Re: Was God just in letting Jesus die?
Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2010 7:11 am
I'm not sure I would say that either. Like K said, it is a tricky subject, and like you said, we wouldn't want to divide and separate Christ's humanity and divinity. What I would suggest to you is to study up on the subject of Communication of Idioms. Here's a quote that you might find helpful:Christian2 wrote:God would have experienced death before the Word was separated from the Father for a period of 3 days? Is that what you are saying? Thanks.Byblos wrote:It is perhaps in the way the subject is articulated that makes the difference. It is best said that Christ died according to his human nature but did not die according to his divine nature. But even according to his human nature, God would have experienced death nevertheless (though not dying Himself).Kurieuo wrote:I think it important to protect against dividing Christ into two as though there is the human Christ and divine Christ (two persons). It was Christ (one person) who died, and Christ was both fully human and fully divine. Thus, what is true of Christ's human experience, is true of Christ in his fully divine and fully human nature.Christian2 wrote:Since God cannot die, it was the Christ as man who died, but it seems to me that the Father also had a stake in this because when Jesus took the sins of man upon Himself, the Father could not look at Him the same way and; therefore, suffered loss.
Given this, it is not entirely correct to say it was Christ as man who died, but rather it was Christ being fully human and fully divine who died. Thus, God literally did experience physical death through the person of Christ in human form. Now that can lead to a progression of other issues which each need to be dealt with as they arise. However, we should be careful not to loose sight of the core foundation that Christ is both fully human and fully divine inseparable.
I had copied the above quote in a post I made on a different forum but unfortunately the link from which I extracted it is no longer available. But I do remember Communication of Idioms was discussed in a broader Christological context. Here's a link that might be useful too.It is correct, therefore, to say: “Jesus as God is the creator of the universe," “The Logos as man suffered and died;" but it is false to say: “Christ as man created the world," or “Christ as God was crucified." The two last-mentioned propositions require a negative particle to make them true (“Christ as God was not crucified," “Christ as man did not create the world"), though in this negative form they again become false if the apposition is removed, e.g., “The Son of God was not crucified."