God Who Lives, Dies, & Lives Again

Can God Die?

The reality is, the Bible ultimately brings to a focus everything else it says and refracts all its light down into Jesus’ death and resurrection from the dead.

Only the Son can die, only the “Word made flesh.” Jesus could die because he is a human being, a man. But if he is also confessed to be God and worshiped as God, is there not
a sense in which we may speak of God dying?

This is God’s action in Christ Jesus. It is a human individual who is also the living God who hangs on that cross. This is not because he is forced to do, but because he is fulfilling in himself all of the strands of the Old Testament’s sacrificial system.

Paul writes, “God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans. 5:8

We can trust a God who not only is sovereign, but bleeds for us. When there are no other answers for our guilt, our fears, our uncertainties or our anguish, there is One immovable place on which to stand. It is the ground right in front of the cross. It is appropriate to speak of the God who dies, who died for us.

The Gospels all point to the important part of the Biblical plotline: how Jesus starts talking about how he is going to die.

Ironies of the God and the Cross The Real King is Mocked as a King

Matthew 27:27b And mocked Him, saying, Hail King of the Jews. Already Jesus has been savagely beaten three times before he is taken out and crucified. The next thing they do is barracks-room humor. They put some sort of robe on him as if he is an emperor, and say, ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ all the while meaning the opposite.

The Most Powerful Appear Powerless

Matthew 27:40 And saying, You that destroy the temple, and build it in three days, save yourself. If you be the Son of God, come down from the cross.                                                                                                                                                                    When a person was crucified, they hung on a cross not only in pain, but in shame: when men and women were crucified, they were crucified nearly naked. Then the mockery began: Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God! They looked at Jesus in his most abject weakness, and they said, in effect, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days— look at you now, strong man!”

The point is that the temple in the Old Testament was the great meeting place between God
and human beings. It was the place of sacrifice. Now Jesus, referring to his own body, says, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” He means that by the destruction of his own life and its resurrection: He becomes the great meeting place between God and human beings.

Jesus’ Focus is Saving Others Not Himself

The mockery continues: In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. ‘He saved others,’ they said, ‘but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.’ Matthew 27:41–42.

Saving, in Matthew’s Gospel means saving people from their sin: from its guilt, consequences, eternal effects, and power in this life.

That is what drove Jesus supremely: He came to do His Father’s will.

His Father’s will is that He should sacrifice Himself for all those who in grace would believe, saving them from the consequence and power of sin.

A Cry of Despair Does Not Negate Trust in God

Matthew 27:46b Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?

Jesus dies, and His cry is the bleakest, darkest, deepest despair. It is not because He does not know He is doing His Father’s will, but precisely because He does know that He is doing His Father’s will. The Father’s will was that He bear our sin in His own body on the cross: absorbing the curse, discharging the debt, paying the guilt, and tearing the veil: so that we can ourselves get into the Most Holy Place, into the very presence of the living God.

The God Who Dies, Lives Again

As important as the cross is, it is not the end of the story. All of the New Testament writers focus equally on the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The second Sunday after the Resurrection, Jesus showed up and Thomas confessed, “My Lord and my God!” John 20:28 He came to the only reasonable conclusion: Jesus is not only a resurrected man, miracle enough!, but somehow, incredibly, He is God, with all of God’s right to forgive sins. And so he bowed before the resurrected Jesus. Everyone must bow before the God who lives, whether it is now, or on the future day of Judgment.