It is rather the nature of God’s relationship with humanity, and the nature of the relationship God desires with people and among people, that causes participation to make sense. God has created human beings to be in intimate fellowship—a relationship of loyalty and love—with their creator and with one another; the death of Jesus does not just make that relationship with God and others possible; it makes it actual, real. To do so, that death must be something more than a substitution, representation, declaration, victory, or example that does not directly involve the intended beneficiaries.
