HOW I HAVE EXPLAINED THESE ARTICLES IN MY LIFE
Earliest
Son of God:
God was literally a creation of God, like Adam, through Mary and born a demigod; God in man’s body.
Jesus was a part of God extended out into man; similar to some Greek Hero’s.
However, Jesus was both divine and fallible by choice; contradictorily at the same time (temptation of Christ, as an example).
Jesus, being born in part of God and of Eve (meaning, from the lineage of Eve [woman] via Mary), Jesus was brought into the world through what was established as Eve’s penance for the sin of the Garden of Eden, which was Eve’s atonement.
Through this birth; Mary atone’s for all man in suffering the bearing of the purest Lamb for sacrifice.
Middle explanation (part of my middle life where I was more loose with theology):
Jesus was a song of God, just as we all are, but was the principle son that mattered the most as he was pointing out the very concept of being a son of God vs. being a chosen people as the Israelites had thought of themselves for so long.
To say, “son of” in the Hebrew is a very clear message as sons were known by the reputation of their Fathers, and treated likewise as the Father was viewed in the community.
To declare oneself as a son of God was to state that one’s Father was God and that the reputation of God is the reputation that should be considered for that which claims to be the son of God.
Jesus did not stop there, but continued on to announce that all were sons of God; this is the nature of his provocative movement in that liberation from being pompous with the idea of being a chosen and select group of people that did not need to be reputed other than being chosen by God.
Instead, people were now being urged by Jesus to consider themselves as direct reputations of God; that as God is, so are they in view.
Just as a child who strays from the good reputation of his Father would shock a member of a community and cause scolding immediately, so to was the suggestion carried over that if a son of God is acting out of the reputation of their Father, that it should not be allowed for the Father’s reputation to be destroyed by such a person, and is indeed cited several times as a primary motivation for God to ignore some people that attempt to claim God as their Father.
Now:
As well as the previous two descriptions, I also have added on the concept that Jesus is the oldest Son of God, though we are all the sons of God, and that Jesus was spiritually alive before manifesting onto Earth; just as we all do the same and for the same reason; to grow through tests that allow us the agency of Choice, just as Jesus had.
This worked out fantastic when I found out the LDS shared the same ideas and hence partly why I’m LDS now.
Jesus died on the cross for my sins:
This one is always simple in my mind.
Jesus died because God constantly shows a need for a blood sacrifice.
The Hebrews were constantly sacrificing their purest stock, and Jesus was the purest stock that the Hebrews (and arguably mankind) had to offer.
Jesus seemed well aware of this, and even shows us that it was needed as if it wasn’t needed, he simply requested God to not force it. Unfortunately, blood sacrifice is apparently a requirement for atonement and forgiveness on a divine level.
This is similar to, in LDS, Joseph Smith, who had premonition that he was going to die, and even asked God for another method, but God explained that such was needed; that the promises and instructions passed through Joseph Smith were to be sealed with blood.
This is a common theme in the Bible, and Jesus’ point was to shed Blood for sin specifically.
This isn’t a difficult concept of any kind, other than it is a blood sacrifice, but it is one that is from that which is near to God and more valued to God; a part of God.
This makes the entire act mean that God, in part, felt the pain directly of the agony of sin when man has to face his own guilt, and in so doing allows God to let Jesus act on behalf of man in the idea of atonement.
That Jesus is the primary defender of man’s forgiveness; that he will, and has, gone to the fullest lengths to defend just so.
On the other side is the prosecutor; Satan, with all of the evidence ready for how man has neglected to choose God time and time again.
In the middle of this, is God; the judge of the evidence.
To this end, Satan had to suffer being cast out of God’s presence to become the prosecutor, and Jesus had to endure pain and suffering as a man tortured and killed.
God had to lose his two favored sons; Jesus, and Satan to allow his angels the ability to become man and to have free agency to choose God on their own.
That’s how I look at it.