, both in terms of metaphor and method, particularly in how Old Testament prophets acted out God's message and even upcoming judgment (see Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, etc.). In this way, Jesus, in his crucifixion, was acting out the destruction of Israel by Rome. He was demonstrating through a prophetic act that if the people continued their way of being Israel and did not turn to God's way (the way of Jesus), then Rome would attack and destroy Israel. Rome would treat the people of Israel as enemies of the state and crucify them, which is exactly what happened in AD 70.