That is why Christ told Nicodemus that those born from above ‘children’ in the flesh, passed the first requirement to ‘see’ the kingdom of God. John 3...
I take issue with the statement that Christ had to suffer death or He could not Reign as King.
Christ was already King. He was perfect and therefore did not need to suffer any punishment to earn a reward that His Father promised Him, that is all that His Father had.
He died on the cross very early in the process, people can survive on the cross several days. The other two that hung on the cross were very much still alive when their legs were broken so that they could not stand and therefore would be unable to breath. Christ was already dead because He gave up The Ghost. He had power over life and death and used that power to die.
We are not perfect. The punishment for sin is death. Christ suffered our punishment for us if we accept Him. By our accepting the punishment given freely by Him we may live again with God because our sin is covered, hidden in the blood of Christ because the debt of our sin is paid. It was paid by someone who did not owe it and paid it anyway.
I don’t think most people have a clue what all that means, about how Christ can somehow take upon Himself my pains and agony and suffer for them in the past even before I had them. How he can be punished for my sins even before I commit them. His punishment had to be unbelievably horrible to cover not just my sin but every bodies sins.
He did not have to do it. The Lord said that “greater love have no man but that he lay down his life for another”. He did that but multiplied by billions.