If Jesus is God then how could he die?

Question

According to trinitarian theology, Jesus is both 100% man and 100% God. It is said that Jesus, being 100% God, died. Therefore, God died.

I know that 1/3 of God did not die, because that would be tritheism.

So I've considered two other positions:

1. 100% of the living God stopped living. He died and three days later He rose again.

2. God did not die in the regular human sense. Just as He is "eternally begotten", He is also "eternally dead".

Neither of these positions make any sense to me, so perhaps there is a third option. Could somebody please explain how God's death should be understood?

Answer 1

This is where the doctrine of the hypostatic union is essential. Jesus the Son of God is one person, but he has two natures: the divine nature, and a human nature. The two natures cannot be divided, but neither are they mixed in the union to become hybrid natures.

The divine nature cannot die, but the human nature can. Jesus died completely in his human nature. But we do not say that only the humanity of Jesus died - because it is a union in one person we must say that whole person of Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God, died.

Jesus is definitely God, and so there is validity to saying that "God died", but when most people hear that they will understand it as meaning that the divine nature died. I would recommend not to say "God died" and instead say "Jesus Christ the Son of God died".

Answer 2

Well Christ died in a biological sense, but even though he died physically he didn't 'die' spiritually. He didn't cease to exist after his death, therefore he didn't cease being divine.

1 Peter 3:18 gives a clue:

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body, but made alive in the spirit, in which He also went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, while the ark was being built.

Answer 3

When Jesus was on this earth, He was fully man and fully God, but He did not use His divine powers. Instead, He lived a life as a man, as the second Adam, and stood where Adam fell as a man.

For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift of grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. (Romans 5:15)

Therefore at the cross, it was the man Jesus that died. The perfect life He lived as man is what justifies us (Romans 5:18), and His condemnation as man is what pays for our condemnation. The God Jesus did not die nor ever can cease existing.

I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it back again (John 10:18)

This did not mean that His divine nature did not suffer. God the Son endured separation from the Father as our sin bearer.

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The scripture is clear that Jesus increased in spirit as He grew, just like a man. "And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him." (Luke 2:40). Jesus performed His miracles by faith in His Father, through the Holy Spirit. Had He accessed His divine powers, He would not have stood where Adam fell, and would not have proved God's laws for creations as perfect and just.

Answer 4

The Divinity of Jesus

It is crucial to first understand traditional Christology, and so the meaning of the doctrine 'Jesus is God.'

According to traditional Christianity, that Jesus is God means He is, as to His nature, θεος (the Greek word for 'God'). St. John opens His Gospel thus:

John 1:1 (DRB)

In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.

From the context you can see this doesn't mean 'the Word was with the Father and was the Father,' but that the Father, also known as God, is God, as is the Son.

This could only be possible if He shares the same nature or essence or substance (or 'what makes it what it is') of God the Father, “the only true God,”¹ and as such is not a different God from Him, but the same God: in the words of the Nicene Creed: “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made; of one substance with the Father.”

The Hypostatic Union

The hypostatic union is the doctrine that the “Word [who is] God”¹ has proper to Him two natures: the divine nature and the human nature are united in only one Person,² the divine Word. (And importantly, not a hybrid nature ('neither truly fully man nor truly fully God'),³ but fully possessing each as a complete and independant nature in and of itself.)

If this sounds complicated, it is simply the teaching that “the Word [who is God] became flesh and tabernacled among us.”⁴ And so in “taking”⁵ human flesh, He did not change into another person, nor is another person introduced in the Incarnation event (i.e. no 'divine Son' and 'human Jesus'), but the one divine Word assumes a nature He did not before have for the purposes of Redemption as the New Adam 'from heaven, not from the dust:'⁶ “In the fulness of time, God sent forth His Son, born of woman...”⁷ The same Son, or Word, of God that had it in “mind”⁸ to become Incarnate is the same Son who was incarnated. He proceeded His birth, “from ancient times, from the days of eternity.”⁹

The issue at hand is who died at Calvary, not what died: did the Word take a human nature in which He cannot die, or one in which He can and did?

1 Corinthians 2:8 (DRB)

[If the princes of this world had known the hidden wisdom of God] they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.¹⁰

The Takeaway

Whatever is proper to the human nature Jesus took, or His divine nature, is proper to one and the same Jesus regardless.

Thus, whereas God cannot die in His divine nature, He, a divine person taking on a human nature, can die in a human nature, in which it is possible for Him to experience death.

Revelation 1:17-18 (DRB)

And when I had seen him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying: Fear not. I am the First and the Last, 18 And alive, and was dead, and behold I am living for ever and ever, and have the keys of death and of hell.

Thus, the First and the Last can be born (and thus have a mother) and die precisely and only because He took on a real human nature. So the negative sentiment underlying 'your God died' arguments fail to see that dying is an action God can do when He takes on a human nature—it had nothing to do with the quality of the divine nature or His abilities (i.e. the implied 'your God can be hurt' behind the argument). It's ineffably beautiful rather, that God, for whom it is laughably impossible to hurt or feel pain, went out of His way to be able to feel pain and be tortured, just to save a plethora of ungrateful wretches who spat at Him physically and spiritually at every moment while He was in such a state—just as He knew when He underwent it to redeem us from the fate we merited freely by our sin.

On one hand, it's a great miracle that the Word became flesh. On the other hand, it's not so unimaginable or impossible that the Creator of people (i.e. persons) could, instead of creating a soul with a new person, create a soul and body for a[n already existent] Person (the Word, His Son).¹¹

It's tremendously easy for God to become flesh: what is amazing is that He did and what such a decision implies about His love for us.

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^Footnotes

^{1 John 17:3.}

^{2 'Hypostatic union' contextually means 'the unity of person.' That is, the divine nature of Christ and His assumption of a human nature does not in any way imply a second 'person.' There is only one person, not two 'Jesuses.'}

^{3 A heresy known as Monophysiticism, which is a Greek-derived term meaning 'One-natureism.' That is, in the Incarnation, the the divine and human nature were 'fused,' as it were,' into one new nature: 'divine-human nature.'}

^{4 John 1:1, 14.}

^{5 Philippians 2:7.}

^{6 1 Corinthians 15:47.}

^{7 Galatians 4:4.}

^{8 Galatians 4:4.}

^{9 Micah 5:2; cf. Matthew 2:6.}

^{10 Psalm 24:8.}

^{11 cf. Hebrews 10:5.}

Answer 5

There are two aspects of Jesus' personality here. There is the flesh which people could see and touch. This flesh was mortal like the rest of us but the spirit that got incarnated into that flesh is God Almighty which is immortal. For God is spirit

It was also part of God's plan to show the whole world what He would do to all men at the last day. Jesus Christ, the first born from the dead, a proof to the whole world that God will raise the dead to the resurrection of life or to the resurrection of damnation.

Jesus Christ leads all men into paradise or the dwelling of God. He will shout in a loud voice and the dead shall hear it and come back to life.

If Jesus didn't die then we wouldn't need resurrection. So he had to wear mortality temporarily to fulfill the scripture.

Through the death and resurrection of our Savior on the cross we have hope that death is not the end

Answer 6

Jesus came as God in the flesh. He died in the flesh and his soul descended into hell. Having paid the price, he was rejoined with His resurrected flesh.

Death means separation. Physical death: separation from the body. Spiritual death: separation from the Spirit of God. Resurrected means being rejoined. Soul joined with body. Spirit joined with the Spirit of God.

Jesus died in that his soul was separated from his body and his spirit was separated from the Spirit of God. Having suffered those deaths, he satisfied the Law. But being blameless himself, he was resurrected in both body and spirit.

But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. -- Luke 12:5

Answer 7

Yes, you are right, Jesus died, the Bible says that God detests sin, and at that period on the cross, Jesus was an epitome of sin, that was why for the first time Jesus referred to God as "My God", and not "My Father", because he knew that at that period, God had completely left him or he was no longer connected to God. So that means Jesus died as a man at that time and not an angel or a spiritual being.

So when Jesus finally died, all those sinful burden he carried was flushed away from him and he resurrected in the third day as he foretold his disciples