*Who/what* actually died on the cross?

[Pilgrim Heir]

Serious question, for Trinitarians I guess. Feel free to correct any of my mistakes.
Follow me here... This might be a long one... So from my understanding:

Trinity = Father is a person, Son is a person, Holy ghost is a person, but they are not three persons but one person.
God = Trinity = Eternal, Immortal, etc. etc.

Stick with me here:
#1: Is the flesh part of the Trinity?
From my understanding and what I've heard from Christians, yes.
So, Trinity = Father, Son (100% God, 100% Man), Holy ghost but they are one God.

#2: Why did Jesus die on the cross?
His death is the penalty for sin. Only a sinless being with infinite power can take the burden for all of mankind.

#3: Did God die?
From my understanding... Kind of? Did the (100% man, 100% God) Jesus die? How can this be possible? 1 Timothy 6:16 says: "God... who alone is immortal". So did God die?

Christians tell me that it was not the 100% God that died, but the 100% man that died. This is because right at the moment of death, Jesus ceased to be 100% God, so only the Flesh died.
Something on the lines of the God nature didn't actually die, its spirit still lived. Only the Flesh died. What's so special about that though? When we die, the same thing happens lol. We have ever-living souls. My rebuttal to this is still 1 Timothy 6:16 "God... who alone is immortal", God does not taste death, this is what separates God from mortal beings.

#4: So God didn't die for our sins, the no-longer-part-of-the-Trinity Flesh did?
What is so special about the Flesh? The moment Jesus died, this Flesh was no longer part of the Trinity... So who/what exactly even died?

The Flesh = (According to Christians) Sinless
The Flesh = (At the moment of death) Not part of the Trinity AKA not God

The Flesh (one sinless human) does not equal one sinless God

So... This one single sinless human, died for all of humanity? How can one sinless man do it for all of mankind? I can understand "one sinless God", because His power is infinite, but...

A man, who was sinless, but with no Godly powers, died for our sins?

Thank you for your patience.

Friend,
Your definition of the trinity is incorrect. The Father, Son and Spirit are 3 persons, not one person which would be modalism. They are 3 persons of the same essence.

 

[Galatea]

May the Lord bless you! Gratitude, and a "teachable spirit," are beautiful characteristics in a Christian - thank you for demonstrating them here. That is a good witness, of the Lord and His own.

To take a moment on one comment you made above,"We are a trinity, yet at death- our bodies are separated from our spirits, so a "one" can be separated." It is true that one person, a human person, experiences the radical separation of soul from body at death, yet he is still one person.

It is different in the divine and Holy Trinity, though: In the Trinity, very mysteriously each of the three divine Persons - in the One God - is fully God in Himself! This is a mystery beyond our (or at least my) human understanding: How can one of the Three Persons of the Trinity be fully God? Yet each is. God the Son is fully God (and also now, since the Incarnation, fully man). All that the Father is, the Son is - except "being Father". The Spirit is fully God: all that the Father and the Son are, the Spirit is - except "being Father" and "being Son." Very mysterious. Each of the Persons fully possesses the divine nature in Himself - but only the Father is "Father of the Son", only the Son is "Son of the Father", and so on. God has no parts - Persons, not separable - God is ever One.

That is not the case in the human person: we are composed of two different components, or "parts" - a material part, and a spiritual part. Each "part" is NOT fully Joe or Mary, each "part" does NOT fully possess human nature in itself. So that is different from the great mystery of the divine Trinity of three divine Persons in the One God.

The Trinity is a mystery of God to ponder and pray to understand a tiny bit more, for us all.

I think much of it is beyond our comprehension. Thank you for being gracious and telling me about the quote from the cross. I think it had bothered me for years- and I had heard pastors say that our sin did the impossible- separate God the Father from God the Son.

I knew the prophetic psalm 22, but don't know why verse 24 never stood out.

Thanks for telling me about the difference between the trinity of God and the trinity of man, I know Christ is fully God and that He was also fully man, but did not stop to think that He is not a "part".

Thanks again.

 

[Meowzltov]

Trinity = Father is a person, Son is a person, Holy ghost is a person, but they are not three persons but one person.
God = Trinity = Eternal, Immortal, etc. etc.

One GOD, three persons (not one person)
God is like the three dimensions of space. Imagine a room filled with the small plastic colored balls that you used to roll around in at McDonalds when you were a kid. The room is filled top to bottom so that the balls are lined up in rows and columns. Now imagine that I pull out all the rows in the length direction. What is left? NOTHING. That's God the Father. Now imagine I pull all out all the rows in the width direction. What is left? NOTHING. That is God the Son. Finally, imagine that I pull out all the rows in the height direction. Nothing is left. That is the Holy Spirit. There is only space -- a single thing. Yet it has three dimensions.

#1: Is the flesh part of the Trinity?

The Trinity existed before the incarnation, so it doesn't HAVE to include the flesh. But now that Christ IS incarnate, and is truly God and truly man, YES, the flesh is part of the trinity.

#2: Why did Jesus die on the cross?
His death is the penalty for sin. Only a sinless being with infinite power can take the burden for all of mankind.

Yes. He died to redeem us.

#3: Did God die?
From my understanding... Kind of? Did the (100% man, 100% God) Jesus die? How can this be possible? 1 Timothy 6:16 says: "God... who alone is immortal". So did God die?

Specifically, God the Son, died. The Father and the Holy Spirit did not die. God the Son had the unique capacity to die because he became incarnate.

Christians tell me that it was not the 100% God that died, but the 100% man that died. This is because right at the moment of death, Jesus ceased to be 100% God, so only the Flesh died.

Jesus is a person. We cannot separate his natures. There is a name for the heresy you are describing but I don't remember it. One of the issues discussed at the Council of Nicea was that part of the problem with Arianism was that if Christ was created, then God did not die for our sins. The council of Chalcedon makes this even doubly clear, that if Christ is fully God and fully man, that God did indeed die for our sins, even though God is immortal, because Christ HUMBLED HIMSELF and took human form.

Something on the lines of the God nature didn't actually die, its spirit still lived. Only the Flesh died. What's so special about that though? When we die, the same thing happens lol.

Exactly.

 

[Saint Nod]

Perhaps one other aspect to consider is that the body is time constrained whilst the spirit of man is not time constrained... unlike man, and the physicalness of our created being/ body, God exists outside of time...eternal in nature. So, when Christ died as fully man and God, His physical time-constrained body died. His Spirit of course lived on...
It makes sense that Jesus as man died a physical death to take upon Himself the sin of the world that entered the world when the physical man Adam sinned....

 

[Saint Nod]

Serious question, for Trinitarians I guess. Feel free to correct any of my mistakes.
Follow me here... This might be a long one... So from my understanding:

Trinity = Father is a person, Son is a person, Holy ghost is a person, but they are not three persons but one person.
God = Trinity = Eternal, Immortal, etc. etc.

Stick with me here:
#1: Is the flesh part of the Trinity?
From my understanding and what I've heard from Christians, yes.
So, Trinity = Father, Son (100% God, 100% Man), Holy ghost but they are one God.

#2: Why did Jesus die on the cross?
His death is the penalty for sin. Only a sinless being with infinite power can take the burden for all of mankind.

#3: Did God die?
From my understanding... Kind of? Did the (100% man, 100% God) Jesus die? How can this be possible? 1 Timothy 6:16 says: "God... who alone is immortal". So did God die?

Christians tell me that it was not the 100% God that died, but the 100% man that died. This is because right at the moment of death, Jesus ceased to be 100% God, so only the Flesh died.
Something on the lines of the God nature didn't actually die, its spirit still lived. Only the Flesh died. What's so special about that though? When we die, the same thing happens lol. We have ever-living souls. My rebuttal to this is still 1 Timothy 6:16 "God... who alone is immortal", God does not taste death, this is what separates God from mortal beings.

#4: So God didn't die for our sins, the no-longer-part-of-the-Trinity Flesh did?
What is so special about the Flesh? The moment Jesus died, this Flesh was no longer part of the Trinity... So who/what exactly even died?

The Flesh = (According to Christians) Sinless
The Flesh = (At the moment of death) Not part of the Trinity AKA not God

The Flesh (one sinless human) does not equal one sinless God

So... This one single sinless human, died for all of humanity? How can one sinless man do it for all of mankind? I can understand "one sinless God", because His power is infinite, but...

A man, who was sinless, but with no Godly powers, died for our sins?

Thank you for your patience.

Ps... I think it would also be a mistake to say that Jesus had no Godly powers... He did perform miracles after all...and yes, I know He referred back to God... almost in submission... but when you read thru john... on several occasions we can see He calls Himself the "I am," or similar.... yep, He was God... the issue really is as Blaine Pascal said, something along the lines of, 'there is enough of God available for us to make a decision if we really wish to do so, but enough of the shadows to keep us ignorant'... terrible rendition of the quote... however, the essence of it is there... from my own experience, God did speak To me quite clearly to give it up and to hand It over to Him... I know that sounds fairytale-ish... but I am sure you have heard His voice too....