Two questions that we are told often are heard from on the Muslim front , and the debate stage with an Atheist. There are actually not bad questions. Because Jesus is God according to His own claims. And His death and resurrection is also confirmed by Scripture and other historical secular publications of His day and era.
So why was Jesus able to die and still remain God. The answer is pretty simple, and at the same time complicated. For had He not died He would not be God at all. How can I say such a thing? Stick with me we will get there soon.
He took on the form of mortal man. He entered into His own creation where death was not something that could be avoided. Well it could, but it required living a sinless life. Which He did as God the Father’s only Son. God (that One who is Father Son and Holy Spirit). It was He who had already judged that the wages of sin is death. Jesus did not sin as a mortal man, so the very fact that He became man did not seal His death, but He came with the purpose of fulfilling His own prophecies (His own Word). He came for no other reason than to teach and to die to provide what that word stated, and not just to die but to take upon himself God’s (that would be His own penalty) of wrath for mankind’s sins. No other human being who has ever lived could do that. Only God Himself could do it. The very sin that He agreed to take on Himself caused His human Death. His death began that moment in the Garden when sin was heaped upon Him and it was then that He cried to the Father that His soul was sorrowful unto death. His sweat was bloody. And His prayer was for this cup to be removed.
So just coming to die would not accomplish His purpose. We all die and that does nothing toward the payment for sin. In fact we all who are in Christ will also be resurrected even. as He was. The debt is still outstanding for everyone else. Not because it was not paid, but because not all would believe. But 2000 years ago He did pay the price for your sin and mine.
Those who try to tell us that He was here in the flesh for the purpose of offering Israel a kingdom don’t realize what they are implying. For if that was His offer that naturally would mean that He came hoping not to die (not to pay for your sin). In that thinking they are simply wrong and ignorant of just how far from being TRUTH that claim is.
Zechariah 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout [in triumph,] O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (NASB1995)
SALVATION was His purpose, and it had only one requirement: a perfect Lamb.
Jesus knew the word because He is the Word. He made the plan with His Father. He came into Jerusalem humble riding on a donkey to bring salvation not conquest and the offering of an earthly kingdom. Not then. He did not enter as The King with a conquering army. He came as messiah and redeemer with only His life to ransoms some not many. Oh He wept over Jerusalem. For it was most of the Jews who rejected Him and His offer of salvation. You see as God He knew His own end on a cruel Roman cross. But He also knew that one day He will come back to Jerusalem as that conquering King of the universe. And His angelic armies will be with Him. We will come with Him.
But His first coming held forth only one mission that He alone could fulfill. No man took His life from Him but He laid it down of His own accord (John 10:17-18).
First of all He would die because He is God the Son. He had to come because He had told us of His coming centuries before to redeem His people (all who believe and follow are His). And because He is God His having told us these things before hand sealed the very act of His coming, and of His dying. If He had not come He would be proven nothing more than all the other false gods to ever enter into man’s mind and thus history. If He had not died mankind would be lost for all eternity.
But the simple answer is in fact profound: for God cannot die, and so He was never truly dead. Oh His flesh, His human body did die and did lay in a grave for 3 days, but Who He is (God who is Spirit and Truth, and Who is worshiped as such cannot die) God did not die, just as you and I who are in Christ will never die.
John 11:26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” (NASB1995)
Hallelujah! Amen, I do believe.
John 3:18 “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (NASB1995)
