Did God Die On The Cross?

Luke 24:7 “Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.”

I was at a bible conference last weekend and had made mention in the sermon that “It was not God who died on the cross but rather the Son of man” and two men at the conference approached me with questions about my statement and had insisted that God indeed did die on the cross. So the question is did God die on the cross? I say no, God cannot die. This is a question that can be only answered by a proper understanding of the “Incarnation of Christ” The word “incarnation” is like the word “rapture” neither one are biblical terms but they are both well defined in the scriptures. When I say that God did not die on the cross I certainly do not want to belittle the death of Christ at all and I do not. God is an eternal being and because of that very fact He cannot die nor can any part of Him die or else He would not be an eternal God. The word incarnation put simple is two completely separate natures in one body i.e. the Son of God and the Son of man. With this understanding we have the eternal Son of God in a human body known as the Son of man with two separate natures; however the two natures are not mixed or confounded. The Son of God was not born but rather the Son of man because the Son of God is eternal, The Son of God did not grow and learn because the Son of God is omniscient, just as the Son of God did not die He is eternal. One of these two men asked me what I was going to do with the scripture that read “God died” but after an extensive bible search I cannot find such a scripture. Ever search showed me that Christ died, or the Son of man died, but never God died or the Son of God died. My question is this why did Christ cry on the cross “…My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46. The word forsaken comes from the Greek word egkataleipō and means to leave behind in some place or to desert and we certainly know that God would never desert the Son of Man while on the cross so we must take the idea that there was a separation which means the word here means to leave behind in some place. With that being said I believe just before death deity had separated from humanity leaving the Son of man to die on the cross.

Some will say that this belittles the sacrifice and makes it insignificant but I must ask why? In the temptation was Satan tempting the Son of God or the Son of man? Satan is a fallen angel and knows God and knows God cannot be tempted so therefore he must have been tempting the Son of man. It does seem that Satan did not fully understand this man was the Son of God “And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.” Luke 4:3. While it is true that in one you have the other however the fact remains there were two separate natures in this one body. The Son of man was no less a redeeming sacrifice for our sins than the Son of God. The Son of man was the perfect sacrifice because He had lived a perfect life and by that I mean a sin free life and that alone makes Him a sufficient sacrifice.

These two men also quoted past theologians such as Calvin, Wesley, and etc. and I must say to a point all of these men all had some wonderful theology; however we must put in mind all of these were men of reformation meaning they were reformers of Catholicism and still carried a lot of Catholicism doctrine in their hearts and minds. As a Baptist I do not adhere to Catholicism in fact I do not find much that I do agree with them on, if anything. I also read and study a lot of these men but with a grain of salt. Let us remember they are just men, very smart men but not infallible. God was not born and God did not die, please do not allow ourselves to belittle God and make Him like ourselves.