Tim Maas Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

Jesus was God incarnate, but He was also truly and fully human. As such, He could experience death as any other human could, but not without His willingly consenting to allow it to happen. (As He Himself said in John 10:18, no one could take His life from Him against His will. He had the power and authority to lay His life down, and power to take it up again (as He did when He rose from the dead).) 

(I've also heard Jehovah's Witnesses claim that Jesus could not have been God, based on His quoting of Psalm 22:1 (My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?) from the cross (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34). (This entire psalm is a remarkable prophecy of events that would occur during Jesus' crucifixion.) However, in that situation, He was experiencing separation from the Father because He -- once again, as a human (although a sinless human) -- was vicariously bearing (in a way that I don't think we can fully understand or comprehend) the penalty imposed by God for the sin of all humanity from eternity past to eternity future. This separation was also symbolized by the darkness that occurred while He was on the cross (Matthew 27:51-54; Mark 15:33; and Luke 23:44).)

(I have always wondered why the bystanders who were present at the crucifixion (and who would have included religious authorities who were supposedly well-versed in Scripture) would have thought that Jesus was calling on the prophet Elijah (Matthew 27:47; Mark 15:34-36), when He was quoting directly from a psalm that was addressing God, or why they did not recognize the multiple other parallels between Psalm 22 and Jesus' crucifixion, especially after Jesus quoted directly from it.)

October 29 2020 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report