At the very least, do we all agree that divinity did not die?

What does "divinity" mean here?...since Adventism at the time of this statement taught the death of the Son of God on the cross which is even today a non-trinitarian teaching (check my post #104904, 19/11), what does she mean by this? There's no simple answer...

What of your point that Christ's sacrifice must be of more value than Adam before he sinned? You weren't referring to God's divine Son for this value?

Colin is saying that the divinity that did not die was the divinity of the Father and the Holy Spirit, and Debbie seems to agree with him, while we are saying that the divinity that did not die was His own divinity. So it seems to me that all are not in agreement about this.

I disagree here too. Dying the second death is dying under the wrath of God. The fact that both body and soul are consumed is a consequence of this for the sinner. However, Christ wasn't consumed, neither in His body nor in His soul, for He was without sin:

"Against every evildoer God's law utters condemnation. He may disregard that voice, he may seek to drown its warning, but in vain. It follows him. It makes itself heard. It destroys his peace. If unheeded, it pursues him to the grave. It bears witness against him at the judgement. A quenchless fire, it consumes at last soul and body." {Ed 144.5}

"[Christ was] the only One who could bear the strokes in behalf of the sinner and because of His innocence not be consumed." {HP 42.4}

For a discussion what kind of death Jesus suffered, click here

Yes, this is a point of discussion...On the 2nd death, Ps 22 says that he was not to see corruption in the grave, while Heb 2:9 says that he "tasted death for every man", so he actually bore our guilt of eternal separation from his Father and trusted in God by faith alone in what he had studied and knew of God in his righteous experience: else he wouldn't be Saviour of the world.

I went back to the Quarterly, and this clause

brings another question: how does God, could God, thus incarnated in Christ, save us unless Christ as God actually died for our sins? How is a human death sufficient, if "only God could save us"?

"Son of God" also applies to humanity. See Luke 3:38, when it was applied to Adam. And applying the Bible concept of being a son of God, I think we can safely say that this refers to unfallen Adam.

Therefore, even if only Christ's humanity died, it is still true that the "Son of God" died.


This would fall under option #2, that "sacrifice" is not limited to death. And it could refer to either humanity or divinity.

That does qualify as disagreement.

But I don't see why EGW would say, in the middle of describing what Jesus did, that the Father and Holy Spirit did not die. It seems foreign to the context.

Did you check out the latest sermon I posted? I brought up one reason why God had to come down, aside from the standard reasons.

Click The Serpent and the Seed to check it out.

As I see it, the difference between the first death and the second is just that, in the latter case, the separation from God precedes the cessation of life. So, the suffering resulting from this separation is the essence of the second death. That's why Ellen White says:

"I wish I could present the subject as it seems to me. Justice demanded the sufferings of a man. Christ, equal with God, gave the sufferings of a God. He needed no atonement. His suffering was not for any sin he had committed; it was for man--all for man; and his free pardon is accessible to all. The suffering of Christ was in correspondence with his spotless purity; his depth of agony, proportionate to the dignity and grandeur of his character. Never can we comprehend the intense anguish of the spotless Lamb of God, until we realize how deep is the pit from which we have been rescued, how grievous is the sin of which mankind is guilty, and by faith grasp the full and entire pardon." {RH, September 21, 1886 par. 5}