This answers those outside who pile up arguments for themselves. But if someone from among us asks, not from a love of dispute but from a desire to learn, why He endured the Cross rather than some other form of death, let that person hear that no other way would have benefited us as this one did. It was fitting that the Lord endured this for our sake.
He had come to bear the curse that lay on us; and how could He "become a curse" otherwise than by accepting the accursed death? And that death is the cross, for it is written "Cursed is every one that hangs on tree."
Again, the death of the Lord is the ransom of all, and by it "the middle wall of partition" is broken down and the call of the Gentiles comes about. How could He have called us if He had not been crucified, for it is only on the cross that a man dies with arms outstretched? Here, again, we see the fitness of His death and of those outstretched arms: it was that He might draw His ancient people with the one and the Gentiles with the other, and join both together in Himself.
He Himself said this, indicating the kind of death by which He was going to ransom all: "When I am lifted up, I will draw all to Myself."
Again, the air is the sphere of the devil, the enemy of our race who, having fallen from heaven, endeavors with the other evil spirits who shared in his disobedience both to keep souls from the truth and to hinder the progress of those who are trying to follow it. The apostle refers to this when he says, "According to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience." But the Lord came to overthrow the devil and to purify the air and to make "a way" for us up to heaven, as the apostle says, "through the veil, that is to say, His flesh." This had to be done through death, and by what other kind of death could it be done, save by a death in the air, that is, on the cross? Here, again, you see how right and natural it was that the Lord should suffer thus; for being thus "lifted up," He cleansed the air from all the evil influences of the enemy.
Thus, being lifted up, He cleansed the air from the devil’s malice and every attack of the demons, saying, "I watched Satan fall like lightning." He also opened a new way of ascent into heaven, saying again, "Lift up your gates, you rulers, and be lifted up, everlasting gates." It was not the Word Himself Who needed the gates opened, for He is Lord of all, nor was any created thing closed to its Maker. We were the ones who needed this, and He carried us upward through His own body. Just as He offered that body to death on behalf of all, so through it He prepared the way of ascent into heaven.