Did God die on the Cross?

[robbyyoung]

Not to be harsh, but to look at the verses from the perspective of His
The question in the OP was not whether Jesus died on the cross, it was did God die on the cross?
We know Jesus is God, so when we read that God raised Him from the dead, what is it referring to , His Spirit or His Body? If there is a clear distinction between the body and the Spirit, then the point remains the same. God raised the Temple back up on the third day, just as Jesus said He would:
Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up’ (John 2:19)
‘Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? 17 If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are’ (1Cor 3:17)
‘He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach’ (Col 1:22)
It is not necessary to believe Jesus died in the spirit or Spirit.
‘By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God’ (1John 4:2)
‘For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess’ (2John 1:7)
the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh ‘Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires’ (Gal 5:24)
When did Jesus begin to be God again? When the Spirit entered Him? Or when the Spirit left Him?

Merry Christmas! Good points JR.

I don't believe The Scriptures teach that Yeshua died in Spirit. Consider the following:

John 11:25-26 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

If the recipients of the Giver of Life(Yeshua) can never die in Spirit, how can the actual source, Yeshua, contradict Himself and prove to be subordinate to death (spiritually) for even a nano second? I'm now reminded of this passage:

Matt 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Yeshua could not have ever been dead in the Spirit. His body was given over to be killed and His Spirit (The Holy Spirit), never ceased to exist. Again, if we humans need not to ever fear for our soul to ever to be killed by mere men, how can we then say Yeshua's Soul/Spirit succumbed to this impossibility. Well, IMHO, He didn't, like the text says, His body was killed.

God Bless.

[Paidion]

How are we to explain this statement:

I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.

If Jesus, in the tomb, was dead, body, soul, and Spirit, how could/did he exercise the power "to take it up again"?

This is a thoughtful question, Homer. At first glance, one might interpret it as Jesus raising Himself from the dead. But I agree with Jose, that that was not what he was affirming. Thank you, Jose, for quoting some of the many passages which affirm that it was the Father who raised Him from the dead, and not He Himself. My belief is that when Jesus died, He really died, just was we do when we die. Unless the Father had raised Him from the dead, He would have remained dead. If His consciousness or "spirit" remained, then He didn't really die. But He was raised with an immortal body just as His disciples will be so raised. The difference is that Jesus became a life-giving Spirit after His death, so that He was able to extend His person into His disciples. I think when we disciples are raised to life, our persons will be confined to our resurrection bodies even though we will be immortal.

Here is the way I understand Jesus "taking it up again."

Jesus laid down his life for us. On the third day God raised Him from the dead, and He became a “life-giving Spirit. (1 Cor 15:45). Then, as a life-giving spirit, he took up His life in His corporate Body, and lives within it. He received the authority from His Father to lay down His life as a human being, and to take it up again as a life-giving Spirit, and as the apostle Paul said, “The Lord [Jesus] IS the Spirit”(2 Cor 32:18). Is that not the reason he said that unless He should go away, the Advocate (whom Jesus identified as the Spirit) would not come? (John 16:7) Jesus told His disciples that He and the Father would come and make their dwelling with them. Jesus and His Father share the same Spirit. So Jesus laid down His human life, and then took up His resurrection life and lived it in the Spirit within His disciples.

I was sure that someone would bring up the passage where Jesus uttered the words, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up." And sure enough, JR brought up this verse. The way I understand that statement is that Jesus was prophesying. Thus it was the Father speaking THROUGH Him. The FATHER was saying through Jesus, that if they destroyed the temple (Jesus' body), He, the Father, would raise up that body in three days.

[BrotherAlan]

Forgive me if I am repeating some things that are already stated, as I only had a chance to quickly skim through the most recent posts....but, what I did see in that quick read could, I think, be addressed by, once again, simply going back at looking at the nature of the Incarnation.

And what is meant by the Incarnation? Well, we can answer this question by simply saying that, by the Incarnation is meant that the Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, retaining His Divine nature, took to Himself a human nature, that is, a body and soul like ours. Therefore, given this basic nature of the Incarnation, we must say that Jesus Christ is a Person, a DIVINE Person, having two natures, namely, a divine nature (which He has possessed for all eternity) and a human nature (which He, in time, assumed in the womb of that glorious and blessed woman, Mary).

Now, this being the case, we must note that there is something in theology known as the "communication of idioms" (and by "idioms" here we mean "properties", i.e., properties of the divine and human natures). By this we mean that whatever can be truly affirmed of ONE of the natures of Christ can also be affirmed of the PERSON of Christ. Thus, for example, since Christ, in His Divine Nature, created all things, we can truly say this: "Jesus created the universe." (Or, in the words of St. Paul, "All things were created through Him," or, in St. John's Prologue, "All things through him came to be.") On the other hand, since Christ, in His HUMAN nature, was born of the Holy Virgin, walked on this earth, ate, and did other such human things, we can also truly say, "Jesus was born of Mary, walked this earth, ate, slept, etc., and, eventually, died on a cross, then gloriously rose from the dead." But, Jesus is the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, and so He can be called, properly speaking, "God" (just as the Father and the Holy Spirit, since they, too, are the one True God, can also be called, "God"). And, so, we can also say, truly, "God (that is, Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity), was born of Mary, walked this earth, ate, slept, etc., and eventually, died on a cross, then gloriously rose from the dead." And, so, again, it follows from the nature of the Incarnation that we can say, truly, and simply, that GOD died on the Cross-- but, by that we mean, JESUS, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, Who is, with the Father and the Spirit, God Himself, in His human nature, died on a cross (and, of course, then gloriously rose from the dead).

In other words, in order to answer this question well, we need to have a clear understanding that Jesus is a Divine Person Who possesses two distinct natures in Himself-- one (the Divine nature) which is unable to suffer and die, another (the human nature) which IS able to suffer and die. Once we realize that there is a union of these two natures in the Person of Christ, then we are able to see that this Divine Person IS able to die in one of these natures (the human), though not in the other (the Divine)-- but, since He IS able to die in one of these natures, it can truly be said that He did DIE (in that human nature of His).

I hope all that makes sense....again, check out these two links for more detailed explanations on this....(but, I think it does become a lot simpler if we just realize the basic principle that Christ is a Divine Person with two natures, a human (able to suffer) and a divine (unable to suffer), and that whatever can be truly said of ONE of the natures can be truly attributed to Him AS A PERSON).

Again, for further helpful reading on this topic, I recommend the following links:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1D.HTM
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4016.htm



God bless...and Merry Christmas!

In Christ,
BrotherAlan

[dizerner]

[user account removed]

[Jose]

The question in the OP was not whether Jesus died on the cross, it was did God die on the cross?

I'm not aware of a single verse stating that God died. I find it difficult to understand why someone would accept the idea that God died when scripture unambiguously states that he cannot. I wonder if anyone believes that it is possible for God to die now?

[Jose]

When did Jesus begin to be God again? When the Spirit entered Him? Or when the Spirit left Him?

This is a strange question to me. Are you suggesting that Jesus at some point was God, and then stopped being God, and then "began to be God again"?

I have another question...

Generally speaking, by design, the Trinity doctrine needs to affirm that Jesus has two natures. One nature is said to be 100% God and at the same time he has a second nature which is said to be 100% man (human). The God nature of Jesus is considered to be deity, but the man (human) nature is not. I understand that this concept of the "hypostatic union" is difficult to comprehend, but my question is this: If the above is true, then could it not be correctly stated that Jesus is 100% deity and 100% not deity at the same time? Can anything exist and not exist at the same time?

[robbyyoung]

I think the confusion lies in the assumption, which is in error, IHMO, that Yeshua's Spirit died. This is an impossibility. Yeshua, Himself, remained sinless from start to finish. However, He suffered the awful penalty of our sins while HE WAS STILL ALIVE. The Father finally FORSOOK, LEFT, or ABANDONED Him while He was still alive on The Cross. Then, Yeshua, still alive, said, "IT IS FINISHED." Then, Yeshua, still alive, said, "Father, to Thy hands I commit my spirit." Then, Yeshua's Spirit left His body and went where? Back in the control of The Father's hands.

Notice that from the time Yeshua announced that The Father had abandoned Him, to the time Yeshua, unmistakably, announced that this abandonment was over, which had to feel like an eternity of separation, The Father once again accepted The Son's Spirit back into the fold. All this was done while Yeshua was ALIVE, in His Physical Body. The bible says He tasted death for all men (Heb 2:9), What death? Well the only death that matters, Spiritual Death - Separation from God. Yeshua, while in The Body, consciously experienced this never before separation of divinity. But Yeshua never lost His divinity, it was needed in order to suffer and satisfy the penalty of SIN. No mere human could do this. Therefore, He tasted what this awful separation IS, but never did His Spirit altogether die. That brief moment on The Cross told a powerful story of what happened regarding His sacrifice. Yeshua was alive and conscious during the whole process. His body was The Sign of God accepting His sacrifice before, during, and after His work.

God Bless.

[BrotherAlan]

Again, to answer this question well requires that we understand the nature of the Incarnation and the hypostatic union.
Jesus is not "50% God" and "50% man"; He is 100% God and 100% man, true God and true man.
To say that He died in His human nature is not to say that 50% of Him died; it is to say that He died, He truly died...but, that that death occurred not in the Divine nature (which cannot die), but in His human nature.

Something to think about and pray over...it is a great mystery! The Mystery, really, of Christmas (for, with Christmas, we celebrate this hypostatic union, that God truly did become MAN! In the womb of that glorious virgin, Mary...)

In Christ,
BrotherAlan

[BrotherAlan]

dizerner wrote:

So only half of Jesus died? I believe the mistake this view of the hypostatic union makes, is to miss the fact that the divinity and humanity fully merged, they were indivisible. The divinity went within the humanity, at least the way I see it Biblically, otherwise the "fullness" of God did not really dwell in him "bodily," but was hovering "out there somewhere," so that Jesus could watch himself die.

The divinity and the humanity are fully merged in Christ-- but they are fully merged in the Person of Christ, without any intermingling of the natures (which would produce, if you will, some sort of "third nature", a mix of the human and Divine, which is, thus, neither truly human nor truly Divine). Thus, in Christ, we have ONE Person (the Second Person of the Trinity) and TWO natures. So, if we were to point to Christ, and ask, "Who is this?", we would answer, "This is Jesus Christ (the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son of God and the Son of Mary)." And, if we were to ask, "What is this?", we would answer, "This is true God and true Man."

So, when Christ, in His human nature, slept, we could truly say, "GOD slept;" and when He ate fish, we could truly say, "GOD ate fish," and when He was born of Mary, we could truly say, "GOD is born of Mary; God's Mom is Mary." For, the PERSON who did all these things is Jesus Christ, Who is true God as well as being, since the time of His Incarnation in the Virgin's womb, true Man; and He did all these things not in His divine nature, but in His human nature. But, the important thing to notice is the PERSON Who is acting in all these situations-- that Person being the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, Who is both true man AND true GOD.

And, for like reason, if we were to go back in time to the death of Christ on the Cross, and witness Him utter His last words, "Into your hands, Father, I commend my spirit," and breathe His last breath (prior to His Resurrection, of course), and we were to ask, "Who just died?", we could truly answer, "Jesus Christ just died....GOD just died." For, at that moment, God, Jesus Christ, in His human nature (and ONLY in His human nature, NOT in His divine nature), had just died. What a profound mystery is this.

In Christ, true God and true Man, Son of God and Son of Mary,
BrotherAlan

P.S.
As far as any particular verses that speak about God dying, we simply need to recognize that the Scriptures present to us Christ as being true God and true Man; and, so, when the Scriptures write, "Jesus died", then we know, based on the fact that the Scriptures teach that Jesus is God, that the Scriptures are teaching, "God died" (again, as stated many times already, God died in the human nature that He assumed from Mary).

[BrotherAlan]

Jose wrote:

Generally speaking, by design, the Trinity doctrine needs to affirm that Jesus has two natures. One nature is said to be 100% God and at the same time he has a second nature which is said to be 100% man (human). The God nature of Jesus is considered to be deity, but the man (human) nature is not. I understand that this concept of the "hypostatic union" is difficult to comprehend, but my question is this: If the above is true, then could it not be correctly stated that Jesus is 100% deity and 100% not deity at the same time? Can anything exist and not exist at the same time?

To answer the last question from this quote-- "Can anything exist and not exist at the same time?" The principle of non-contradiction states that a thing can not exist and not exist at the same time and in the same respect-- and that last part, "and in the same respect", is very important. For, consider, as an example, the fact that "to be a father" and "to be a son" are opposite relationships, and so an individual man can not be both a father and a son at the same time and in the same respect, i.e., to the same person. But, of course, an individual man can be both a father and a son at the same time, but in different respects, i.e., to different people (I can be the son of my father, and the father to my son).

Now, to say that Jesus is God means that Jesus perfectly possesses the Divine nature. Now, it would be a contradiction to say that Jesus possesses the divine nature and that He does NOT possess the divine nature; however, to say that Jesus possesses a human nature does not contradict the fact that Jesus also possesses the divine nature, even if the divine nature and the human nature are not the same.

Perhaps the best analogy to give on this point is to compare the union of body and soul in man; a physical nature and a spiritual nature are, you could, say, opposites (for a NATURE is either physical or spiritual). However, there is nothing to prevent a PERSON from possessing BOTH a physical nature (i.e., a body) and a spiritual nature (a spiritual soul), for each and every human being possesses both. SIMILARLY (though, certainly, not in the EXACT same way), even though the divine nature and the human nature are, you could say, "opposites", there is nothing to prevent a PERSON from possessing BOTH nature, as, in fact, is the case with Jesus Christ.

I hope that makes some sense...

In Christ,
BrotherAlan