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A controversy has arisen recently on this point because of a few well-known teachers who erroneously assert that Jesus Christ on the cross died not only physically but spiritually as well. They say that this shows how great His love for us is and how much power He released because He gave up so much for us. Well, that is an interesting thought, but it is an impossibility, a contradiction in terms. By definition, a spirit cannot die. A spirit is an immortal being.

Of course God cannot die either. If God died, the universe would fall apart. And Jesus is God. If the Spirit of Jesus died, then God Himself would have died, and the whole universe would have collapsed.

These teachers say that they mean by “death” a separation from God. According to them, in order for a person’s spirit to be redeemed, Jesus’ Spirit had to die. However, for Jesus to be separated from God, He would have had to be a sinner. But a sinner could not have been the “lamb without blemish and without spot” offered for the sins of the world (I Peter 1:19). If Jesus–the Son of God and second Person of the Trinity–were truly separated in spirit from the Father, then God Himself would be torn asunder and would cease to be–another impossibility.

The book of Hebrews states: “Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: ‘Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come–in the volume of the book it is written of Me–to do Your will, O God.’ Previously saying, ‘Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor had pleasure in them’ (which are offered according to the law), then He said, ‘Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God.’ He takes away the first that He may establish the second. By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:5-10).

The Bible clearly states, “We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” It is His physical death in obedience to the will of the Father that sanctifies us. Jesus’ humanity, which knew no sin, tasted the horror of the sin of all humanity. He was offered as a sacrificial lamb before God to pay the price for all of our sins.

After his physical death and before His resurrection, Jesus’ Spirit descended into hell and preached to all those who were there, leading “captivity captive” (see I Peter 3:18-20). His Spirit was neither dead nor separated from God. Instead, He was continuing to please and serve the Father, as He is at this moment.

It has been said that if Jesus is not God, then we should worship the man who thought Him up, because never did any man speak that way before or since.

The teachings that I that are in the bible, especially about the kingdom, have truth that is self-validating. They resonate with the experience of people throughout all the ages. When these principles are put into practice, they lead invariably to peace, harmony, victory, and love. This does not mean that the teachings of Jesus will not bring conflict. Because when someone accepts the teachings of God, there will be conflict with those who wish to continue in evil.

Jesus’ words pulsate with wisdom. For example, His concept about civil government: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). The concept of God as a Spirit: “Those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). The Sermon on the Mount: “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you” (Matthew 5:44). The greatest commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind … Love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40).

Jesus’ understanding of the sweep of history was absolutely superb. There has never been anyone in history who has even come close to Him. Above all else, Jesus rose from the dead, appeared to people, sent His Spirit to people, and has transformed the lives of millions. Wherever you find the gospel, you find progress, freedom, liberty, and family loyalty–all the things that human beings acknowledge as the desires of their hearts. It is not coincidental that the nations that have been characterized as “Christian” have surpassed the rest of the world for centuries in almost every measure of achievement.

It is true that there have been many crimes perpetrated upon humanity in the name of Christianity, but those who did such things did not really know Christ or His teachings. Christ did not lead people to persecute and torture Jews and “heretics.” Many so-called “heretics” were actually ones who knew the Lord, and they were being persecuted by zealots who did not know Him.

What happens in religion is that one generation finds Jesus and lives for Him. The next generation learns His teaching by rote. The third generation does not really know it at all, but decides to use religion as a justification for holding on to temporal power. Such people launched the crusades and conducted the Inquisition. They were using religion, but they did not know Jesus. Wherever you find political power and worldly ambition using Christianity, you will often find the absence of New Testament truth. Then there may be sinful excesses done in the name of religion. Neither Jesus nor His teachings should be blamed for sinful excesses committed under cover of His name.

Jesus claimed to be God, and he allowed Himself to be worshiped as God. After His resurrection, one of His disciples fell on his knees and said, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28)! To a good Jew, this would have been blasphemy, but Jesus received it approvingly. Jesus also said, “You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64). He identified Himself as the Son of God (see John 3:16-18). In His lifetime, He said things about Himself that, if they were not true, would have been the words of a madman.

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness” (John 8:12). He said, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35). He told people, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53). He made a series of claims about His own divine nature. When people challenged Him on it, He said, in effect, if I denied my deity I would become a liar, as you are (See John 8:55).

Mohammed believed that he was a prophet. Buddha felt that he was a seeker after truth. Confucius never claimed to be anything but a wise teacher. Only Jesus has made claim to be the eternal Son of God. He is God and He proved His deity

Jesus Christ was dead and buried, but rose again from the dead (see Matthew 28:7, Acts 13:30-31). He was seen by about five hundred people after His resurrection (see I Corinthians 15:4-8). He had the ability to walk through doors, (See John 20:19, 26) to travel vast distances in an instant, (See John 6:21) and to ascend into heaven (see Luke 24:51, Acts 1:9-11). He had taken on a completely spiritual resurrection body. He reached heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to indwell and empower His disciples. This, as the apostle Peter affirmed, proved that he actually arrived in heaven (see Acts 2:33).

When we discussed the attributes of God, we said that one way of discussing Him is to say that He is immortal. He is eternal. In other words, He does not have a beginning or an end. We also said that He is invisible, and then we said that He is described in terms of omnis (“all”). He is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. So the question is really, how can God, who is unlimited, infinite, and immortal, take upon Himself human nature which is finite, mortal, and limited?

One possible clue is to consider that when God created man in His image, there may have been more similarity to the second Person of the Trinity than we have realized. Perhaps the gap between God and sinless man was not as great as we have always imagined. The Bible does tell us in I John 3:2, “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

Jesus Christ, according to the Bible, is the very essence of God. Jesus is the express image of God, and the Bible says that “in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17). But we are also told that He emptied Himself in order to become a man (see Philippians 2:5-8). He did not empty Himself of His love, His goodness, His kindness, or His gentleness; for His divine nature was undiminished in the incarnation. But to become a human infant He did empty Himself of the eternal majesty that He shared in the presence of His heavenly Father. He went through the teen-age years, grew up to be a man, died, and then came back to life again.

Jesus was a flesh-and-blood man, with all that entails, except for sin. When Jesus died on the cross, it was not an illusion. He really died. He suffered as men suffer. He became tired and hungry. He was not some superman, free from pain and discomfort. The Bible says that He was tempted in like manner as we are, yet was without sin (see Hebrews 4:15). He went through all the problems that man can go through; yet He always possessed His divine nature and His awareness of the presence of the Father and the Holy Spirit.

There are some people who say, “Well, He became God when the Holy Spirit came upon Him.” But that is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that He was truly God from the moment of His conception by the Holy Spirit. But at the same time He was fully human (see Philippians 2:5-8, Hebrews 2:14-18, 4:14-16).

The Bible says in Isaiah that God would give us a sign: “The virgin shall conceive and bear a Son” (Isaiah 7:14). The word in Hebrew that we translate as “virgin” is almah, and it can mean “virgin or young woman.” The word has been translated “virgin,” however, because there is nothing unusual about a young woman giving birth, so that would be no sign at all.

But in the New Testament, the word that is used for the Greek translation of almah is parthenos, and that clearly means virgin. It has no other meaning except virgin. The Bible tells us that there was a young virgin named Mary. The angel of the Lord came to Mary and said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and … Overshadow you” (Luke 1:35). He went on to tell her that a child would be formed in her, and she would give birth to the Messiah.

Holy Spirit bringing about conception, parthenogenesis, the virgin beginning–without the intervention of the normal reproductive cycle of man. That is why Jesus is called the Son of God. He was not the son of Joseph, and He was not the son of a Roman soldier. He was not the son of any human father. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. God brought about virtually a second creation, a second man, without the original sin of the male line from Adam. Linking Jesus into the family tree of Mary, however, made him a descendant of David and Abraham, which fulfilled the various promises that God had made to them. Further, it was from His mother, Mary, that the Lord received His human nature. So Jesus Christ was unique, conceived by the Holy Spirit, but of “the house and lineage of David” (Luke 2:4).