How would God respond if a person declined his offer of salvation because they were ethically opposed to the idea of an innocent third party being punished on their behalf?

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God is bigger than us. It’s hard to really understand the consequences that fall out of that inescapable truth. If God wants to do something with you or to you, you don’t get an option to say no. Your life can be made an utter and total hell by the Lord.

When Jesus died for our sins, we didn’t really get a say in that procession of events. Everybody involved was powerless to stop it. The act of Jesus’ sacrifice remade the world. Not 500 years after the events of the Passion, the entirety of the Roman empire acquiesced to what had been staring them in the face, the divinity of Jesus the Christ.

They did everything up to and including torturing and murdering those who dared spread the word of Jesus to stop it. It’s not that the Roman empire didn’t have the choice to not hear the Word of God. They did, and chose not to. Until they could choose no longer.

God does not mess around. You should read the book of Job, or at least a Cliff’s Notes version. God took everything away from Job, on a dare, knowing that Job would still have faith in and love Him anyway. And when Job asked God for an explanation, God refused him. When God was satisfied, He returned Job’s losses twofold. But for awhile He made Job a wretched, wretched man, even though he was good and honest and righteous.

So, sure, God might entertain your silly queries just like He entertained Jonah. But it’s not a game you’re equipped to win. If you don’t want God’s salvation, then you’ll simply wander around the spiritual realms until God’s plan catches up with you in the end times, at which point you’ll be taken into Heaven like everyone else. There just won’t be anywhere else to go, no way left to exist. But He’s going to make it really difficult for you to say no to Him. The angels can be very persuasive.

That said, your logic is all wrong. God did not send “an innocent third party” to go up on that cross for Him. He sent Himself, imbuing Jesus with all the divinity He needed in order to accomplish His goals. Jesus was both God, and also man.