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“Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.”
Mark 15:37
Today is when we remember that terrible and wonderful day when our Savior willingly died for us, breathing his last.
This whole time, God was not breathing at all. As a divine spirit, God lacks lungs, throat, mouth, and diaphragm. He lived on to witness the heroic death of his beloved Son, his Christ – and later (spoiler alert!) to raise Jesus back to life.
Recent and ancient catholic traditions have created a lot of confusion about just who gave up his life on the cross. The gospel is not that God died for you; God is essentially immortal. Rather, the gospel is that God’s human Son died for you. It was one of us who atoned for the rest of us.
Thank God for that!
Do you imagine that somehow Jesus having “two natures” can explain how he can die even while being the essentially immortal God? I invite you to think again – such speculations just don’t work out. Think carefully through these things; don’t just blindly repeat unclear and non-biblical language, e.g. Jesus “died in his human nature” but “lived in his divine nature.”
Let’s celebrate this wonderful event without muddying the waters; the New Testament is very explicit that God is immortal, and also that his human Son died for us.
