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[Wicker]

If Jesus is God, that means he’s omnipresent, eternal and unchanging, so how could it be possible for him to actually die on the cross?

[jimwalton]

In the Bible, human death is not a cessation but rather a transition. It's moving from one form of existence to another. Jesus died in at least two specific ways.

First, he physically died. He stopped breathing. His heart stopped beating. His blood would go out of his arteries and veins, settling with gravity and giving him a lividity (liver mortis). His muscles would contract (rigor mortis). He would lose his body temperature (algor mortis). He was physically dead.

Second, there is some indication of a possible separation from the Father, which is the definition of spiritual death. Some interpretations of his cry from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" as the outburst showing that forsakenness. Because Jesus was bearing the sins of the world, the Father and the Son endured a separation.

But to address another part of your question, Jesus's essential life never ended (just as ours will never end). he is always omnipresent, eternal, and unchanging (meaning that His divine nature is consistent and immutable).

[New]

> Because Jesus was bearing the sins of the world, the Father and the Son endured a separation.

Could you elaborate on this a bit? How does this mesh with the idea of a triune godhead?

[jimwalton]

Martin Luther had the same thought. He said, "God forsaken by God—who can fathom that?"

It meshes with the idea of the Triune God in that though the Father and the Son are of one essence, they are two separate Persons who can be separate in their actions. The Father can send the Son, according to His power, and the Son can be incarnated according to His nature without dividing the divine essence. For instance, in Quantum Mechanics, there's a principle called superposition, where a particle can exist in two states simultaneously. While I wouldn't want to press the analogy too far, the similarity is still intriguing.

The Son in His physical state (the person of Jesus) addressed the Father as if the Father were in a different place, a separate being even though Jesus acknowledged that the two still shared the same essence (Jn. 10.30).

We can make sense of it this way:

1. Jesus says it to illustrate the depth of his suffering. The Bible says he was dying for the sins of the world: Isa. 53.4-5, 12; 1 Pet. 2.24; 2 Cor. 5.21. God can't look on sin, so Jesus uses the Psalm to illustrate the depth and depravity of human sin and the horror of His suffering
2. He was ontologically divided from God the Father. While the Father and the Son are of one essence, they are two different persons, and God’s "separation" from him shows the judgment of sin.
3. By quoting the first line of Ps. 22 it signifies that God is abandoning him (subjecting him) into the hands of his enemies: death and hell. Legally and theologically speaking he has removed the covenantal blessings from Jesus and is casting him away as an object of his wrath (2 Cor. 5.21; Gal. 3.13).
4. In the Psalm, David expresses agony to the point of death, but ultimately he is delivered and God is glorified. He is "forsaken," but then restored. So also for Jesus. He was inviting all to understand his divine mission.
5. It points us to the explanation of his cry and his death, the holiness of God (Ps. 22.3), and to a prophecy of his death (Ps. 22.6, 7, 8, 12-17).

[Righteous One]

I disagree with the part at the end about Jesus always being omnipresent. I believe that omnipresence was an attribute that the Son gave up when he humbled himself to become the human baby Jesus.

[jimwalton]

It's possible, of course. Philippians 2.7 (Jesus's kenosis) is left open to interpretation (in an absolute sense? a relative sense? metaphorical?). Of his deity? His appearance? His powers? His prerogatives?

I see a hint of omnipresence in Jn. 1.48, but that 's about the only place. This would be an indicator that Jesus was still omnipresent though in a physical body.

We have to struggle with two paradoxical realities: (1) How could Jesus be omnipresent while housed (tabernacling) in a human body? (2) If Jesus were not omnipresent, it would indicate his nature had changed between Heaven and Earth, which may not be theologically tenable (Heb. 13.8).

Nestorianism (Christ was two separate beings, God and man, inhabiting one body two separate natures and no connection with each other) and Eutychianism (Christ had two separate natures in one body where the two natures fused together so that the two become one: "Christ’s humanity was absorbed by his divinity like a drop of wine in the sea": two natures meshing to create a third, single nature) was renounced at the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) in favor of the theology that Christ is one person with two natures that are "unconfused, unchanged, undivided, and inseparable." He is not God in man or God and man; He was (and is) the God/man.

The two ways of seeing it are that Jesus gave something up to become human (the kenosis) or that He added humanity to His divinity when He took the form of a man (both ideas in Phil. 2.7). It seems that theologically speaking, it’s untenable that Jesus somehow was without His divine nature of omnipresence, or else He would be either changed or the two natures were separated. I have trouble entertaining the idea that Jesus was ever less than totally God.

The Heidelberg Catechism (question and answer 47) explains that Christ is simultaneously both truly and completely human and truly and completely divine; He has a divine nature possessing all divine attributes, including omnipresence and omniscience, even though and while He is in a human body with a human brain. The Catechism states. "The divine Son of God does not cease to be omnipresent simply because He unites Himself to a true human nature with all its limitations." Dr. R.C. Sproul writes, "The divine nature is not limited to the physical confines of the body of Jesus. … The divine nature retains its property of omnipresence. The person of Christ can be everywhere, but that ability is through the power of the divine nature, not the human nature."