This story illustrates an important dynamic of the Northern pantheon, which did not allow for omnipotence: even Odin must pay his due.

Has anyone thought about what the atonement of Jesus Christ implies ? We are assured that God is omnipotent. But the fact that to save us required Christ to be hung on the "terrible tree" is nothing less than God, the Omnipotent, having to suffer and die to save his creation.