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Let’s return to the question raised in the introduction to this chapter: why must Christ die? The Biblical and classic solution to this problem of the necessity of the atonement is that Christ must die if man is to be saved. The problem that the atonement solved is not in God but in man: it is man who is dead and sins because he is dead. Thus Christ died primarily to save man from death and secondarily to save him from sin and hence from wrath. The necessity of the atonement is not in God and hence absolute, but in man and hence relative. It is not the justice of God that requires the death of Christ but the love of God who wants to save man. It is not God’s justice that is the barrier to man’s salvation but it is death. And Christ’s death and resurrection has overcome that barrier. Death is a real and objective barrier to man’s salvation; death separates man from God (spiritual death) and man’s spirit from his body (physical death). Death had to be defeated and this is not just dramatic and emotional language. Neither the objective or subjective theories of the atonement understands nor takes seriously this problem. Since death came by a man, Adam, so death had to be removed by a man, the God-man, Jesus Christ (I Cor. 15:21-22). All legalistic theories of the atonement see sin as the primary problem; death is always a secondary problem because death is always seen as the necessary penalty of sin. They assume that the law can make alive, contrary to the clear statement of the Scriptures. Paul says in his letter to the Galations:

“Is the law against the promises of God? Certainly not;  for if a law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would be indeed by the law.”     (Gal. 3:21)

If the law could make alive, then the death and resurrection of Christ would be unnecessary and Christ died in vain (Gal. 2:21). But the law cannot make alive; therefore, salvation is not by the law. Thus any legalistic interpretation of the atonement cannot be true because the law cannot make alive and can not produce righteousness; it cannot save from death and sin.

The Biblical and classic solution sees death as the primary problem and sin as a secondary problem because man sins because of death (Rom. 5:12d ERS). The death and resurrection of Christ solves the problem of death by making us alive to God in and with the resurrection of Christ. It thus solves the problem of sin. God saves us from sin itself (primarily, idolatry – trust in a false god) to the righteousness of faith (trust in the true God) by making us alive to God, when we receive by faith the gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The purpose of the incarnation of the Son of God is salvation. Since salvation is basically from death to life, Christ on the cross entered into our death, both spiritually and physically, in order that man can be made alive with Christ in His resurrection. By faith we can then say; His death is my death and His resurrection is my resurrection. On the cross, Christ died both spiritually and physically. His body died physically on the cross when He gave up His spirit (Matt. 27:50; John 19:30). His spirit was separated from His body. But before He died physically, He died spiritually.

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, la’ma sabach-tha’-ni?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’”     (Matt. 27:46)

This cry was misunderstood by the bystanders as a calling upon Elijah (Matt. 27:47-49). But it was not a calling on Elijah, but it was His spirit as the Son of God calling upon God His Father. He had entered into our spiritual death inherited from Adam and His spirit was separated from God His Father. This spiritual death was not a non-existence of His spirit, but was a separation between His spirit as the Son of God from God His Father. This is only time in all eternity that He as the Son of God was separated from God His Father. It happened because He had entered on the cross into our spiritual death inherited from Adam (Rom. 5:12; I Cor. 15:21-22). This raises the problem of how is this possible. As it was expressed by those who mocked Him, saying

“He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel;  let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliever him now, if he desires him; for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”    (Matt. 27:42)

How can God die? As Greeks understood the divine, the gods are immortal; they never die. Then how could the Son of God die? Now their understanding of God as immortal was based on their understanding of God as unchanging in His being, therefore He could not change by dying. And they argued that God does not change because He is timeless. But the Biblical God does not change because He is timeless, but because He keeps His promises. The prophet Malachi says for God,

“⁶For I, the Lord, do not change;  therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. ⁷From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes, and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of hosts.    (Malachi 3:6-7 NAS)

If Israel turns from their sins, then they will not be consumed because the Lord God is unchanging in keeping His promises not to destroy them if they will return to Him. Thus the Biblical God is unchanging, not because He is a timeless unchanging super-It, but because the Biblical God, who keeps His promises, is three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who are without beginning or end. The Biblical God has time, but His time has no beginning nor end. His time is an absolute time, not like our created time which has a beginning. “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” (Gen. 1:1)  The beginning of the heaven and earth was also the beginning of created time. When God created the heaven and earth, God created our time. But God’s time was not created; it never started nor will it end; it is absolute without beginning or end.  God created the heavens and earth by an act of His will. As those in heaven sang,

“Worthy art thou, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou didst create all things, and by thy will they exist and were created.”     (Rev. 4:11)

God is three Persons by whose will all things were created and do exist. Now an act of the will, a choice, involves time: the time before the choice, the now of the choice, and the time after of the choice. Since God as three persons makes choices, and since an act of the will, a choice, involves time, then God must have time in which They exercises His will.

Thus this will of God means that God has time, but it is not a created time with a beginning, but absolute time without beginning or end; it is eternal. In this absolute time, God makes decisions and changes do occur. Thus God is both changing and unchanging. So the Greek philosophical distinction between what is God and what is not-God is false; God is distinguished from what is not-God by His act of Creation by which He as the Creator made decision to create all things, and by His will “they exist and were created.” (Rev. 4:11)

And in eternity God also made the decision for the Son of God to become a man and to die on the cross for the salvation of men. So this once in all eternity, at the cross, the Son of God died spiritually by being separated from God the Father. He did not cease to exist, but He entered into our spiritual death and His personal relationship to God His Father was broken and He was temporarily separated personally from God His Father. But He did not remain in this spiritual death; God the Father raised the Son of God from the dead, not only physically, but also raised Him spiritually from the dead. And thus God provided for us salvation from death to life, both spiritually and physically.