I apologize for posting in shorthand here, assuming a Catholic audience.
The New Testament writers go to some length to explain how it was that the sinless Son of God died and the meaning of His death and, more importantly, His resurrection. In particular, Paul spends a great deal of Romans talking about this topic. The bottom line is that the death of Jesus Christ was unique in that He chose to die as a substituionary sacrifice for the sins of mankind and was raised on the third day as proof of the acceptance by God of His sacrifice. If you wish I can provide biblical citations.
Part of the Christological saga rests of His innate sinlessness. Unlike Adam, the first man, who fell into sin, Jesus Christ, the second Adam (man) redeemed mankind by his substitutionary sacrifice as a perfect (sinless) offering to God. From the Fall in the Garden of Eden where God had proclaimed that they would die if they ate of the fruit, the theology of sin and death was developed so that the Bible consistently presented the belief that the wages of sin is death. Thus sin and death are inextricably bound together.
Yes i realize that and I am familiar with it. However the truth of His substitutionary sacrifice does not explain how the sinless Son of God could die. He had never committed sin therefore the law of sin and death could not affect him.
Yet, Jesus, God in the flesh, having never sinned died on the cross.
How was that possible?
If some individual were to be found without sin (typified by Enoch and Elijah in the Old Testament) then they would be translated (not assumed) to heaven.
Enoch and Elijah were men born of Adam thereby having the sin problem within them that demanded Jesus' death to redeem men. The Bible says it is appointed tom man once to die.
Enoch and Elijah were taken for a purpose that God had foreordained before the foundation of the earth. Scripture does not say that plainly, however the Book of Revelation gives the very likely answer to what that purpose was.
When one encounters the Catholic dogma of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, one is faced with a theology which is at odds with that of the Bible. First, the dogma does not state that Mary was similar to or identical to either Enoch or Elijah although there are certain similarities. Although the latter were translated to heaven, Mary was assumed (however one may wish to define these words). If, as in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, Mary was, and is, utterly without sin, then, using a biblical theology, she would not have experienced death - unless she did so in the sense that Jesus Christ did so, which would assuredly place her as co-redemptrix with Jesus Christ, completing an unfinished work of atonement begun on Calvary. If this was not the case, however, then God was unjust to exact the penalty of death upon a sinless individual.