Did God Die?

A few weeks back our college group was talking about the donuts that we usually have on Sundays. Mark mentioned that he likes the cronuts. What is a cronut? Is it a donut or is it a croissant? The cronut is a croissant-like dough that has been fried in oil and generally covered with donut cream. It is therefore, neither a donut nor a croissant, but some type of hybrid. It is a new pastry item that we have simply chosen to call a donut because we can buy them at donut shops.

It turns out that it was invented by Dominique Ansel, a pastry chef in New York City in 2013. There are other chefs who claim to have invented the same item years earlier, but their version of the cronut was only known to locals. Ansel’s cronut became a national sensation within months. It was so popular that black market copies of his cronut started to sell for $5 each. It didn’t take long before donut shops around the country were making and selling their own rendition of cronuts.

We like to label things. We like to know what they are. We like to know how we can place things in the proper category. Even when it comes to people who do not like to be labeled or categorized. Baby Boomers don’t mind hearing that they have a stonrg work ethic, are self-assurred, competitive, goal-centric, or disciplined. But they don’t like being labeled as a selfish, me-centered generation. The average Boomer is the epitome of the American Dream culture: you can be anything if you just try hard enough. It made them into hard workers, but the focus of their work was on self-improvement.

Generation X is known for being technically competent, strive for high-quality end results, desire a balance between work and life, want to be free agents, and see themselves as a marketable commodity. But they don’t like to be labeled as geeks. Yet the average Gen Xer can be defined by the computer age. They are the builders of technology. They are the wings that reinvigorated artistic culture and introspection. When they are not creating, they are looking inward for a greater purpose. This generation helped to spread new age philosophies and techniques throughout the culture and believe that looking within is just as important as looking without.

Millennials are often known as being highly educated, technically savvy, community oriented, see themselves as global citizens, and are progressive. They don’t like to be classified as narcissists. Yet many reflect that image because they grew up in a culture of instant gratification with constant praise from parents/grandparents. This has led to a generation that believes they can do anything and everything and that they can do it better than anyone else ever has or ever will. They have no fear of failure because in their eyes they never fail. Everything they do is valuable, just maybe not understood by the ignorant masses surrounding them. They believe that you cannot figure them out or judge them because they are beyond your understanding. They know it and they want you to know that they know it.

As you can see, we like to label and categorize. So, when someone looks at the Bible they want everything to be easily compartmentalized so that they can describe it and explain it with ease. But much of the Bible does not conform to our way of thinking. God's ways are not our ways. We have a hard time trying to explain it, because we do not really understand it. That is the case for the concept of the death of Jesus.

We have been told that Jesus was fully God and fully man, and that is true. So, because of this fact, I have heard it said many times that God died on the cross. In fact, I have even said that before and I was wrong to do so. You see, there is a problem with saying that God died on the cross. God cannot die because God is spirit and eternal. God, the Triune God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, existed from before time began and He has no ending.

If God cannot die, then how do we explain the death of Jesus? We must first understand exactly who Jesus was.

Jesus has two natures

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-3, 14, ESV)

The Word here is a description for Jesus. He was there in the beginning with God, He was God, He created everything, He became flesh, and He is the Son of God. This passage shows us the two natures of Jesus. He is God and He became flesh as the Son of God. These two natures are present throughout the life of Jesus on earth.

Each nature is full and complete

When Jesus came to earth, He did not give up His God nature. He remained fully God. But He also did not just exist on earth in the image of a man, He actually became flesh. He was God in human flesh or God Incarnate. Each nature remained complete.

The Bible describes the humanity of Jesus. Jesus was born as a baby. He grew as any human would. While Jesus never married or had children, He did have a family (He had at least 5 half-brothers that were the children of Mary and Joseph) and He had friends (Lazarus, Martha and Mary as well as the disciples). He got hungry, He got tired, He wept, and He was eventually put to death on a cross.

The Bible also describes the deity of Jesus. God recognized that Jesus was fully God. In Hebrews 1:8, we can see that God refers to Jesus as God:

“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.” (Hebrews 1:8, ESV)

Most people accept the strange fact that Jesus had two natures. He was both God and man at the same time. Still only one person, but two natures. The Bible shows that Jesus had all the same attributes as God: He knows everything, He is everywhere, He is all powerful, rules over everything, never began to exist and never will cease to exist, and is the Creator. He is God.

And because Jesus was fully God and Jesus died on the cross, many people mistakenly say that God died. The problem is that while they understand that Jesus had two natures, they don’t understand the distinctness of each nature.

Each nature remains distinct

Because each nature remains distinct we can know two things: they do not alter one another’s essential properties and they do not mix together to create a third kind of nature. Jesus is not like a mixture of water and some drink powder that blends together to create a new mixture. One nature did not absorb the other. Neither did one nature simply conform to the other.

Jesus’ human nature is human only and nothing else. His divine nature is divine, and only divine. To understand this, John Piper gives this example:

Jesus’s human nature did not become all-knowing through its union with God the Son, and neither did his divine nature become ignorant of anything. If any of the natures underwent a change in its essential nature, then Christ is no longer truly and fully human, or truly and fully divine. (John Piper)

What Piper was saying is that while Jesus the Son of God knows everything, Jesus the human would have had limited knowledge. That is why Jesus prayed to God the Father. That is why Jesus asked God if it were possible to find another way for salvation that would not involve His death. That is why Jesus could say that He did not know when He would return to earth as God promised. Jesus said that only the Father knows. But Jesus as God knows everything and would certainly know when He would return.

Because these two natures remained distinct, the human nature could die. It is mind-blowing to us. The closest thing we have that we can relate to this unique distinction between the divine and human natures of Jesus are psychoses, such as split personality disorder. Jesus did not have two separate personalities, He had two complete distinct natures. And only God could manage such a miraculous thing.

The union of Christ’s deity and humanity in one Person makes it such that we have all that we need in the same Savior. How glorious! Because Jesus is God, he is all-powerful and he cannot be defeated. Because he is God, he is the only adequate Savior. Because he is God, believers are safe and can never perish; we have security. Because he is God, we can have confidence that he will empower us for the task that he commands us for. And because he is God, all people will be accountable to him when he returns to judge the world. 

Because Jesus is man, he has experienced the same things that we do. Because he is man, he can identify with us more intimately. Because he is man, he can come to our aid as our sympathetic High Priest when we reach the limits of our human weaknesses. Because he is man, we can relate to him — he is not far off and uninvolved. Because he is man, we cannot complain that God does not know what we are going through. He experienced it firsthand. (John Piper)