Let me take a stab at this one.
And, for the record, these are excellent questions. Unfortunately, I think many Christians avoid them in favor of less important (and less challenging) ones.
McCulloch wrote:If God really loved the people of the world so much, why could he not come up with a plan that would have more people saved?
I don’t claim to know how many people are going to be saved. I like to think that it will be quite a bit more than the “fire and brimstone” Christians teach. As for the obvious response question: "why isn’t
everyone saved, I’d say that some people really
do reject God. There are those who would ask to live in Heaven in that they would ask for a paradise, but (even if they believed in God) would not ask for Heaven as it really is: the state of being in a perfect relationship with God. It would be they, not he, that have decided that they will not go to heaven under that definition.
McCulloch wrote:Why is it that God cannot avert his own wrath without sacrificing his only begotten Son? Why could he not just forgive without the sacrifice?
My belief: to make his love appear real to us.
Millions (who knows how many, really) of people over the history of Christianity have been inspired and comforted on a deep level by the lengths Christ was willing to go for humanity. I think that this alone would have been reason enough.
Moreover, humanity has a need to see that a price be paid for wrongdoing. We instinctively feel this debt, and would have had a much harder time dealing with an abstract “God will forgive” than with such a dramatic physical symbol. (To answer the sub-question as to why God didn’t make us to not feel that sense of debt, I think it is obvious that this would lessen remorse for wrongdoing, and cause a great deal more trouble than good).
Also, God is grieved every time we sin. He must endure that pain without “dumping” it back on us. Thus, though the physical sacrifice is a symbol, the idea of God taking the pain we caused and, therefore, deserve is not.
The more I think this through the more legitimate it seems.
McCulloch wrote:Why is belief necessary? Why couldn't God just forgive?
I suppose my best answer is that “loving the world” means you give people their choice, even if you know it’s wrong. Those who don’t wish to trust God enough to enter into that relationship that is the difinitive characteristic of heaven will get their choice. If we recognize that trust and belief are, in this case, synonomous, this scripture makes sense.