How can God die in Jesus?

The Hypostatic Union and the Communication of Properties

One of the common questions that people ask about Jesus, if he's God and he died, how can God die in Jesus? God is divine and God can't die since it is a biological function. It makes no sense, they say, that Jesus is God.

Jesus died, therefore Jesus can't be God. Well, the answer lies in two doctrines. One is the hypostatic union. In this we see that Jesus is one person, but he has two natures. He's both God and man. As you can see right there from the table, Jesus is worshipped, he's prayed to, he's called God, the Son of God, he's sinless, he knows all things, he gives eternal life and the fullness of deity dwells in him.

But also as a man, he worshipped, he worshipped the Father, he prayed to the Father, he's called man, he's called the Son of Man, he was tempted, he grew in wisdom, he died and he has a body of flesh and bones.

All right, so what we have there is the hypothetic union, one person with two natures. Now, each nature has attributes, the communication of the properties. It means that the attributes of both natures are ascribed to the single person.

Christ’s Divine and Human Attributes in John, Matthew, and the Gospels

So as God, Jesus would say right there in John 14, 23, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our abode with him. So Jesus, the person is saying, he and the Father will live in you, that's divinity.

In John 17, 5, Jesus says, now Father glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was. And then in John 3, 13, and no one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended from heaven, even the Son of Man.

Now, this is the second person of the Trinity, Jesus, who's God in flesh, and yet as man, he, right there you can see in John 19, 28, he says, I'm thirsty. And also Matthew 4, 2 says that after he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he then became hungry.

And in Matthew 9, 11, excuse me, when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, why is your teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners? So what we see is that Jesus has the attributes, the one person has the attributes of both divinity and humanity.

And Jesus said, I am thirsty. And he says, you know, that I and the Father, the Father and I will dwell in you. So this means that the one person is claiming the attributes of both natures. All right.

The Word Became Flesh and the Divine Value of the Cross

So what this means is, it was the word that became flesh and dwelt among us, John 1, 14. Verse 1, 1 and 14. Jesus claimed to be God, John 8, 58. Jesus' human nature died on the cross. But because the one person of Jesus has two natures, God and man, then when the one person died on the cross, we can say that God died there.

Because the attributes of both natures are ascribed to the single person. And therefore we can say that God died on the cross, not his divinity, but the attributes ascribed to the single person. Jesus, when we perceive the divine, we perceive the divinity through Jesus.

When Jesus walked on water, that was divinity in human flesh. When Jesus raised people from the dead, that was divinity in human flesh. And we see God, in the person of Christ, dying on the cross. The one person died on the cross.

Therefore the sacrifice is of divine value. And Jesus is God in flesh. Amen.