God clearly rejects human sacrifice
In the Old Testament, Israel was forbidden to copy surrounding nations that burned their children in worship. God calls such acts an abomination, not a holy way to approach him (Deuteronomy 12:31). The prophets also condemn people who shed innocent blood while claiming religious devotion (Jeremiah 19:4-5).
That matters for this question. Scripture does not portray God as needing humans to harm or kill someone in order to persuade him to be kind. He is not like the false gods people imagined, hungry for blood or bribed by suffering.
Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.
Jesus was not an unwilling victim
Jesus was truly human, yet he was also God the Son who came into the world in human flesh (John 1:14). He did not merely have sacrifice forced upon him by God. He said that he laid down his own life willingly and had authority to take it up again (John 10:17-18).
This doesn't make the crucifixion a good act by the people who arranged it. Betrayal, injustice, mockery and execution were real evil. Peter tells the crowd in Jerusalem that Jesus was killed by wicked hands, while also affirming that God was working through those events according to his saving purpose (Acts 2:23-24). God did not approve of their cruelty. He overcame it.
Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
At the cross, God bears the cost
The Bible uses several pictures to explain Jesus' death: forgiveness, reconciliation, redemption and sacrifice. They all point to the same reality, sin is serious and destructive, yet God himself acts to bring sinners home. Paul says that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:19).
So calling Jesus' death a payment does not mean the Father and Son were opposed, or that God paid somebody else a fee. It means Jesus took upon himself the consequences of human rebellion and opened the way for forgiveness. Romans 3:25-26 holds God's justice and his mercy together: he does not pretend evil is harmless, and he makes sinners right with him through faith in Jesus.
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
The resurrection changes the whole picture
Jesus' death was not the final word. God raised him from the dead, showing that death and sin would not keep him (Acts 2:24). Christian faith is therefore not centred on a tragic death alone, but on the living Christ who gave himself in love and now gives life.
Christians have sometimes explained the cross with different emphases. Some stress Jesus taking sin's judgement, others his victory over evil, and others the way his love draws us back to God. The New Testament contains all these themes. But none requires us to imagine God endorsing the human sacrifice he forbids. In Jesus, God comes near, gives himself, and makes reconciliation possible.