How Can God the Maker Die?
Question : How can God die? If Jesus is God and entered in to His creation, how then can God die a death of a man and yet remain as God still? Is it not oxymoron? If you say Jesus as God, and God Himself dies on the cross, how then could he have remained as God after his death?
Answer: Greetings in Jesus wonderful name!
This is a very good question, How Can God Die? But to understanding how Jesus as God could really die, we have to go deeper in to Scripture to really understand and agree how it is possible with Jesus.
First of all we need to understand the virgin birth of Jesus in order for us to grasp, how he could be God and at the same time man.
Isaiah the prophet before nearly seven and half centuries before Jesus came prophesied saying, "For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." (Isa 9:6) and further he said in another chapter, "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel." (Isa 7:14).
In the above Scriptures we can notice that the child will be born as a human being, but the one who resides within as a spirit in that body will be the "Son" who is given from heaven, He is eternal God who will be called "Mighty God".
Also we see that a virgin was prophesied to conceive a Son who will be called 'Immanuel' which means 'God with us'. First of all how can a virgin conceive? And that too a Son will be born who will be called 'God with us'?
First of all no women who is a virgin has ever conceived without a human seed of a man, when the time of the fulfillment of the prophecy came to pass which was first given by God in Gen 3:15, Mary the mother of Jesus when she was told that the "Son of the Highest" (Luke 1:32) will be born through her, she in fact asked how without knowing a man she will be able to see the fulfillment? The angel Gabriel replied saying that the Holy Spirit who is God will overshadow her and by doing it, He will be placing the eternal Son of God as a tiny human seed to conceive within her, and therefore the Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:33-35). We know that if God can create man and all the universe, he can easily disguise Himself and come as a man to this earth, for nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37). Jesus left all His glory of His privileges as God which He had as the eternal Son of God, and began to live as the wisdom of God for all humans once God planned and created humans on earth (Php 2:7-8). Since then He humbled himself and visited the earth as like a angel in pre-incarnate form (Gen 22:15; 35:9, 11; Exo 3:2; Jos 5:14), but later chose to become a man to die for the sins of humans and redeem them from it (Matt 1:21), that is why when He was about to die, before that He prayed to God to restore the former glory which He had with him before all creation (John 17:5).
Then we know that God is one in essence, yet they are three in persons. The word 'Trinity' was coined to describe and keep safe this truth of the Bible intact without corruption. How do we know that God is three in person? Some people say that if God is three in person, he could also be four, five and more than that also. Why should you stop at three and form a doctrine of Christianity based on that and call it 'Trinity'? The following are the reason I give why there are only three persons in the God-head and not less or more than that?
1) Jesus Himself said that God is just three in person when He described to his disciples that they should baptize a new believer in "the name of [(i.e.) the one and only God] the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt 28:19).
2) Jesus Himself said that "the Father" resides in heaven (Matt 6:9), and the Spirit of God is the one through whom He works to drive demons out (Matt 12:28), and He Himself described Himself as some one who was alive before Abraham was alive on earth because He was the Angel of God who spoke to him from heaven (Gen 22:15-17; John 8:56, 57-58). Jesus has never ever has mentioned any other person as God anywhere in the New Testament.
3) In the Old Testament, we see that God during creation was dialoguing and discussing with Himself in plurality saying, "Let us make man in our image" (Gen 1:26). The Hebrew word used for 'God' is 'Eloheem' which means 'gods in the ordinary sense; but specifically used of the supreme God, thus in the very first chapter of Genesis, the necessity of a term conveying both the unity of the one God and yet allowing for a plurality of persons is found (Gen. 1:2, 26). The words "let us" is used else where of God speaking in Genesis dialoguing and discussing with Himself in plurality (Gen 3:22; 11:7). Isaiah the prophet recorded God saying, "for us" in plurality (Isa 6:8) and futher in Isa 54:5 we see the word 'Maker' is plural in Hebrew. There is one statement in the Old Testament that gives a fairly clear indication of the Trinity in Isaiah 48:16, 17, where in verse sixteen, God the Son is speaking. He identifies the Father [the Sovereign Lord] and His Spirit as having sent Him. In the next verse, the Son is clearly spoken of as the Lord. Consequently these verses identify three distinct Persons who are God without denying the fact there is only one God. The Old Testament also makes a distinction between the Lord who is in heaven and the one on earth (Gen 19:24).
4) God the Father is described and identified in the Old Testament as 'Father' in relationship to His people (Isa 63:16; Mal 2:10), God the Son is identified and described with this following question, Do you know the God's name or His Son's name who ascended in to heaven or descended (Prov 30:4; John 3:13) and He is further shown in Psa 45:6, 7 where we see God the Father uttering a dialogue of praise upon God the Son? We also see God the Father making two statement prophetically about God the Son (Psa 2:6, 7, 12). Also God the eternal Son in His pre-incarnate form in which he visited the people of God as the Angel of the Lord to protect them, provide for them and pronounce God's will and His word to them, in such a appearance he had the power to forgive sins which only God can have (Exo 23:20, 21). The Holy Spirit, or the "Spirit of the Lord," is also mentioned in the Old Testament. In the Book of Genesis we read Him as the Spirit of Creation in the beginning (Gen 1:2). The same Spirit of the Lord is prophetically pronounced as the one who will come upon God the Son who will come to the nation of Israel as its Messiah (Isa 11:2, 3). And in another place the Messiah is seen telling that the Spirit of the Sovereign Lord as the anointing behind the ministry of salvation and healing and miracles (Isa 61:1; Matt 12:28). The Spirit of God is distinguished from the Lord in the account leading up to the Flood (Gen 6:3). The Trinity is also foreshadowed in the triple benediction of Numbers 6:24-27. The doxology of Isaiah 6:3 also gives hint of the Trinity. When Jacob blessed his son Joseph, he used the name of God three times. Each time God's name was identified differently and the triple benedictions are consistent with the doctrine of the Trinity (Gen 48:15, 16).
5) Although the Trinity is not explicitly taught in the Old Testament, the basis of this doctrine is certainly found there. This is what the New Testament saints who heard the concept of Trinity from the first apostles of the Lord Jesus, when they had died, to keep the doctrine of the oneness and plurality of God to be intact at the same time, without any one to disown or distort either one of them, had formed the word 'Trinity' so that apostates cannot destroy the true concept of one God in essence but three in person.
Having seen both in the Old Testament and New Testament alike, God cannot be more than three because only the three names of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are mentioned as God and having the essence of God, and all other being have been told to be created and have come out of them through their creative creation. So there cannot be more than one God in essence of their Character and three in person-hood.
We see even during the time of Jesus' baptism, we see the Father's voice coming out of heaven uniquely, the Holy Spirit of God descending from heaven like a dove and alighting upon Jesus who was on earth at that time, thus we see three person but still those three with the same essence of God in their character at the same time (Matt 3:16-17). We see humans as one family of a type of beings with humanness, like them God is one of a essence of type and character in the Godness whose name is one, but three in person (Deut 6:4).
If Jesus was just one person in the Godhead, you could ask the question at least with a logical human point of view, If Jesus was God in the flesh, how could God die? But as we know that the God the Maker is one God in essence, three in person, Jesus could die as a human, yet remain as God in the spirit working with tandem coherence with the other two person of the Trinity. In other words, God is the Spirit (John 4:24), who created the material universe out of nothingness of non material words (Heb 11:3; Rom 4:17).
Because Jesus who through the virgin birth could miraculously be one hundred percentage man, and one hundred percentage God (1 Tim 2:3, 5; Rev 1:8; John 8:58), Jesus having entered in to His creation, was able to be still God in his spirit, but yet die a death of a man and yet remain as God still.
Jesus died on the cross, yet willingly he died by giving His spirit willingly in to the hands of the Father God in heaven (Luke 23:46), we should never forget that Jesus as God had right to give up his own life or retain it in his own body but he never used the God power for Himself or anyone, apart from the will of the Father in heaven (John 10:17-18). In other words, by agreement, Jesus even though God, from the time of his birth to death on the cross, he walked as God's Son by inheritance (Php 2:6-7), submitted unconditionally as the slave of God (Mar 10:45; John 13:5) and learned obedience by suffering as the Son of Man (Heb 5:8), so that all humans can be delivered from sins and can receive the eternal life and friendship with God (John 17:3).
One simple thing we must understand as humans, death is not the end, it is the beginning of a new life as the soul/spirit returns to God who had given us at the time of our birth. The righteous people who believed Jesus and have died will spend their life with God, and the unrighteous unbelievers who have never believed Jesus as their Lord and Savior will wait in the tormenting prison called Hades for a period of time, after which God will judge them and will send them in to eternal hell fire forever where his Presence will be no more. Jesus as God of the whole earth, just shed his physical body and have gone to heaven in his spirit, from where he was still the ruler of the whole universe. Jesus as God was immortal, the same Jesus as man was mortal as all humans (1 Tim 6:16). Jesus was perfect God, perfect human.
So only a unlearned person who have no knowledge about the virgin birth of Christ, the trinity of God, the independent spirit-life of Jesus even without His body and the knowledge from the Scripture that Jesus was, is and forever will be God for eternity will only not be able to understand, how Jesus could be human and still be God and also die as God. Those who clearly understand the above information will clearly know that Jesus as God Himself can limit himself to die on the cross, and still remain as God even after his death. Thank you.
Much Blessings.....
Answer: Greetings in Jesus wonderful name!
This is a very good question, How Can God Die? But to understanding how Jesus as God could really die, we have to go deeper in to Scripture to really understand and agree how it is possible with Jesus.
First of all we need to understand the virgin birth of Jesus in order for us to grasp, how he could be God and at the same time man.
Isaiah the prophet before nearly seven and half centuries before Jesus came prophesied saying, "For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." (Isa 9:6) and further he said in another chapter, "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel." (Isa 7:14).
In the above Scriptures we can notice that the child will be born as a human being, but the one who resides within as a spirit in that body will be the "Son" who is given from heaven, He is eternal God who will be called "Mighty God".
Also we see that a virgin was prophesied to conceive a Son who will be called 'Immanuel' which means 'God with us'. First of all how can a virgin conceive? And that too a Son will be born who will be called 'God with us'?
First of all no women who is a virgin has ever conceived without a human seed of a man, when the time of the fulfillment of the prophecy came to pass which was first given by God in Gen 3:15, Mary the mother of Jesus when she was told that the "Son of the Highest" (Luke 1:32) will be born through her, she in fact asked how without knowing a man she will be able to see the fulfillment? The angel Gabriel replied saying that the Holy Spirit who is God will overshadow her and by doing it, He will be placing the eternal Son of God as a tiny human seed to conceive within her, and therefore the Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:33-35). We know that if God can create man and all the universe, he can easily disguise Himself and come as a man to this earth, for nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37). Jesus left all His glory of His privileges as God which He had as the eternal Son of God, and began to live as the wisdom of God for all humans once God planned and created humans on earth (Php 2:7-8). Since then He humbled himself and visited the earth as like a angel in pre-incarnate form (Gen 22:15; 35:9, 11; Exo 3:2; Jos 5:14), but later chose to become a man to die for the sins of humans and redeem them from it (Matt 1:21), that is why when He was about to die, before that He prayed to God to restore the former glory which He had with him before all creation (John 17:5).
Then we know that God is one in essence, yet they are three in persons. The word 'Trinity' was coined to describe and keep safe this truth of the Bible intact without corruption. How do we know that God is three in person? Some people say that if God is three in person, he could also be four, five and more than that also. Why should you stop at three and form a doctrine of Christianity based on that and call it 'Trinity'? The following are the reason I give why there are only three persons in the God-head and not less or more than that?
1) Jesus Himself said that God is just three in person when He described to his disciples that they should baptize a new believer in "the name of [(i.e.) the one and only God] the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt 28:19).
2) Jesus Himself said that "the Father" resides in heaven (Matt 6:9), and the Spirit of God is the one through whom He works to drive demons out (Matt 12:28), and He Himself described Himself as some one who was alive before Abraham was alive on earth because He was the Angel of God who spoke to him from heaven (Gen 22:15-17; John 8:56, 57-58). Jesus has never ever has mentioned any other person as God anywhere in the New Testament.
3) In the Old Testament, we see that God during creation was dialoguing and discussing with Himself in plurality saying, "Let us make man in our image" (Gen 1:26). The Hebrew word used for 'God' is 'Eloheem' which means 'gods in the ordinary sense; but specifically used of the supreme God, thus in the very first chapter of Genesis, the necessity of a term conveying both the unity of the one God and yet allowing for a plurality of persons is found (Gen. 1:2, 26). The words "let us" is used else where of God speaking in Genesis dialoguing and discussing with Himself in plurality (Gen 3:22; 11:7). Isaiah the prophet recorded God saying, "for us" in plurality (Isa 6:8) and futher in Isa 54:5 we see the word 'Maker' is plural in Hebrew. There is one statement in the Old Testament that gives a fairly clear indication of the Trinity in Isaiah 48:16, 17, where in verse sixteen, God the Son is speaking. He identifies the Father [the Sovereign Lord] and His Spirit as having sent Him. In the next verse, the Son is clearly spoken of as the Lord. Consequently these verses identify three distinct Persons who are God without denying the fact there is only one God. The Old Testament also makes a distinction between the Lord who is in heaven and the one on earth (Gen 19:24).
4) God the Father is described and identified in the Old Testament as 'Father' in relationship to His people (Isa 63:16; Mal 2:10), God the Son is identified and described with this following question, Do you know the God's name or His Son's name who ascended in to heaven or descended (Prov 30:4; John 3:13) and He is further shown in Psa 45:6, 7 where we see God the Father uttering a dialogue of praise upon God the Son? We also see God the Father making two statement prophetically about God the Son (Psa 2:6, 7, 12). Also God the eternal Son in His pre-incarnate form in which he visited the people of God as the Angel of the Lord to protect them, provide for them and pronounce God's will and His word to them, in such a appearance he had the power to forgive sins which only God can have (Exo 23:20, 21). The Holy Spirit, or the "Spirit of the Lord," is also mentioned in the Old Testament. In the Book of Genesis we read Him as the Spirit of Creation in the beginning (Gen 1:2). The same Spirit of the Lord is prophetically pronounced as the one who will come upon God the Son who will come to the nation of Israel as its Messiah (Isa 11:2, 3). And in another place the Messiah is seen telling that the Spirit of the Sovereign Lord as the anointing behind the ministry of salvation and healing and miracles (Isa 61:1; Matt 12:28). The Spirit of God is distinguished from the Lord in the account leading up to the Flood (Gen 6:3). The Trinity is also foreshadowed in the triple benediction of Numbers 6:24-27. The doxology of Isaiah 6:3 also gives hint of the Trinity. When Jacob blessed his son Joseph, he used the name of God three times. Each time God's name was identified differently and the triple benedictions are consistent with the doctrine of the Trinity (Gen 48:15, 16).
5) Although the Trinity is not explicitly taught in the Old Testament, the basis of this doctrine is certainly found there. This is what the New Testament saints who heard the concept of Trinity from the first apostles of the Lord Jesus, when they had died, to keep the doctrine of the oneness and plurality of God to be intact at the same time, without any one to disown or distort either one of them, had formed the word 'Trinity' so that apostates cannot destroy the true concept of one God in essence but three in person.
Having seen both in the Old Testament and New Testament alike, God cannot be more than three because only the three names of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are mentioned as God and having the essence of God, and all other being have been told to be created and have come out of them through their creative creation. So there cannot be more than one God in essence of their Character and three in person-hood.
We see even during the time of Jesus' baptism, we see the Father's voice coming out of heaven uniquely, the Holy Spirit of God descending from heaven like a dove and alighting upon Jesus who was on earth at that time, thus we see three person but still those three with the same essence of God in their character at the same time (Matt 3:16-17). We see humans as one family of a type of beings with humanness, like them God is one of a essence of type and character in the Godness whose name is one, but three in person (Deut 6:4).
If Jesus was just one person in the Godhead, you could ask the question at least with a logical human point of view, If Jesus was God in the flesh, how could God die? But as we know that the God the Maker is one God in essence, three in person, Jesus could die as a human, yet remain as God in the spirit working with tandem coherence with the other two person of the Trinity. In other words, God is the Spirit (John 4:24), who created the material universe out of nothingness of non material words (Heb 11:3; Rom 4:17).
Because Jesus who through the virgin birth could miraculously be one hundred percentage man, and one hundred percentage God (1 Tim 2:3, 5; Rev 1:8; John 8:58), Jesus having entered in to His creation, was able to be still God in his spirit, but yet die a death of a man and yet remain as God still.
Jesus died on the cross, yet willingly he died by giving His spirit willingly in to the hands of the Father God in heaven (Luke 23:46), we should never forget that Jesus as God had right to give up his own life or retain it in his own body but he never used the God power for Himself or anyone, apart from the will of the Father in heaven (John 10:17-18). In other words, by agreement, Jesus even though God, from the time of his birth to death on the cross, he walked as God's Son by inheritance (Php 2:6-7), submitted unconditionally as the slave of God (Mar 10:45; John 13:5) and learned obedience by suffering as the Son of Man (Heb 5:8), so that all humans can be delivered from sins and can receive the eternal life and friendship with God (John 17:3).
One simple thing we must understand as humans, death is not the end, it is the beginning of a new life as the soul/spirit returns to God who had given us at the time of our birth. The righteous people who believed Jesus and have died will spend their life with God, and the unrighteous unbelievers who have never believed Jesus as their Lord and Savior will wait in the tormenting prison called Hades for a period of time, after which God will judge them and will send them in to eternal hell fire forever where his Presence will be no more. Jesus as God of the whole earth, just shed his physical body and have gone to heaven in his spirit, from where he was still the ruler of the whole universe. Jesus as God was immortal, the same Jesus as man was mortal as all humans (1 Tim 6:16). Jesus was perfect God, perfect human.
So only a unlearned person who have no knowledge about the virgin birth of Christ, the trinity of God, the independent spirit-life of Jesus even without His body and the knowledge from the Scripture that Jesus was, is and forever will be God for eternity will only not be able to understand, how Jesus could be human and still be God and also die as God. Those who clearly understand the above information will clearly know that Jesus as God Himself can limit himself to die on the cross, and still remain as God even after his death. Thank you.
Much Blessings.....
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment