Did God Die on the Cross?

The following is a pre-recorded version of CORE Christianity.

If Jesus is God, then is it accurate to say that God died on the cross? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Hi, this is Bill Meyer along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. We want to wish you a very happy Easter as we head into this weekend. You can call us right now with your question at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on our Facebook or Instagram account. You can also email us at questionsatcorechristianity.com. Well, first up today, let's go to Gaylene in Topeka, Kansas.

Gaylene, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Hello. Hi, Gaylene. How are you? All right, and you? I'm doing good.

I'm glad y'all received my call. I remember talking to you before. Yeah. Yeah, I want to ask the question.

I just want to ask the question, is how could you, okay, when you be called to witness for people, are you speaking, you know, to preach the gospel? I, you know, as far as reading the words and everything, and you'd be under a lot of attack, a lot of sin and mnemonics and, you know, and so the flush, and you'd be dealing with so much for so many years, and it kind of interfered with your relationship with the Lord, and it kind of messed with some of your prayers. Yeah. How do you deal with that, right?

Is that your question? How do you deal with that? Yeah, well, you know, Gaylene, the reality is, let me just say this, in the Christian life, we're in a battle. Don't ever let anyone tell you that if you're a Christian, if you're, you know, filled with the Holy Spirit, that kind of a thing, that, oh, this should just all come easily to you. It's just sort of natural, you know, obedience and following the Lord perfectly, and your prayer life is just always going to be flourishing, that kind of a thing.

The reality is, it's a daily struggle. I know a lot of believers who, when they first recognize that, you know, they think, is there something wrong with me? Am I really actually saved? You know, why do I still have these thoughts, or why do I still struggle with this sin, or how could I feel so cold when I open up the Bible and read it, that kind of a thing?

Maybe there's something wrong with me, but the reality is, no. Genuine believers, people who truly know and love Jesus and are filled with the Holy Spirit, still struggle day by day. The Apostle Paul talked about this battle in places like Romans chapter 7, or in Galatians chapter 5, where he encourages the Galatians to walk according to the Spirit. These are the flesh, lusts against the Spirit. These two are at odds with each other, and there he's talking about our own flesh, our own sort of sinful inclinations at times, where we don't want to follow the Lord. We don't want to do what we know we should do, and so I want to just encourage you with that, just not to think that your experience is foreign to a genuine Christian experience, and when you feel weighed down, when you feel like, man, I want to follow the Lord.

You were talking about preaching and sharing your faith with others. I think that's a wonderful thing, but you just feel weighed down by sin, maybe by the flesh, whatever it is. Well, we go back to those promises that ground us in the Christian faith, those truths that we know are true regardless of how we feel, that our sins are forgiven through Jesus Christ, not on the basis of how I feel when I wake up in the morning. Praise God for that, but on the basis of God's Word, on the basis of what Jesus has accomplished when he went to the cross. Today, many Christians are celebrating Good Friday focusing on the cross of Christ.

Well, why should we focus on it? Because it's there that our sins were nailed to the tree as it were. God made him who knew no sin to become sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God, Paul says in 2 Corinthians. And so we go to those promises and we remind ourselves of those truths, what is true regardless of how we feel, and we pray. I mean, and I know that prayer can be a very difficult thing for many of us.

I've never met a believer who says, that's one area of my life where it's just perfect at my prayer life. No, but we continue to press in and to seek the Lord, seek the Lord even when we don't have those feelings, those emotions necessarily. And we recognize that again, it's going to be a battle.

It really is. But don't quit. Continue to press into the Word, continue to press into Christian fellowship, continue to press into prayer and to seek the face of the Lord in Jesus and by the grace of the Holy Spirit. And as we do that, we have these seasons of, there are times where I really don't experience or feel God's presence in my life.

I'm just struggling. Then there are other times where, man, the Word of God is really opening up to me and it's as if God is illuminating my mind and I'm gaining all this new understanding. You just continue pressing in and may the Lord bless you as you do. I hope you're encouraged, friend, and thank you again for calling us. God bless. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Idril Sanchez. Let's go to a voicemail that came in at 833-843-2673.

This is from Giovanni in Nevada City, California. When Lazarus died, Jesus told his disciples that he was going to go to his friend to awaken him because he was asleep. When he got there, he resurrected Lazarus. But my question is, if when we die, we go to heaven, why would Jesus have brought Lazarus back from heaven to earth to only again die after he finishes earthly course?

Hey Giovanni, thank you for that question. It's like, yeah, thanks a lot, Jesus. I was really enjoying my time there in heaven and now I'm brought back down to earth, that kind of a thing. Why in the world would Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead? Now the the passage of scripture that you're referring to is John 11, a really beautiful portion of scripture where Jesus is comforting Mary and Martha, Lazarus's sisters, and there's this whole dialogue between them. And I think from the very beginning, you kind of get this sense as to why Jesus did what he did. In John 11, if you look at verse 13, starting there, Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant that Lazarus was taking rest and sleep. And then Jesus told them plainly, now here Jesus is speaking to his disciples, Lazarus has died, and for your sake, I am glad that I was not there so that you may believe. You see Giovanni, it's not always about us and what we're experiencing.

Sometimes God works in our lives in mysterious ways for the good of others. And here it seems like it was first the good of the disciples. He says, for your sake, I'm glad that you may believe. And then a little bit later in this chapter, in John chapter 11, verse 42, Jesus is praying there at the gravesite, if you will, by the tomb, and he sang to his father, I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around that they may believe that you sent me. Okay, so now it's not just the disciples, it's the other people that are there gathered around the tomb of Lazarus. There were Jews who were there, some of them even Pharisees. People were gathered there to see and to comfort, really, Mary and Martha, and Jesus said that they may believe that you sent me. You see this again in verse 45, just a few verses later.

Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him. And so why does Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead? Well, for Lazarus in one sense, but the reality is it wasn't just all about Lazarus, it was about the people that were there experiencing this miracle, witnessing this miracle. And at the end of the day, this is another thing we need to understand, is these kinds of miracles that we see in the New Testament, they're never a sort of end in and of themselves. It's not, hey, Jesus is going to heal this person from blindness just so that they can see better and great for them. No, the purpose of miracles was always to lead people to faith, to believe in Jesus so that the greatest miracle might happen, the forgiveness of sins. And so Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead so that those there might believe and receive his grace.

Thanks for your question, Giovanni. Just love that passage of John. It is so beautiful and so powerful, and I'm moved always when I read about, you know, Jesus's tears at death and how death affects us and how we grieve and how painful it is. And yet he seems that he conquers death on the cross.

Yeah. I mean, you do see there in John 11, these sort of emotions, the emotions of the Son of God grieving, but I think also even maybe this sense of anger at death. I mean, death, according to the Bible, is this great enemy, we're told, an enemy that Jesus came to conquer. And Paul says this in 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

And so Jesus is dealing with death here in John chapter 11, but he's going to deal with death more fully and more finally when he himself goes into the tomb and then rises from the dead. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. By the way, we'd love to have you join our inner core. That's a group of people that regularly support this program. And if you give a gift of $25 or more a month, we will send you exclusive content. We have some wonderful video devotionals that Adriel will be sending you on a regular basis and a copy of the book Core Christianity.

To learn more about that, you can just go to our website corechristianity.com forward slash inner core. Let's go to Kelsey, who's calling in from Baltimore, Maryland. Kelsey, welcome to the program.

Hi, thank you for having me. I just wanted to know what's the Bible like opinion on homosexuality? Hey, Kelsey, thank you so much for your question.

A question actually that we've had on the broadcast before, and it's one that a lot of people are asking right now. Homosexuality or same-sex sex acts are clearly forbidden or prohibited in the scriptures. You see this in places like the book of Leviticus. You also see it in the New Testament, Romans chapter one, or also in 1 Corinthians chapter six. The apostle Paul said there in 1 Corinthians chapter six, he's writing to a group of Christians who are actually struggling with all sorts of different kinds of sins at church there in Corinth. He's essentially warning them not to go back to their previous lifestyles, and he says, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. Now, the word that's used there in 1 Corinthians chapter six homosexuality, it's used elsewhere in the New Testament, and it's actually two words. Those two words describe essentially same-sex sex acts.

What's being forbidden here in particular is engaging in this kind of sexual relationship. Are there people who wrestle with same-sex attraction, who have these desires? Yeah. Can they experience the grace of God, the salvation of Jesus Christ?

Yes. We all experience these different desires that are disordered because of sin and because of the effect of sin in the world that we're wrestling with. Frankly, that we're putting to death, as it were, mortifying. This is the word that the apostle Paul uses in Romans chapter six through eight.

We all have these sort of desires. It could be the desire to lust after someone of the same sex or the opposite sex or this sort of proclivity towards pride, towards any number of things that we're called to set aside. Jesus said, take up your cross and follow me. What does the Bible say about homosexuality?

Well, it calls us to follow Jesus, to set aside maybe those desires that are disordered because of the fall, because of sin, and to receive the grace of Jesus Christ, to follow him. I think that the Bible is very clear on this. There have been some people, Kelsey, in recent days who have tried to make a case and say, well, you know, the way in which the church has interpreted these scriptures for 2,000 years is off.

Now we have more information. There are some who have even said, you know, those passages that talk about homosexuality are talking more about something like pedophilia or something like that. But really, when you look at the New Testament words, that just doesn't add up. The reality is even in those days, in the Greco-Roman world, there were people who were in same-sex relationships. There was homosexuality that was really being practiced all over the place, and those were the words, the words that are used to describe those acts are the words that are used in the New Testament that are forbidden by the apostles.

This is not in line with how God has called us to express ourselves sexually. And so I think the scriptures are really clear on that. It doesn't mean that a person who wrestles with and has this sort of same-sex attraction can't be saved.

No way. They can be, by the grace of the Lord Jesus. And in fact, Paul says to the Corinthians, again in verse 11, that text I just read, and such were some of you. In other words, some of you were engaged in this kind of behavior, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. It doesn't matter what our background is, what our proclivities, our sinful proclivities are, what our struggle is.

The grace of Jesus and the blood of Jesus is sufficient to cleanse us, and Christ welcomes us when we come to him and say, Lord have mercy. Thanks, Kelsey, for your question. Amen. What a great promise for all of us, Adriel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's go to a voicemail that came in from Debbie in Lodi, California.

Hi. I have a friend who believes that Jesus was crucified on Wednesday and not Friday. How would I address that?

Thank you. Yeah, so I mean, there is some discrepancy in the Gospels, and I think that's one of the reasons why a lot of people sort of wrestle with that. And part of it has to do with the way in which people think about, you know, the day. You know, we're told that Jesus was in the grave for three days, that he rose on the third day.

And so then people are trying to sort of backtrack some, and, you know, we want to make sure that he was there for 72 hours, and that's how those prophecies are going to be fulfilled. But I think when we understand the way in which the Jews thought of a day, in particular, as beginning the night before when the sun sets, and sort of a part of a day, really being able to count for a full day, that kind of a thing, that there really isn't an issue here. And it's absolutely clear, according to the New Testament, that Jesus rose again on the first day of the week. That's when the women went to the tomb. We're told repeatedly it was the first day of the week. That would have been Sunday, sometimes referred to as the Lord's Day in places like the book of Revelation. And that's why Christians from very early on, Debbie, started to worship on Sunday.

You see this in 1 Corinthians chapter 16. You see this in Acts chapter 20, in celebration of the fact that Christ is risen. Now, many Christians are going to celebrate that this Sunday, but the reality is we actually celebrate it every Sunday. That's why we gather on Sundays, because we proclaim to each other and to the world, Christ is risen. We don't worship a dead savior.

We worship a victorious, risen God, King, Lord, Jesus. And it's clear, according to the scriptures, that he rose on the first day of the week. And so I think focusing on that, I don't know that you need to get into a really big discussion or debate with this friend about Wednesday or Thursday, that kind of a thing. And I'd be curious to know why, in particular, they were saying what they were saying.

And without knowing, I can't really tell you how to continue to approach that. But I think focusing on the fact that he was crucified and that he rose, I mean, that's key for us there. And so may the Lord bless you, and may you have a wonderful Easter. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We often talk about different books of the Bible on this program, and the book of Revelation is one that can be very confusing to Christians. And we have an excellent resource that will help you understand and study the book of Revelation. We'd like to tell you about that today. Yes, a new resource that we're offering to you, and it's called Five Things You Should Know About the Bible's Final Book. I mentioned yesterday, this is the first time we offered it yesterday, and we were talking about people have questions about things like the rapture.

What is that? Is that what the book of Revelation is all about? Questions about, is this book talking about us, the United States, or countries, present-day countries? How do we understand some of these prophecies in the book of Revelation?

It can be really confusing for people. And so it's really important that we dig in, that we understand the context, and that's what this resource is going to help you to do. You can get ahold of it for free. Again, it's called Five Things You Should Know About the Bible's Final Book. We'd love to send that off to you. All you have to do is go to corechristianity.com forward slash final book. Again, corechristianity.com forward slash final book.

You can also call us for that resource or any one of our resources at 833-843-2673. Let's go to a voicemail we received yesterday. This is from Natalie. If Jesus is God, how could he have died on the cross? I love this question, not just because it's Good Friday and we're thinking about the cross, but because I think that there's a lot of confusion about this. I've had conversations with Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, who deny that Jesus was God, who don't embrace the deity of Jesus Christ. And they'll say, okay, you know, you say that Jesus was God, but we know that God can't die and so you have a contradiction here. And so there are some who, in an attempt to answer that question, have said, well, the human nature of Jesus died on the cross, that kind of a thing. It was sort of the human nature of Jesus that accomplished redemption for us. But even that statement is problematic when we're really getting into the nitty-gritty of the theology of the incarnation, if you will. What we say, Natalie, is that Jesus, the eternal Son of God, the divine person, assumed human flesh for us. He took on humanity. He made it his own so that we can say, in one sense, God, the Word, died on the cross.

How? In the humanity that he assumed. And that's why the Scriptures can speak the way that they do. I think, for example, of Acts chapter 20. One of my favorite chapters in the Bible, by the way, Paul is speaking to a group of elders from Ephesus and he's encouraging them, exhorting them to continue to care for the church, to be on guard against false teachers. And he says to them, in verse 28 of Acts chapter 20, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

And can the language get any more powerful, any more vivid than that? God purchased the church with his own blood. Now, God here is a reference to the second person of the Trinity, Jesus, not the Father, not the Holy Spirit. We're talking about Jesus, the eternal Word, who assumed humanity, took a body just like ours, could bleed, could be hungry, could suffer so that he might bear our pain and our curse. Actually, Paul uses equally powerful language in the book of 1 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 8, he talks about how the Lord of glory was crucified. Now, throughout the Old Testament in particular, and you read up a lot about the glory of the Lord throughout the book of Exodus and other places, God manifesting his glory. The glorious Lord is Yahweh, is God.

I think Psalm 24, for example, you know, who is this king of glory, the Lord strong and mighty? And Paul says the king of glory was crucified, Jesus. And so it is right for us, it's accurate for us to say, we can say in one sense, God died on the cross. We qualify that by saying in his humanity, which he assumed for us, and because it was God himself, our sins are forever put away. It was his sacrifice of infinite value, and because he was a true human, this is the mystery of the incarnation, Jesus is true God and true man.

He is our perfect representative. Really, such a wonderful, such a beautiful doctrine, and it's front and center for us on Good Friday as we think about the cross, as we think about what Jesus did for us. And it might sound to you like splitting hairs, like, man, why are we getting into all this deep theology, you know, Jesus, true God, true man, that kind of a thing, assuming humanity, dying in that humanity.

Well, it really has to do with our redemption, because if he wasn't true man, he couldn't represent us, and if he wasn't the infinite God, the Lord of glory who was crucified, then that sacrifice of our Lord Jesus would not have been sufficient to cleanse the sins of his people, all those who trust in him. There is no message, friends, like the Christian gospel. You're not going to find this anywhere else. This story of the God who loved sinners so much that he assumed their humanity, that he took on their suffering, that he bore their curse.

You're not going to find that anywhere else. Other religions of the world are going to tell you what you need to do to sort of climb the ladder up to God. Only Christianity tells us what God did to come down to us sinners to lift us up to himself. That's what we celebrate every single week, and especially around this time of the year. as we explore the truth of God's Word together.