Good thoughts!

Green Cochoa.

I have no doubt whatsoever that death could not hold Jesus.
But had He sinned, death COULD have claimed Him.

I have no doubts whatsoever that He is the resurrection and life.
Coming out of the tomb, was a sure sign He had conquered death!

The question is --
was He really dead -- as in "thoughts perished, know not anything," -- The biblical discriptions of a person who is dead. Was He really dead?

I think this is what is troubling Elle --

This idea that only part of Him was dead, while another part was alive and conscious and capable of doing things. Like "two persons" in one body, the one dies with the body, while the other hovers above it waiting for the time of resurrection to arrive.
To raise oneself, one would have to be conscious would they not?


I think you are getting closer to an answer by saying Christ and the Father both had a part in the resurrection.
The Bible attributes the resurrection to BOTH, thus we should too.
Yes, they are "One" but that oneness is not a mathematical one, Christ is NOT the Father, and the Father is not Christ. Christ was dead in the tomb, while the Father was in heaven.

Somehow, the life within Christ, would have to be an unconsious power while He was dead, sort of like the life in a seed that has to be planted before it springs to life.

Thus when the Father called, the Father would have sparked the "life" slumbering in Christ, enabling Christ to take up Life again.


That it was a resurrection like no other is apparent.

Personally, I don't think it makes that big of a difference just how He arose.
What's important is that
Christ died for us, and He AROSE! and that ensures our resurrection.

I appreciate all what you brought. I know there's a big blessing for all who search the scriptures and to reconcile these apparent conflict to find a deeper meaning.

Yes, I do have a problem accepting the following :
1) Saying that Christ was two persons in one
2) With the notion Christ died having both immortality and mortality at the same time
3) With this explaination that Christ "human" part only died, but his "divinity" didn't die.
4) Disregarding a bunch of scriptures that says the Father raised Christ.
5) Disregarding scripture saying that in the same manner of Christ ressurection, we will be ressurected. Rm 6:5

I came across Psalm 88; isn't it talking about Jesus death? It says :
This verse clearly says that Christ couldn't come forth.

This would be in harmony with what Jesus said in John 5:30 Jesus says "I can of mine own self do nothing".

I truly believe that Jesus didn't finish all at the Cross like Green implies. His statement that it was finish, could of meant the section of him living a perfect life and taking on all our sins could be finish. That was the biggest thing as now he could rest as his mission has been accomplish.


The greek word for "I might take" is the same as "have I received"; see G2983 . So Christ laid down his life so he may receive it again. The Greek word "power" can mean power, but also can mean "authority" or "permission". Christ had permission to lay down His life so that He could receive it again from His Father.

To me, Christ could not raise himself up or else He would not have been dead to begin with. To make this claim would contradict John 5:30 where Jesus says "I can of mine own self do nothing". Also, it would imply that we need to have the "power" to raise ourself up, as in the same like manner, we will ressurect as Christ did.
Christ and Paul compares the death and ressurection with the seed. The seed is dead when planted, and cannot bring itself forth. God needs to awake the genes and put them into action.

We also have in Isa 53 the following
It says that Jesus "SOUL" was an offering for sin.

Soul is the Body/mind/spirit plus the breath of God. It was Jesus "SOUL" that was made an offering for sin. It was God that was required to die here, not a man.

Christ came and clothed his divinity with humanity, so to make it possible for God to die here as it was required to take the place of "every man". Heb 2:9 would mean nothing if Christ didn't die completely. If only the human half of Jesus died, there would be no necessity for Jesus to be "made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death".

Also Acts 2:31 says that the "SOUL" of Christ was in the grave : The soul of Christ rested with His body in the tomb.

Also, scripture tells us that Jesus gaved up his "Ghost" of the breath of God at his death. So the Holy Spirit returned back to God the Father just like any man. Christ was made 100% man and depended on the "breath of God" like any other man to live.

Christ was our substitute, our example,and the way. Throught Christ Victory over death, He made it possible that all man receives lives throught Him and that's why Jesus said that He is the "ressurrection and the Life" of all man.

Those words I quoted are from Micah 5:2 (margin): they refer to God's Son's first reported cosmic activities, aside from that Prov 8 text, which goes to the same point, as well. Jesus was obedient to his Father before his Incarnation, too.

Yes, maybe I could help. Your study is good, Elle! Dedication is helpful, too: dead means dead!

Christ's humanity died and his divinity could not, but both his identities - his personages - died. Two persons in one, and both died. Sister White emphasises that the Creator suffered on the cross. The Father called the Son of man back to life, and divine identity and nature went with the human: his whole life was like that and so is his resurrection life, continuing today: Amen!

I like that bit you did on Jn 10:17&18, and the rest of your study: our literature today doesn't seem to go into this issue!

What do you think of Jesus' person as God's Son dying but his divinity not dying? Somewhat like Dedication has suggested? Also, with Jesus deity not being perishable, it was given, by his death, to the human race as the life of our salvation. This gift from him of his own, "original, unborrowed, underived [life]" to us is the point Sister White was making in the Signs of the Times article of 1897 from which that famous list of 7 words found in DA. While Jesus defeated death as a man, our "everlasting life" of Jn 3:16 is thanks to Jesus' divine life - infinite and sharable with all, as he received it in the deity he and his Father possess (Jn 5:26): he received the body of the Son, being already the Word of God.

Yes, the resurrecion of the saints shall be the same as the Saviour's: humans called from the tombs!

Christ is "God manifested".

What does that mean?
It is God revealed!

"Unto the King eternal, incorruptible, invisible," "who only hath immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable; whom no man hath seen, nor can see," - 1 Timothy 1:16; 6:16

God, in the fullness of His Godhead dwells in light unapproachable -- glorious. Even the angels veil their faces in His presence. (See PP 252)

How is God going to relate with His Creatures?
It is Christ Who veils His blinding brightness and "goes forth" and mingles with the created!



In heaven, before sin, Christ went forth and mingled with the angels, sharing with them the will of God. (The will of God was as much His will, as the Father's will, for in this they were ONE -- One in purpose, motive, plans, ONE GOD, yet two separate individuals) Now, the angels became so accustomed to Christ mingling with them that Lucifer seemed to think they were equals and he, Lucifer, should have the same rights as Christ!

So the Godhead had to set them straight. The angels were shown that
"The Son of God shared the Father's throne, and the glory of the eternal, self-existent One encircled both." {PP 36.2}

Thus the ONE Who whose "goings forth" were from eternity, went forth again from the Father into this dark world, veiling His glory still further to communicate, reveal and fulfil God's will to mankind.

John 8:42 "I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me."Christ is showing that this was a joint plan. Both Christ and the Father planned this!

John 16:28 I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.

Thus showing their unity in this plan, and Christ's true place with God the Father.

As a man Christ was totally obedient to the Father. He took on "the yoke of obedience".

As God, Christ's will was the same as the Father's will! It was not a matter of One obeying the Other.
"The angels all wear the yoke of obedience. They are the appointed messengers of Him who is the Commander of all heaven. But Christ is equal with God, infinite and omnipotent. He could pay the ransom for man's freedom. He is the eternal self-existing Son, on whom no yoke had come;" (YI June 21, 1900). {5BC 1136.12}

Christ's divinity could not die, but His divine personage died? So what didn't die? What's the divinity part that doesn't include His divine personage?

It's correct to say that Christ is "two persons in one"? One human and one divine?

Turn to the second chapter of Ephesians beginning with the first verse and let us read the good news that the enmity against God is destroyed so that all may be free. Beginning with the first verse:

And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience....

Before reading further in Ephesians, turn to Colossians 1:21. You "were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind." Then where did the enmity lie that made us enemies? In the mind, the fleshly mind. The mind of the flesh is enmity and it controlling us makes us at enmity and enemies--"by wicked works."...

"But now, in Jesus Christ, ye who sometime were far off." Far off from whom? Far off from God? or far off from the Jews? The previous verse says far off from God, "without God," alienated from the life of God. "Ye who sometime were far off [from God] are made nigh" to whom? To God? or to the Jews?--Nigh to God of course....

"Hath broken down the middle wall of partition between"--whom? Between men and God, surely. How did He do it? How did He break down the middle wall of partition between us and God? By "abolishing the enmity." Good....

But where lay the root of the whole thing, as between them and other people even? It lay in the enmity that was in them that separated them first from God. And being separated from Him, the certain consequence was that they would be separated from others.

"For He is our peace, who hath made both one." Made both who one?--God and men, certainly. "And hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity...for to make in himself of twain [of two] one new man, so making peace."

Let us look that over again. "having abolished in His flesh the enmity." Now omitting the next clause (We are not studying that in this lesson.), what did He abolish that enmity for? What did He break down that middle wall of partition for? Why? "for to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace." Does Christ make a new man out of a Jew and a Gentile? No. Out of a heathen and somebody else? No. Out of one heathen and another heathen? No.

God makes one new man out of God and a man. And in Christ, God and man met so that they can be one.

Not according to my understanding. But it's the way I see some people understanding it.

My take:

While it is plain that Divinity cannot die, how to understand this?

It's not really hard if we put aside the thought that "divinity" is a person and "humanity" is a person both residing in one body.

It's because Christ could not die while in His Divine form, that He took the form or body of a human, so He could die for us.

It was Christ, the Son of God that died. Christ was as dead as anyone can be dead. He wasn't just 1/2 dead. He was DEAD!
Just because He was in His human state as He died, does not mean it wasn't the WHOLE Person -- the Son of God, Creator, Sustainer of the Universe, that died.

Christ truly shed His own real blood and died a REAL death (as in His thoughts perished, His emotions perished, etc. as all who die)

By saying His divinity didn't die, it's speaking of an attribute that belonged to Him, but which He set aside so He could die. It's not another "person" or "spirit" that stayed alive in some way, while the human part was dead.

My Bible Study on the subject:

Let's start with John's magnificent depiction of Who Christ is!

1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
1:2 The same was in the beginning with God.
1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
1:4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

And what did Christ do in order to save us?

1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

He (THE WORD, that was with God and was God, was made flesh) It's still the same GREAT PERSON, but He was made flesh.
Why?

Philippians 2:5-9 Have this mind in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Jesus, Who was fully God, with God the Father,
gave up much -- to save us.
He became human so He could die for us.
It was the SAME Divine Person, the Word that was with God and was God, that died for us.
Christ entered the world, His divinity clothed in humanity.
The incarnation is a mystery! How God could become a fetus in a human womb is even a greater mystery than the death of God upon the cross.


Some belittle the fact that Christ took on humanity in order to die as if that somehow lessens His sacrifice.
It doesn't -- it shows to what depths He descended in order to reach us!

And Christ didn't give up His humanity at His resurrection either. It's amazing -- simply amazing what Christ did in order that we might be His brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of God!

So the rendering of this verse would be what?
I have authority to receive my life again?
I have authority to take my life again?
I have permission to receive my life again?
I have permission to take my life again?
The first and the third options, of course, do not make sense: authority or permission given by the Father to receive the life that the Father will give? The second and the fourth are possible, but then there is no way to escape the strength of the verb “to take.”


We will be raised in the same manner as Christ was. Agreed. But the point is, who will raise us? The Father or Christ?