DID JESUS’ GODHEAD DIE ON THE CROSS?

By:   Atty. Miguel L. AbasCFD National President

            Not few Christians believed and taught that Christ’s Godhead died on the cross.  This belief may be attributed to their failure to grasp fully the doctrine on “Hypostatic Union.” So what is “Hypostatic Union”?  By Hypostatic Union, we mean the union of divine and human natures in the second person of the Holy Trinity, our Lord Jesus Christ.  As such, Jesus possesses two natures, human and divine.  He is both God and man.  These two natures are joined but not mixed in one divine person of Christ.  The fundamental teaching of the Church on the subject is clear.  “The Latin Fathers, principally under the influence of Tertullian, came to a clear Trinitarian and Christological terminology as follows:‘Videmus duplicem statum (=naturam), non confusum, sed conjunctum in una persona, Deum et hominem Jesum’, which means, “We hold a double state (nature), not mixed with one another but joined in the one person, the God and man Jesus (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, by Dr. Ludwig Ott, p. 144).            Jesus redeemed us through his sacrifice on the cross as Divine Person, not only as man, but His Divinity, as well.  But while His Divinity concomitantly joined in the sacrifice as the essence for the mystery of salvation, the same was not subjected to death.  The reason is simple.  According to St. Paul, “That thou keep the commandment unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Blessed and only Mighty, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; WHO ONLY HATH IMMORTALITY (emphasis supplied),  and inhabiteth light inaccessible…” (1 Tim. 4: 14-16).  So there is a nature in Christ which is immortal and that is His Divinity.  Further, the Church teaching in regard to these two natures in Christ, is stated more clearly when it said, “It follows from the essence of the Hypostatic Union, that while on the one hand things pertaining to both the Divine and the human nature can be attributed to the person of Christ, on the other hand, things specifically belonging to one nature (as man) cannot be predicated to the other nature (as God).  The rule is not valid if there be reduplication.  By reduplication the concrete term is limited to one nature.  Thus, it is false to say that ‘Christ has suffered as God.’  (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, by Dr. Ludwig Ott, p. 159). 

Finally, “the 3rd General Council of Ephesus (year 431) confirmed the Twelve Anathematism of St. Cyril of Alexandria…  They were later recognized by Popes and Councils as the expression of theChurch doctrine of Faith.  The main content is the following:

 

a)      x x x

b)      x x x

c)      The human and Divine activities predicated of Christ… may not be divided between two persons or hypostases, the man-Christ and the God-Logos, but must be attributed to the one Christ, the Logos become Flesh.  It is the Divine Logos, who suffered in the FLESH, was crucified, died, and rose again” (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, by Dr. Ludwig Ott, p. 142).To this, St. Peter has confirmed the above truth when he said, “Because Christ also died once for our sins:  that he might offer us to God, being put to death indeed in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18).

  So, the official teaching of the Catholic Church is, that Christ through His flesh (human nature), suffered and died on the cross, not his Divinity.  Thus as quoted above, if it is false and erroneous to say that Christ has suffered as God, more so, would it be false and erroneous to say thatChrist has died as God.

“Justification that God died in the context of Incarnation”

This is a very controversial topic, even great theologians of the church stumbled when confronted with the question did God die on the cross? To further our understanding of this issue it is necessary to define the terms that we used in order to avoid misconceptions and confusions during our in depth discussion whether God died on the cross. The most important terms that we have to define is Person and Nature we have to know its distinction and how they are applied in the Incarnate Word. In F. J. Sheed’s book Theology for Beginners he defined Person and Nature in this way, Nature is the source of operation which implies that the nature dictates what the person can or can not do, take for example a person can walk, run, get tired, suffer and die because it is what his nature allows him to do, however the person can not live under water because his nature does not provide such action to the human person. Person is the doer of the nature or in other words it is the Person who acts what the nature can provide, being born, suffer and die is all attributed to the person, thus we say Frank died not Frank’s human nature died, or Frank suffered not Frank in his human nature died. Nature is incapable of dying or suffering because it is the Person who dies and suffers, Nature can not die it only ceases to exist once the Person who possesses the Nature died. The second terms that we must define is the two types of change Fundamental Change and Accidental Change, Fundamental change is a change in essence, for example if you burn a wood it is no longer a wood but ashes. The molecular composition of the wood after it was burn is no longer the same molecular composition before it was burned therefore there is Fundamental Change a change in essence, while Accidental Change is change that happens only in its physical appearance for instance to break the wood in half there is a change in appearance, before the wood was broken in half it is about 3ft. long, after the wood was broken in half it is no longer 3ft. long but 1.5ft. Feet long, the molecular composition did not change it is still wood, but the appearance change which is called Accidental Change. When the Council of Ephesus define and proclaim that Mary is the Theotokos they appealed to the Church understanding in the three most fundamental teachings about Christ the Incarnation, Hypostatic Union and Communication of Idioms, through the application of these dogma of faith they were able to justify that God who has no beginning and end, incapable of being born through the Second Person of the Trinity has a mother. By this pre-existing knowledge of the Church we may also apply the theological implications contained in the dogma of Theotokos to justify that God in the context of Incarnation truly died not in the nature but in the person. The Word before Incarnation is inviolable, the Second Person of the Trinity before the act of Incarnation can not die and suffer because he does not share the finite nature of man. After the Incarnation the Divine Word assumed the nature of man which means that the Second Divine Person of the Trinity added to his Divine nature the finite human nature thus he shared in our limitedness. The dogma about Incarnation is the starting point of our discussion the Catechism of the Catholic Church define Incarnations as;

The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man. CCC 464

The Catechism attested that the Word Incarnate is true God and true man therefore it is fitting to believe that in Christ there are two natures Divine and Human that is hypostatically united in one hypostasis or Person. The dogma of Incarnation made the impossible, possible as explained previously. Nestorius propagate the heretical idea that after the Incarnation there are two persons not nature in Christ, this distorted idea lead to Nestorius denial that Mary is the Theotokos and called the mother of God, Christotokos which give birth to Nestorian heresy and Nestorius excommunication. Following the theology of Nestorius he did not only deny Mary as the Mother of God but also the orthodox truth that God died on the cross, the Council of Ephesus has this to say about the Incarnation;

For we do not say that the nature of the Word was changed and made flesh, nor yet that it was changed into the whole man (composed) of soul and body but rather (we say) that the Word, in an ineffable and inconceivable manner, having hypostatically united to Himself flesh animated by a rational soul, became Man and was called the Son of Man, not according to the will alone or by the assumption of a person alone, and that the different natures were brought together in a real union, but that out of both in one Christ and Son, not because the distinction of natures was destroyed by the union, but rather because the divine nature and the human nature formed one Lord and Christ and Son for us, through a marvelous and mystical concurrence in unity. . . . For it was no ordinary man who was first born of the Holy Virgin and upon whom the Word afterwards descended; but being united from the womb itself He is said to have undergone flesh birth, claiming as His own the birth of His own flesh. Thus [the holy Fathers] did not hesitate to speak of the holy Virgin as the Mother of God. Ecumenical III (against the Nestorians) The Incarnation [From the epistle II of St. Cyril of Alexandria to

Nestorius, read and approved in action I]

The Council of Ephesus affirms that the unity of the two natures of Christ takes place in the Person of Christ which is an explicit proof that in Christ there are two source of operation a Divine source in His Divine Nature and a Human source in His Human Nature. To prevent another drastic error which Nestorius succumb, the Church clarified the indissolubility and inseparability of the union of Christ’s natures in His Divine Person, therefore we cannot divide the actions of Christ between His Divine and Human nature, The fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople II excommunicate whosoever divide the actions of Christ between His Divine and Human nature;

Can. 3. If anyone says that one [person] is the Word of God who performed miracles, and another the Christ who suffered, or says that God the Word was with Christ when Ile was born of a woman, or was with Him as one in another, but not that the same [person] is our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, incarnate and made man, and that both the miracles and the sufferings which He voluntarily endured in the flesh were of the same person, let such a one be anathema. Anathemas of Council of Constantinople

The Council will not hesitate to excommunicate those who will disobey the canons and decrees of the Council. One violation of this decree is when modernist heretics will say that when Christ died on the cross, the one who died is not a Divine Person but his human nature. Aside from this a certain approach in Christology which is rampant in some University and theological studies the so called Christ of faith and Christ of history or also known as Christology from Above (high) and Christology from below (low), this approach in Christology is contrary to the approach used by the Church, the Christo centric approach. If the actions of Christ should not be divided between His natures, then to where should we attribute his actions? According to Dr. Ludwig Ott in his book Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma he states Christ's Divine and Human characteristics and activities are to be predicated of the one Word Incarnate. (De fide.) to simplify the explanation of this dogma it means that the actions of Christ whether done by his Divine or Human nature is predicated or attributed to his Divine Person, therefore since Christ is the second Person of the Trinity, a Divine person we can boldly proclaim and profess that Mary is the Mother of God and God died on the cross this is the two most impregnable truth that God who is Divine through the second Person of the Trinity was Incarnated, whose Divine and Human nature inseparably united in one hypostasis and activities of both nature is communicated, predicated and attributed to Christ a Divine person.

After the Council of Chalcedon, some made of Christ's human nature a kind of personal subject. Against them, the fifth ecumenical council, at Constantinople in 553, confessed that "there is but one hypostasis [or person], which is our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity."[93] Thus everything in Christ's human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its proper subject, not only his miracles but also his sufferings and even his death: "He who was crucified in the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, is true God, Lord of glory, and one of the Holy Trinity." CCC 468

This dogma of predication of idioms is termed by the Church Communicatio Idiomatum (Communication of Idioms). The sacred Scripture make use of Communication of Idioms in some of its passages. In Acts 20:28 it speaks of the church being purchase by God’s blood, as we notice blood belongs to the human nature yet it was attributed to the Divine Person, God’s blood. In 1 Cor.2:8 it speaks that God was crucified, yet being crucified belongs to the human nature but the scripture did not classify it as “crucified in human nature” but crucified the Lord of Glory, in which the Lord of Glory is a title which belongs to God therefore in 1 Cor.2:8 if taken so literally by applying the meaning of the title it would mean to crucify God.

Therefore following the teachings of the Catechism of Council of Trent by the reasons presented above it is therefore safe to say the God died, God suffered and God was buried.