A Series of Questions about Jesus with very short answers
(non-scholarly, explaining -- not defending -- the positions)
Is
Jesus the God? if He is God how can the
man kill God?
We know Jesus was God--the evidence is too great to deny that.
He was more than just a human, and he was higher than angels. Angels had to worship Him even. But somehow, when He came to earth he took on a human life and a human body. God the Father called His Son "God" himself:
Here is a passage from the bible about this:
And when God brings his firstborn Son into
the world, he says,
“Let
all God’s angels worship him.”
This is what God said about the angels:
“God makes his angels become like
winds. He makes his servants become like
flames of fire.”
But God
said this about his Son:
“God,
your throne will last forever and ever. You will rule your kingdom with fairness.
You love right and hate evil, so God has chosen you from among your friends; he
has set you apart with much joy.”
And God never said this to an angel:
“Sit by me at my right side until I put your
enemies under your control.”
But we see Jesus, who for a short time was made lower than the angels. And now he is
wearing a crown of glory and honor because he suffered and died. And by God’s
grace, he died for everyone.
Since these children are people with physical bodies, Jesus himself became like
them. He did this so that, by dying,
he could destroy the one who has the power of death—the devil—and free
those who were like slaves all their lives because of their fear of death. Clearly,
it is not angels that Jesus helps, but the people who are from Abraham. For this reason Jesus had to be made like
his brothers and sisters in every way so he could be their merciful and
faithful high priest in service to God. Then Jesus could die in their place to take away their sins.
And in another place in Scripture:
"Christ himself was like God in
everything. But he did not think that being equal with God was something to be
used for his own benefit. But he gave up his place with God and made
himself nothing. He was born as a man and became like a servant. And when
he was living as a man, he humbled himself and was fully obedient to
God, even when that caused his
death—death on a cross. So God raised
him to the highest place. God made his
name greater than every other name so that every knee will bow to the name of
Jesus— everyone in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. And everyone will confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord and bring glory to God the Father."
And another (there are so many more):
In the beginning there was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning. All things were made by him, and nothing was
made without him. … The Word became a
human and lived among us. We saw his glory—the glory that belongs to the
only Son of the Father…
The Son of God was not born on earth first, but He came down from heaven and took on a human life and human body. This person who was both God and Man was named Jesus at the birth of His human body. He was anointed by God the Holy Spirit when He began His ministry around 30 years of age. He took on the title of "Christ" (which means 'anointed one' or 'messiah' in Hebrew).
"Again, Jesus said to the people, “I
will leave you, and you will look for me, but you will die in your sins. You
cannot come where I am going.”
So the Jews asked, “Will he kill himself? Is
that why he said, ‘You cannot come where I am going’?”
Jesus said, “You people are from here below, but I am from above. You belong to this world, but I don’t belong to this world. So I told you that you would die in your sins. Yes, you will die in your sins if you don’t believe that I am he.”
So, the closest we can say is that the Lord Jesus has two parts that are connected. One part (the Spirit) is a part of God, shared with the Father. One part (the human life/soul) is attached to God, because it is attached to His Spirit.
His body is not God, but is inhabited by God -- like the Tent of Moses and Solomon's temple in the Torah/Taurat/Hebrew Bible.
When God used Moses to bring His people out of Egypt, He had Moses build a holy tent for a shrine and place for sacrifices and worship. After Moses finished building it, God sent his presence or glory (in the form of a bright cloud) into it:
Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting. The glory of the LORD filled the holy tent.
Moses couldn’t enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled on it.
The glory of the LORD filled the holy tent.
The people of Israel continued their travels. When the cloud lifted from
above the holy tent, they started out. But if the cloud didn’t lift, they did
not start out. They stayed until the day it lifted. So the cloud of the LORD was above the holy
tent during the day. Fire was in the cloud at night. The whole community of
Israel could see the cloud during all of their travels.
The holy tent was set up. It was the tent
where the tablets of the covenant were kept. On the day it was set up, the cloud covered it. From evening until
morning the cloud that was above the tent looked like fire. That’s what
continued to happen. The cloud covered the tent. At night the cloud looked like
fire.
The temple that was built by Solomon was a place where God was present--His glory would descend into it so that His presence was there, but that did not mean that God was no longer in heaven too.
When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from the sky and burned
up the burnt offering and the sacrifices. The
LORD’s glory filled the Temple. The priests could not enter the Temple of the
LORD, because the LORD’s glory filled it. When all the people of Israel saw
the fire come down from heaven and the LORD’s
glory on the Temple, they bowed down on the pavement with their faces to
the ground. They worshiped and thanked the LORD, saying, “He is good; his love continues
forever.”
God is too 'big' to live in just a temple--but He was still present there.
"Then Solomon stood facing the LORD’s
altar, and all the Israelites were standing behind him. He spread out his
hands. … Then he kneeled in front of all the people of Israel gathered there,
and he spread out his hands toward the sky. He said, “LORD, God of Israel,
there is no god like you in heaven or on earth. You keep your agreement of love
with your servants who truly follow you. … “But, God, can you really live here on the earth with people? The sky
and the highest place in heaven cannot contain you. Surely this house which
I have built cannot contain you."
When the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem, they tore down the temple. The walls and roof and even foundation was destroyed. They killed the Temple, but they did not kill God who had His presence there.
In the same way, Jesus was a temple. God inhabited His body, and when his body was killed, that did not kill God.
Jesus referred to this once in His argument with the Jews:
Some of his people said to Jesus, “Show us a
miracle to prove you have the right to do these things.” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will build it
again in three days.” They answered, “It took forty-six years to build this
Temple! Do you really believe you can build it again in three days?” (But
the temple Jesus meant was his own body.
After Jesus was raised from the dead, his followers remembered that Jesus had
said this. Then they believed the Scripture and the words Jesus had said.)
So, Jesus' human body could be killed, but not without Jesus' allowing it. They could not kill Jesus unless Jesus let them. He specifically said that nobody could take His life from Him, but only He could lay down his life. And He also had the power to take it back up again--something NO MERE HUMAN can do.
The Father loves me because I give my life so that I can take it back again. No one takes it away from me; I give my own life freely. I have the right to give my life, and I have the right to take it back. This is what my Father commanded me to do.”
He said that when they destroyed His body, He himself would lift it back up again. He still had power after His body died, to be able to raise Himself from the dead (as being part of God).
So, from the passages above, He tasted death, but He did so to destroy the power of death over humans. Death was His enemy and by dying He overcame death in His resurrection. And He will fulfill God's promise in the Hebrew Bible to remove death.
Here are some of the passages that talk about this good news!
"Since these children are people with physical bodies, Jesus himself became like
them. He did this so that, by dying, he
could destroy the one who has the power of death—the devil—and free those
who were like slaves all their lives because of their fear of death"
God promised this 700 years before God the Son came to earth and took on a human life and body:
The LORD All-Powerful will prepare a feast
on this mountain for all people. It will
be a feast with all the best food and wine,
the finest meat and wine. On this mountain God will destroy the veil
that covers all nations, the veil that stretches over all peoples; he will destroy death forever. The Lord GOD will wipe away every tear from
every face.
I will set you free from the power of the grave. I will save you from death. Death, where are your plagues? Grave, where is your power to destroy?
And He fulfilled this through Christ and will continue this work until the end:
Christ was first to be raised. When Christ
comes again, those who belong to him will be raised to life, and then the end
will come. At that time Christ will
destroy all rulers, authorities, and powers, and he will hand over the
kingdom to God the Father. Christ must rule
until he puts all enemies under his control. The last enemy to be destroyed
will be death.
Through Christ Jesus, God gave us that grace even before time began. It has now been made known through the coming of our Savior, Christ Jesus. He has destroyed death. Because of the good news, he has brought life out into the light. That life never dies.
So, man did not kill God. God the Son took up a human life and human body so that He COULD DIE, as a way to DESTROY death for people who were ONLY human (us).