Did God Die on the Cross?

After Jesus drew His last breath on the cross, did God die? Today, R.C. Sproul makes an important distinction between Jesus' divine nature and the human nature.

You know, one of my favorite hymns is “And Can It Be,” but I have to change the words in it, because in that hymn we say, “How can it be that my God died for me?” My God died for me? God didn’t die. The God-man died. It was the human nature of Jesus that perished on the cross. What would have happened if the divine God died that Friday? Well, Jesus would have died with Him, along with Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas; and not only that, the cross would have been vaporized. Jerusalem would have stopped existing at that second. The whole world would have passed out of existence. If God dies, everything goes, folks. I die, you die, because in Him we live, and without the primary causal power of God, nothing could live for a second.

Without the primary causal power of God, nothing could be. In Him, we live and move and have our being. I am not an independent being. I’m a contingent being. There was a time, beloved, when I was not. Sixty-six years ago, there was no R.C. Sproul, except my grandfather who had that name, but I wasn’t around. I didn’t exist. I had no being. I was nothing until I was conceived and had my being created and sustained by a God who alone has the power of being within Himself to see that. And what about motion? Without God, there would only be inertia in the universe. Nothing could move. My hands, my feet, my eyes, my legs, nothing could move. The stars would freeze in their courses. Everything would be frozen in place because it’s in Him that we live and move and have our being. I think, frankly, that that statement in the New Testament is the most profound concept that we ever encounter in sacred writ.