[kosta50]

The Catholic Mass certainly calls the Passion a sacrifice. Is your objection to the word or to the word's essence?

To the Protestant notion that it was demanded, i.e. a necessity (based on distorited juridical concept of an "offended" God, prevelant in the West, that could, by necssity, be satisfied only by a sacrifice of equal dignity! So God kills God in order to be "satified.")

God is not subject to necessity.

Christ did offer Himself by His own will, which is also the will of the Father, obviously. But that sacrifice was voluntary, an act of love, a gift, not a necessity.

[Blogger]

If God's desire was to be fulfilled, that is reconciliation with man, it WAS a necessity. If God desired not to show mercy upon human beings and be reconciled to them, then no it wasn't. We could have paid our own debt and would spend eternity in Hell. It was God's desire that made it a necessity - not some external force. The dichotomy is false.

[annalex]

that sacrifice was voluntary, an act of love, a gift, not a necessity.

Indeed. That is what I thought you meant.