WHY was Jesus cricified?

[RobbyPants]

In many ways all forgiveness requires some cost. If someone harms me I can choose to retaliate and harm them back - which may be the just thing to do. But by forgiving them I choose to lose my rights to punish them and choosing instead to make peace with them. In other words I'm choosing to bear the cost of their sins by not retaliating and choosing to make peace instead.

So, you're saying God could have chosen to simply forgive, yet didn't want to?

So clearly if God has made this promise he could choose to change his mind - and say actually the consequences I promised won't actually happen after all. But this just makes his promises meaningless.

...just like God chose to make that promise to Adam.

This still fits squarely within my original assertion of God setting up an arbitrary paradigm of unnecessary punishments. This system exists because he wants it to exist.

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He doesn't tell us to flat out forgive. He tells us to forgive in recognition that He is forgiving us. You chose a good passage, but stopped reading too soon. Read vv. 23-35.

Ironically, you also quit reading too early. Matthew 18:22-35

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22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’

30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

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Whoa! It's almost like he expects us to flat-out forgive people, with no expectation or compensation or punishment!