Why is Christ's death considered a sacrifice?

[Neo-Scholastic]

First the caveat: I’m New Church and my responses reflect that position. Swedenborg’s theology does not include post-Council of Nicaea doctrines.

So the sacrifice was giving up sin during life? I was taught that Jesus' sinlessness was necessary, but not that giving up sin was part of his sacrifice. Do you have any Bible verses to support that notion?

In His humanity, Jesus of Nazareth had the opportunity to sin but choose not to do so. It is this purity that gives Him power over evil.

And he got some pretty cool compensation for not sinning.

You can share in that compensation also by not sinning.

Having the heavens open up and god announce he likes you is pretty good.

The transfiguration foreshadowed His glorification. Glorification means the sheading of His earthly nature.

I don't think that being without sin in the sense the Jesus was supposed to have been is possible for a human.

Many people thought it was impossible for a man to run faster than a four-minute mile.

The very idea that he could do it suggests he was not human at all--especially if thought crimes are included.

In one sense you are correct. The Divine Human emptied itself to take on an earthly human existence and operate through it. So if you look at Jesus Christ, He was uniquely qualified to serve as our redeemer. In physical form, he was fully human, subject to the same limitations as the rest of us. In spiritual form however, He is the fullness what it means to be Human.

And I'm not really sure he managed it even if you take the Biblical account as accurate.

What today’s scholars mean by history is much different from what “history” meant to ancient writers. The New Church looks for the inner, spiritual meaning of the narrative, presented in earthly terms. I would go further. Prior to the formation of the canon, many ‘gospels’ were floating around: the Gospel according to Philip, the Hidden Book of John, and the most famous Gospel of Thomas. Wrapping spiritual ideas in historical details seems to have been common practice.