On The Death Of God

A common criticism or misunderstanding of Catholicism centers on the death of Christ. Specifically, two issues must be addressed. First, if Jesus was/is God, and God is eternal, how could Jesus have died?

The second issue involves assessing blame for Jesus’s death. After all, if Jesus was a righteous man, and it is wrong for a righteous man to be put to death, then it follows that He should not have been crucified. Under such circumstances, it is natural to blame someone.

These are important theological questions that warrant considerable attention and consideration. This essay will explore how the Catholic understanding of the hypostatic union resolves the paradox of Christ’s death, and how the salvific purpose of His sacrifice refutes the notion of assigning blame for His crucifixion.

The God Who Died

The Catholic faith can be strange. It holds up as the focal point of its teachings a man crucified two thousand years ago. Stranger still, Catholicism asserts that this man was actually God incarnate who rose from the dead.

Furthermore, for God to be God, He must be eternal and immortal. Herein lies a paradox. How can it be possible for Catholicism to assert that God is eternal and immortal while, at the same time, claiming that God died on the Cross two thousand years ago?

The answer lies in something known as the hypostatic union. Put simply, Jesus of Nazareth possesses two natures, one human and one divine. Since nature denotes what a thing is essentially, it is posited that Christ is both a human being (having a human nature) and God (having a divine nature). Since it is natural for human beings to die, it is perfectly congruent to argue that Christ, in His human nature, suffered and died on the Cross. This suffering and death in no way affected His divine nature, however, which cannot experience suffering or death.

Still, if Jesus was an innocent man (1 Peter 2:22), then a great wrong was committed when He was put to death.

Finding Fault

The need to blame is a very human trait, and this characteristic is not overlooked in Scripture. When God asks Adam if he had eaten the forbidden fruit, Adam takes no time in blaming Eve. In turn, Eve points to the serpent for tricking her (see Genesis 3:11-13).

In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter does not hesitate to assign blame for the death of Christ. “Therefore let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36), and again, “The people of Israel should know that it was in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead; in his name this man stands before you healed.” (Acts 4:10).

The historical data surrounding the Crucifixion of Christ is relatively straightforward. Jesus was a Jew living in Roman-occupied (present-day) Israel. He was, ostensibly, charged by the Jewish religious leaders with claiming to be “King of the Jews.” Such a claim was seen as an act of rebellion against the Roman Emperor, a crime punishable by death.

The charge against Jesus was, of course, spurious. The Jewish religious leaders believed Jesus was blaspheming when He made Himself equal with God. They also claimed that He had violated the Sabbath by performing miracles on the Sabbath day. Add in the sense that Jesus was seen as a threat to the Jewish religious leadership, and there was much motivation to remove Him from the scene.

In light of all this, it should come as no surprise that many people, including Christians, have blamed Jews for the death of Christ. Tragically, this has led to anti-semitism and no small amount of bloodshed. It is also deeply mistaken theologically.

Did Jesus Need To Die?

“The Son of Man [Jesus] did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” – Matthew 20:28.

It may be morbid, and it is certainly paradoxical, but we should be grateful for Christ’s death on the Cross. To see why this is the case, it is necessary to understand the state of humanity after the Fall.

Christ’s use of the word “ransom” in Matthew’s Gospel is telling. Original sin enslaved human beings and incurred a debt that, in principle, could not be paid by humans. There are two fundamental ways of formulating this. We can speak of Christ’s sacrifice as paying a ransom to the devil to free human beings from the effects of original sin. We can also speak of Christ’s suffering and death as satisfying divine justice.

Moreover, since divine justice requires restitution and the price of sin is death (Romans 6:23), the only solution for freeing human beings was the death of the one person who could truly and adequately make payment for sin: Jesus.

Because Jesus possessed a sinless human nature, He could represent all humanity. Because Jesus possessed a divine nature, He could effect our salvation. Simply put, it is only through the death and resurrection of the God/man that human salvation could be accomplished.

Nor should we think Jesus was somehow compelled involuntarily to take on this task. Not only does He know what will happen (“The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised,”) but He also knows that He holds the power over life and death (“No one takes it [Jesus’s life] from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again”).

Conclusion

The idea of an innocent person being put to death is abhorrent to most and antithetical to our sense of justice. For these reasons, many have sought to find blame for Jesus’s death. I hope that this paper has shown that assigning blame for Jesus’s death fails to take into account the divine plan for human salvation.