But the most inconsistent and unreasonable phase of the whole thing is yet to come. If salvation is attainable only through the merits of the "death on the Cross" of Jesus Christ, then Jesus _had to be crucified_. It was a part of the "eternal plan." No other death would do. If Jesus had died a natural death there could have been no salvation. He must needs be punished, killed for the sins of Adam and all mankind. He was "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." To carry out this "divine purpose" somebody had to crucify him. Every actor in this great "drama of redemption" was a necessary factor. No one was either unnecessary or unimportant. Judas was necessary to betray him into the hands of his enemies. He and the part he performed were necessarily as much a fore-ordained and eternally predestinated factor in the "scheme of redemption" as that of Jesus himself. The Jewish priests who prosecuted him before Pilate were as equally necessary as the subject of the prosecution. The Jewish nation whom they represented, or some other nation, was equally necessary as a background for this prosecution, in whose name it was conducted. Pilate or some other was necessary as the judge to hear the trial and pronounce the sentence of death before it could be carried out. And finally, the Roman soldiers were necessary to execute the sentence. All these, Jesus, Judas, the priests, the Jewish nation, Pilate and the Roman soldiers, were necessary links in the one great chain of the "scheme of redemption," or "plan of salvation" by the vicarious atonement of the Son of God on the Cross. If either one of them had failed, the chain would have been broken, God's eternal plans and purposes thwarted, and man left without redemption to eternally perish!