What is this priceless thing to be, which the Redeemer knows he must lose, in order to be independent? Would it be any good making it a perfect consciousness of his Godhead? I hardly think so. One has to surrender a perfectly relaxed consciousness every day of one's life, in order to have dealings with other men in the ordinary things of life. True there is probably always an element which is still relaxed, but in the bustle of life one is quite unaware of it. It would probably be the same with a consciousness of godhead. Besides the amount of evil that men do, suggests that loss of consciousness is not a very cogent deterrent. Surely the solution, which you would light upon, would be to give him immortality; immortality in this world until he was murdered, and afterwards immortality for all eternity? And he would know it. This would conform with your generosity as creator; to make the sanction the gift of something priceless, and not the threat of some penalty. Furthermore, it would be no good giving him immortality in this world, in which two gangsters like Annas and Caiaphas could rob him of it, unless you gave it in the spiritual world as well. So your gift of immortality would be in the tangible and intangible worlds at the same time.
But perhaps you wonder to yourself, whether it would be enough to give him mortal life in this world, and the promise of immortality in the world after death, if he co-operated? This is to miss the whole point. Goodness done for a motive is not goodness. Besides your Redeemer would have no confidence in his immortality in the next world, unless he knew he was immortal in this; and the burden of the temptation to lead his own life would be unsupportable. In other words, he would just be a good man, like many other good men before him; he would be no Redeemer.
Therefore we reach the tentative hypothesis, that theory suggests that anyone who regards Christ as Saviour or Redeemer, must regard immortality as…