did God die on the cross?

Yes.

And no.

Depends on how you look at it.

For one, physical death isn't the end of existence. Also, God is a Trinity. Only the Son underwent the physical death, not the Father and not the Holy Spirit.

Now, whether or not a 5-year-old will be able to understand that, ... ?

christianmomof3 said:

My 5 yo dd asked us yesterday.
"No, Jesus died on the cross", I answered.
"Isn't Jesus God?" she asked.
"Well, yes."
"So, didn't God die on the cross?"

How do you answer that?

Click to expand...

Now you know why I have absolutely no fear whatsoever of theological questions from adults but theological questions from children absolutely terrify me?!

Your five year old is absolutely correct! The Messiah is not just a regular human being, He is God incarnate. That means He is ONE PERSON who simultaneously exists as TWO DISTINCT (but not separate) REALITIES - the Eternal Divine Creator and a temporal human creature - ONE PERSON who is also TWO NATURES.

The ONE PERSON both brought the Creation into existence ex nihilo [from nothing] (but not as human), whilst that same ONE PERSON died upon the cross (but not as Divine). Nevertheless, because the PERSON is ONE, what He achieves through either distinct nature (Divine or human) can be attributed to the ONE PERSON as a whole (i.e. both natures).

The name of the Messiah as Divine is YHWH (the I AM). The name of the Messiah as human is Jesus of Nazareth.

The Messiah is not God's ambassador. He is not God's representative. He is not God's 'Jewish Pope' and neither is he 'God's son (in the sense that human parents give birth to children as separate individuals to themselves)'. The Messiah is One of the Three Persons of the One Eternal, Immutable, Tri-Personal, Creator God Himself, simultaneously existing as a human being - Emmanuel - "God with us" (No Trinity = No Incarnation = No Salvation).

So, back to the original question...did God die upon the cross? You bet He did!

Simonline.

Who died? Who didn't?

“We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.” (Romans 5:10)

“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)

“But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.” (Hebrews 2:9)

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation [Greek: emptied Himself], and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.” (Philippians 2:5-9)
The same identical Being who was in the form of God in verse six, died in verse eight.

christianmomof3 said:

My 5 yo dd asked us yesterday.
"No, Jesus died on the cross", I answered.
"Isn't Jesus God?" she asked.
"Well, yes."
"So, didn't God die on the cross?"

How do you answer that?

Click to expand...

Yes, but He is risen!

Sounds like your daughter used some basic Aristotelian logic on ya'

Yes, God died on the cross because, since His incarnation, Jesus has continually God and man. He never stopped being either one.

I don't understand it but I believe it.

<>< said:

Who died? Who didn't?

Wrong question, the Messiah is not schizophrenic. The Messiah died as human but He did not die as Divine [THE MESSIAH IS ONE PERSON WHO IS SIMULTANEOUSLY TWO NATURES].

&#8220;We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.&#8221; (Romans 5:10)

Better to say "We were reconciled to the Father by the death of His Son" since the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are all the One God (both individually and collectively) and God cannot have children in the way that humans can. [Much of Scripture (especially the New Testament) is actually written in theological shorthand and it is important to understand the 'longhand' as well as the 'shorthand'.]

&#8220;He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?&#8221; (Romans 8:32)

&#8220;My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?&#8221; (Matthew 27:46)

&#8220;But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.&#8221; (Hebrews 2:9)

&#8220;Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation [Greek: emptied Himself], and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.&#8221; (Philippians 2:5-9)

That is both blasphemous and heretical. The Greek does NOT mean 'emptied himself' at all and the Authorized Version's "made himself of no reputation" is a far more scholarly and theologically accurate rendition of the Greek text than the heretical 'emptied himself' that is used by several modern translations whose translators think nothing of sacrificing translation on the altar of interpretation?! To translate the Greek text as 'emptied himself' is, by implication, to call God a liar (Mal.3:6; Jas.1:17)?!

The same identical Being who was in the form of God in verse six, died in verse eight.

Not true. The same identical PERSON (not 'Being') who was in the form of God in verse six died in verse eight, since the Father and the Spirit (who are also 'the same Being') neither incarnated nor died upon a cross?!

Click to expand...

That's right, this is authentic Biblical theology instead of the usual trash that is passed off as 'Biblical theology' by popular Evangelicalism.

Simonline.

Rowan said:

Yes, but He is risen!

Sounds like your daughter used some basic Aristotelian logic on ya'

Click to expand...

Except that it isn't Aristotellian, it's 'YHWHian' based as it is upon His Absolute Reality.

Simonline.

catwoman2 said:

Yes, God died on the cross because, since His incarnation, Jesus has continually God and man. He never stopped being either one.

I don't understand it but I believe it.

Click to expand...

Every blessing to you sister for continuing in your most holy faith.

Simonline.

The person of GOD that died on the cross was YAHSHUA.
For someone to get that you must explain to them the Holy Trinity Doctrine.

YahshuaWitness said:

The person of GOD that died on the cross was YAHSHUA.
For someone to get that you must explain to them the Holy Trinity Doctrine.

Click to expand...

Actually the Person of God who died on the cross [the Messiah is a Person, not an inanimate object] was the Eternal Son, incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth. The Messiah died as human but not as Divine, yet, because the Messiah is ONE PERSON and not schizophrenic, we can ligitimately affirm that 'God, incarnate as the Messiah, both brought the Creation into existence ex nihlo (from nothing) and died upon the cross'.

Simonline.

christianmomof3 said:

My 5 yo dd asked us yesterday.
"No, Jesus died on the cross", I answered.
"Isn't Jesus God?" she asked.
"Well, yes."
"So, didn't God die on the cross?"

How do you answer that?

Click to expand...

Yes because Jesus Christ is one.

Yes, the Divine Son died upon the cross.

That means the very substance of God, in which the Divine Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all of, died. The whole of God, in this way, experienced death.

But in three days, the Divine Son was resurrected.

God tasted death, yet the Father and the Holy Spirit have never died. What an amazing God!

I'll merely my answer from another thread on CF:

10. Because God cannot die, only the human part of Jesus died on the cross.

Negative. Thus, to Nestorianism&#8230;to begin with if Christ is two persons which one died on the Cross? If it was the human version then the Atonement lacked divine quality and is insufficient for Salvation. The death of God on the Cross is the story of our redemption in the most bare of terms. Remember, death has both a physical and spiritual aspect. Physical death, clearly, is the separation of a man&#8217;s body from his soul while spiritual death is the separation of soul from God. This brings to bear the absolute mystery of the Trinity and, by extension, the Atonement. There is no way that one can say that the death of Christ diminished his Divinity in any way. Divinity is perfect and complete. It cannot get better or get worse. Nor has it ever been taught that the First or Third Person of the Trinity died. The Bible says clearly Jesus died for our sins, death involves the whole person not just his flesh. Certainly the spirit lives on, however it becomes separated at the point of death. If it was only the flesh involved in the redemption what eternal value is that? The concept of the crucifixion is not that God actually died, but that God as Jesus was separated spiritually, and died in the flesh. Christ experienced things that the Father and the Spirit could not because of his incarnation. Christ alone experienced temptation and the functions of the human body. While they could not experience these things first hand they did understand them by Christ doing it. As our sin-bearer, the Lord Jesus experienced both types of death, i.e. the loss of intimate communion with God and his soul departing from his body. As soon as the sins of the world were placed on him he was in contact with the effects of sin which is separation from God. Indeed, one can look at the deeper meaning of when we speak of the rending of Hell&#8230;Christ truly descended into the absence of God. The Word identified himself with man&#8217;s anguish and alienation, assuming it into himself, and by assuming it he healed it. There was no other way to heal the rift between God and man other than by making it his own.

Remember, when speaking of death...death does not equal cessation of existence so it is in this manner that we can truly affirm that God did die.

Bonus points:

a) Gethsemane provides the key to the whole doctrine of the Atonement
b) Of the many subtexts of the Words on the Cross, when Christ cried out &#8220;My God, my God why have you forsaken me&#8221;? he was praying (ref: Psalm 21 (22 in Protestant bibles). The context would immediately have been familiar to those gathered at Calvary (and those that read the Scriptures proximate to the era).

It was not God who died.
Jesus, the Son of God, died. God cannot die.

Is Jesus God, DarkGreenMind?

DarkGreenmind,

i think that will help clear things up is in someways you are right God did not die. okay God did not cease to exist.

Well let me explain it another way. Jesus has two natures human and divine. The human nature died. Okay I think we all agree on that. Right?

However what happened to the divine nature since Jesus is one and not split up as nestorius claimed. Thus the Divine nature had to experience, in some mysterious way, all that happened to the human nature. So when jesus' human nature was hungry, or was in pain the divine nature felt it in some way. The mysterious thing about this is of course God does not get hungry or feel pain. but the incarnation begins a dazzling mystery wher God experieces our pain, suffering, and even death. God experiences everything that we experience a humans. And what does God do with it? He redeems it. or in Eastern terms he deifies it. He makes it like the divine. He conquers it by engaing in it himself. Thus can you now see why others say god died? It is because God experienced death and conquered it. Jesus Christ died. Right? His human nature dies, the divine nature experiences it and conquers it. This is why Cyril of alexandria can state the almost parodoxial claim that Jesus Suffered impassibily or without suffering.

I hope my explanation helps.

For all in my discussion i border on Nestorianism by speaking about the divine nature does this and the human nature does that. It was meant to help another understand. i hope that in my non-scholorly attempt at helping another one can look past some of my not so great grammar when speaking about God.

It is difficult to explain it. Whenever I thought of the Son of God dying on the cross, I wondered, If He is still one person, doesn't that mean all of Him, not just one, died? I would wish to separate godhood from manhood, but then I realize that natures do not die, but persons do. God is impassible, so says the patristic fathers. And our Lord is the Incarnation of God. If God is impassible, then how is it that He experienced death? The Incarnation is far more mysterious to me than the Trinity itself. I was planning on reading De Incarnatione by Athanasius. Hopefully he'll have some insight to this.

Tonks said:

I'll merely my answer from another thread on CF:

10. Because God cannot die, only the human part of Jesus died on the cross.

Negative. Thus, to Nestorianism…to begin with if Christ is two persons which one died on the Cross? If it was the human version then the Atonement lacked divine quality and is insufficient for Salvation. The death of God on the Cross is the story of our redemption in the most bare of terms. Remember, death has both a physical and spiritual aspect. Physical death, clearly, is the separation of a man’s body from his soul while spiritual death is the separation of soul from God. This brings to bear the absolute mystery of the Trinity and, by extension, the Atonement. There is no way that one can say that the death of Christ diminished his Divinity in any way. Divinity is perfect and complete. It cannot get better or get worse. Nor has it ever been taught that the First or Third Person of the Trinity died. The Bible says clearly Jesus died for our sins, death involves the whole person not just his flesh. Certainly the spirit lives on, however it becomes separated at the point of death. If it was only the flesh involved in the redemption what eternal value is that? The concept of the crucifixion is not that God actually died, but that God as Jesus was separated spiritually, and died in the flesh. Christ experienced things that the Father and the Spirit could not because of his incarnation. Christ alone experienced temptation and the functions of the human body. While they could not experience these things first hand they did understand them by Christ doing it. As our sin-bearer, the Lord Jesus experienced both types of death, i.e. the loss of intimate communion with God and his soul departing from his body. As soon as the sins of the world were placed on him he was in contact with the effects of sin which is separation from God. Indeed, one can look at the deeper meaning of when we speak of the rending of Hell…Christ truly descended into the absence of God. The Word identified himself with man’s anguish and alienation, assuming it into himself, and by assuming it he healed it. There was no other way to heal the rift between God and man other than by making it his own.

Remember, when speaking of death...death does not equal cessation of existence so it is in this manner that we can truly affirm that God did die.

Bonus points:

a) Gethsemane provides the key to the whole doctrine of the Atonement
b) Of the many subtexts of the Words on the Cross, when Christ cried out “My God, my God why have you forsaken me”? he was praying (ref: Psalm 21 (22 in Protestant bibles). The context would immediately have been familiar to those gathered at Calvary (and those that read the Scriptures proximate to the era).

Click to expand...

I would like to see the rest of that thread if possible because I only see a reference to to the nature of Christ in what you quoted not to His personhood. It seems to me you may have misunderstood what the person said and have assumed they are speaking of Christ as two persons when they are only referring to His two natures. (maybe?)

peace