Did Jesus Die?

I was asked the other day on Facebook if Jesus really died.  Seems like a silly question, but the follow up was, “If Jesus died, did the Trinity cease to exist?”  Here’s my response:

Jesus died like you and I die.  His body and spirit separated (Matt 27:50; Luke 23:46).  Unlike ours, of course, Jesus’ Spirit is divine. 

He didn’t cease to exist for the three days His body lay in the tomb.  He said He would be in paradise that very day with the thief on the cross (Luke 23:43).  At the end of the three days his body lay in the tomb, He raised that body from the dead (John 2:18-22).  That’s pretty hard to do if you’re dead of even unconscious.  So, Jesus’ spirit wasn’t dead, just His body.

Just as a side note here, our spirits never die either.  We just need to decide where we will spend eternity: smoking or non-smoking (Matt. 25:46)

In the December 23rd post, “Jesus the God man,” we looked at the two natures of Jesus: human and divine.  While Jesus emptied Himself of the use of His attributes as God (Phil 2:5-10), His divine nature was intact.  I like to use the example of the eye for this.  The nature of the eye is to see.  When we close our eyelids over our eyes, we drape them in flesh, we can’t see.  But the eye’s nature hasn’t changed.  In the same way, Jesus divine nature didn’t end simply because it was draped in flesh.  He never ceased to be God.

We also saw in “Jesus the God man” that Jesus is God (2 Peter 1:1), and God never dies (Ps. 90:2).

So, no, Jesus never ceased to exist.  His body died and lay dead for three days in the tomb until He Himself raised it along with the Father (Gal. 1:1) and the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:11).  His divine Spirit, however, was alive and active.  The Trinity remained intact.

 

Verses cited above:

Matthew 27:50 (ESV)
⁵⁰  And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

 

Luke 23:46 (ESV)
⁴⁶  Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.

Luke 23:44 (ESV)
⁴⁴  It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour,

 

John 2:18-22 (ESV)
¹⁸  So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?”
¹⁹  Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
²⁰  The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”
²¹  But he was speaking about the temple of his body.
²²  When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

 

Matthew 25:46 (ESV)
⁴⁶  And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

 

Philippians 2:5-11 (ESV)
⁵  Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
⁶  who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
⁷  but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
⁸  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
⁹  Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰  so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹  and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

2 Peter 1:1 (ESV)
¹  Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:

 

Psalm 90:2 (ESV)
²  Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

 

Galatians 1:1 (ESV)
¹  Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—

 

Romans 8:11 (ESV)
¹¹  If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.