If Jesus is God, how could He die? This great question comes from one of our viewers on YouTube. It is also in line with these questions: If Jesus is God, how could He be tempted? How could He lack knowledge? How could He increase in wisdom? How could He thirst? After studying the Bible, I’ve found the scriptural answers to these questions.
The question of how Jesus could die, be tempted, and so on—whether we realize it or not—primarily hinges on this question, which must be dealt with first:
Was Jesus God while on earth?
This is the question within the question. The viewer asked, “How can Jesus be the Almighty God if Jesus died? God is Eternal.” The question assumes that either Jesus was never God or that He had to suspend His deity in order to experience something only finite beings face. Was Jesus God while on earth?
The gospel of John introduces us to Jesus as Creator God—the Word who was in the beginning (see John 1:1–5). Jesus Himself claimed to have had glory with the Father from before the world began (John 17:5). Then, the Almighty became a man and dwelled on the earth for a time (John 1:14). He was given the name Jesus, and He went around healing, serving, and teaching.
If He was God when He came to the earth, how could He be tempted and ultimately die? This is a fantastic question. Some people have tried to deal with it simply by saying, “Well, He wasn’t God while on earth. He set aside His deity to face those things and then picked it back up on His return trip to heaven.” The Scriptures, however, do not teach that. Jesus was fully God while on the earth.
Did He ever say, “I am God”? Not in those words exactly, probably because He didn’t speak English. 🙃 But He also didn’t declare it in His native tongue either, at least as far as we have recorded in Scripture. Imagine spending a lot of time with a man who can’t help slipping Lord of the Rings quotes into everyday conversation. He wouldn’t need to say, “I’m a Tolkien nerd.” You’d already have plenty of evidence to reach that conclusion. Similarly, there is also enough evidence in Scripture to know that Jesus was God while on earth, even if we do not have a recording of Him saying, “I am God.”
There are three reasons to believe Jesus is God and was God on the earth.
1. Jesus claimed He was God while on earth
Of course, He did it without saying precisely, “I am God.” But He claimed it more powerfully than if He had.
One of the most common titles of Jesus is that He is the Son of God. The new atheists try to make it seem like that title is actually contrary to the claim that Jesus is divine. The fact that Jesus is the Son of God, however, is theologically rich and serves as one of the strongest pieces of evidence for Jesus’ deity. When Jesus said God was His Father, the Jews said to Him, “You, being a Man, make Yourself God” (John 10:33). Irenaeus, a second-century (albeit uninspired) theologian said, “The Father is God, and the Son is God, for whatever is begotten of God is God.”1 In other words, “The son of a cat is a cat, so the Son of God is God.” Perhaps we will make another lesson on this subject alone. For now, let’s move on to two other titles Jesus gave Himself.
In Mark 2, Jesus verbally forgave the sins of a paralyzed man.
And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, “Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
Mark 2:6–7
This is a legitimate question. How did Jesus react?
But immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, “Why do you reason about these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic, “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”
Mark 2:8–12
There were two facts about Jesus that He wanted His audience on this occasion to know:
- He was the Son of Man.
- He had the authority on earth to forgive sins.
Both of them point to Jesus’ deity on earth.
Many people have mistakenly thought (and taught) that Jesus’ favorite title for Himself —the Son of Man—was a reference to His humanity. (I was guilty of this fallacy several years ago.) Only someone without a working knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures would say so. Caiaphas, however, knew the Hebrew Bible. Notice how he responded to Jesus’ claim to be the Son of Man.
Again the high priest asked Him, saying to Him, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus said, “I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “What further need do we have of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy! What do you think?” And they all condemned Him to be deserving of death.
Mark 14:61–64
This points back to the vision of Daniel in Daniel 7. By calling Himself the Son of Man, Jesus claimed to be the God-man figure whom God Himself appointed for dominion, glory, royalty, service, kingdom, and worship. Many people in Scripture were described as sons of man. But Jesus takes upon Himself the title (not description) of The Son of Man, which is a position of deity. Caiaphas knew Jesus was not just claiming to be a human, and authority was not given to him to deny the arrival of the King.
With the Son of Man claim in Mark 2, Jesus also miraculously proved He could forgive sins—something which only God can do. Both facts about Jesus presented to us in Mark 2, therefore, point to His deity.
Another time that Jesus’ audience freaked out and tried to kill Him was in John 8.
“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” Then they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.
John 8:56–59
“Before Abraham was, I AM.” That sentence sounds grammatically incorrect, yet it was the only way Jesus could truthfully refer to His existence. It’s like the times in the book of Revelation where both He and the Father claim to be the Alpha, the Omega; the First, the Last; the One who was, who is, and who is to come. With Jesus, His existence has no past or future. He always is.
When God sent Moses to Egypt to serve as Israel’s prophet, Moses asked, “What if the people ask who sent me? What should I tell them?”
Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
Exodus 3:13–14
When Jesus said the same of Himself, He claimed to be Yahweh—the existing God. He also claimed, “If you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins” (John 8:24).2 In this, Jesus claimed to be God and said, “You’d better believe it!”
2. Jesus accepted worship while on earth
Every Bible student knows that we must have no other gods and that we should place nothing in front of our service and devotion to the one true and living God.
In Scripture, whenever a pagan in idolatry was mentioned, he was chastised and rebuked. Whenever a sincere person of God had a momentary lapse of judgment and worshiped a powerful angel, he was told, “Don’t do that; worship God alone!” Whenever the apostles went around performing miracles and people tried to worship them, the servants of God tore their clothes and begged the worshipers to honor God alone in this way. God and His servants were so serious about this that when Herod, a puppet king of Rome and apparently a great orator with fancy clothes, received worship as a god in Acts 12, an angel of God struck him, he was eaten with worms, and he died.3
Only God is to be worshiped. This was Jesus’ understanding and desire too. When Satan tempted Jesus with idolatry, Jesus Himself quoted the famous passage in Deuteronomy.
Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”
Matthew 4:10
Yet Jesus accepted worship on multiple occasions, beginning with His childhood. In Matthew 2, the wise men came and worshiped Jesus as a child. The young Jesus probably didn’t do anything to indicate acceptance of this worship, being so young, but the wise men are presented as wise in the Scriptures, and God did not strike them down for worshiping Jesus.
Throughout His adulthood and ministry, many people worshiped Jesus, like the formerly blind man in John 9, the women in Matthew 28:9, and the apostles in verse 17. In Matthew 14, Jesus walked on water, met the disciples in the boat, and calmed the storm. Afterward, here’s how they reacted:
Then those who were in the boat came and worshiped Him, saying, “Truly You are the Son of God.”
Matthew 14:33
Jesus believed Himself to be God on earth. If you trust Jesus, then you must also believe He was God on earth.
3. The Bible says as much
When the angel was explaining Mary’s pregnancy to Joseph, he said:
“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”
Matthew 1:23
When Jesus was with the people on earth, God was with the people on earth. Jesus was Immanuel.
At the end of John’s account, Thomas boldly and correctly asserted the resurrected Jesus as “my Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). Instead of rebuking Thomas, Jesus said that Thomas believed.
Old Testament prophets, such as David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, and Zechariah, all prophesied that God would be incarnate in the Messiah.4
As noted, while on earth, Jesus accepted worship. Not only did He accept that worship from humans, but He also accepted it from angels.
But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says: “Let all the angels of God worship Him.”
Hebrews 1:6
God tells angels to worship Jesus. Two verses later, God in heaven refers to Jesus as God.
But to the Son He says:
Hebrews 1:8–12
“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever;
A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.
You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness;
Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You
With the oil of gladness more than Your companions.”
And:
“You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth,
And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
They will perish, but You remain;
And they will all grow old like a garment;
Like a cloak You will fold them up,
And they will be changed.
But You are the same,
And Your years will not fail.”
God’s throne is forever. Specifically, Jesus’ throne is forever. As the creator, Jesus laid the foundation of the earth. He is the same and does not change, just as the author of Hebrews also famously states:
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Hebrews 13:8
Jesus did not cease being God when He came to the earth. He didn’t set aside His deity to experience humanity. Now we approach our first question:
If Jesus was God on earth, how could He die?
The Bible constantly asserts the deity of Jesus. Going back to the comment where this question was asked, the person genuinely said, “How can Jesus be the Almighty God if Jesus died? God is Eternal.” What we are wrestling with is our inability to understand how an eternal, Almighty God could die. Many people have said, therefore, “Well, Jesus must have set aside His deity and faced death strictly as a man.”5 Yet that boggles my mind just as much. How could God cease being God?
We cannot approach this question with such limiting parameters. We cannot tell God what He can and cannot do as the Almighty. By saying that Jesus must not be God, we are going against Scripture. By saying that Jesus ceased being God, we are again going against Scripture.
How, then, could Jesus—as God—face death (1 Corinthians 15:3), be tempted (Hebrews 4:14–15), have limited knowledge (Mark 13:32), increase in wisdom (Luke 2:52), and thirst (John 19:28)? Philippians 2 provides the answer:
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
Philippians 2:5–8
Jesus is in the form of God. Yet while He came to earth, He emptied Himself. Emptied Himself of what? Many people have tried to use this passage to teach that this is where Jesus set aside His deity. But that cannot be, as the same apostle taught the Christians of Colossae:
Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
Colossians 2:8–9
Apparently, this very subject is something people have tried to cheat Christians out of “through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men.”6 In the face of the teaching that Jesus is not divine, the apostle, inspired by the Holy Spirit says that the fullness of the Godhead (other translations say, “the fullness of deity”) was in Jesus bodily (in other words, while He was on the earth, He was fully God).
But in order to be the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world—in order to be the sacrifice of God—Jesus had to face temptation (without sinning) and die to pay for our sins.
When Eve and Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they sinned. As a result, God separated them from the tree of life and the garden. From that point forward, humanity had a death sentence. Famously, John states that Jesus was the Creator, known as “the Word” in the beginning. Then John says:
And the Word became 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.
John 1:14
By becoming flesh, away from the tree of life, Jesus was willingly submitted Himself to the entire human experience. The text in Philippians says that by becoming a human, Jesus humbled and limited Himself. He voluntarily positioned Himself in a lower rank, even to the point of serving sinners.
Imagine the CEO of a company hearing some concerning claims about a certain manager. He calls the manager into his office to meet with him and ask a few questions. The meeting goes well, and nothing seems off. Yet the complaints continue to come. In order to see things the way the employees see them, the CEO leaves his top-floor office, shaves his beard and dyes his hair, applies for a job, and becomes an employee under the manager. While doing so, he has to experience employee-only tasks, like clocking in and out, using the employee break room, and reporting to the manager, with whom he develops a new relationship. To his horror, the manager is just as bad as the people have been saying. In fact, by the end of the week, the manager has fired the CEO. How can the Chief Executive Officer be fired?
I admit it’s not a perfect, one-to-one illustration, but perhaps it can help us understand how God could empty, humble, and limit Himself to serve His children. Becoming a man allowed God to face the human experience. In addition, now that He has done so, He can serve another role: mediator. Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:5 that Jesus, since He became a man (of course, while remaining God), is now able to serve as a mediator between God and man.
As with any part of God’s nature, understanding Jesus as fully human in addition to being fully God (the eternal, Almighty God who faced death) is admittedly a difficult concept to grasp. That very fact should constantly remind us of the glory of God. For if the fullness of God could be perfectly seized by the finite mind, God wouldn’t be that great. Yet that is not to say the gospel is illogical.
Not only should the incarnation of God be glorious in our minds, but it should also encourage us.
Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.
Hebrews 2:17–18
So, we return to our main passage, and we read it with renewed understanding and awe.
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
Philippians 2:5–8
- Irenaeus, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 47; translated by Armitage Robinson (London: SPCK, 1920). ↩︎
- The text in many English translations, including the NKJV, says, “I am He;” however, the “He” is not on the original text. It appears most translators for the English have added the word He to make the sentence grammatically correct. ↩︎
- The uninspired historian Josephus records Herod’s death in Antiquities 19, which corroborates this biblical account. While receiving all this praise, Herod suddenly had violent stomach pains and had to be carried away. It got worse and worse until five days later, as Scripture says, he breathed his last. ↩︎
- See Psalm 45:6–7; Isaiah 7:14; 9:6; 40:3; 44:6; Jeremiah 23:5–6; Micah 5:2; Zechariah 13:7. ↩︎
- Or, alternatively, “God cannot die. Jesus died. Therefore, Jesus cannot be God” is an attempted syllogism often offered by Jehovah’s Witnesses and Muslims to try to disprove the deity of Jesus. But, as we have already seen, Scripture clearly teaches that Jesus is God. ↩︎
- Some people have also taught the other extreme. For example, the Gnostics of the first century believed that everything in the flesh is inherently wrong; therefore, Jesus must never have actually come in the flesh. Instead, they believed that Jesus came only as a spirit that appeared to be in the flesh. John counters this empty deception and man-made philosophy strongly in the gospel of John (John 1:14) and his epistles (see especially 1 John 1:1–4 and 4:1–3). ↩︎