Question: "Don’t be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades." Revelation 1:18

Help! Who is this strange and frightening being? He says I can live joyously in eternity if I believe in him. Can I trust him? Thirty years ago I believed this being was the Son of Man and the Son of God. I thought the Word of God came to earth to become Man and suffer death to redeem all to God. Well, it was never made clear to me that God could not die. No one told me Christ had a duel nature (united-not mixed).

Who is this great Being in Revelation? This great Being claimed to have been dead so he could not have been just the Son of God. God can’t die, can He? Can I trust this Being in Revelation?

Thank you, and I do appreciate your answers.

Frank

Answer: Dear Frank,

You appear to perceive the incarnation (God coming to be one of us, in the flesh, for our salvation) as a "mixture" of divine and human natures. This is not what the Bible teaches, nor has historic, orthodox Christianity ever taught that. The Bible teaches that Jesus, the eternal Son of God, second person of the Godhead, became something that he had never been before when he was born of the Virgin Mary. While never ceasing to be God, he voluntarily laid aside some of the vestiges of divinity in order that he could take on humanity (Philippians 2).

He added humanity to his divinity – it was not mixed, for God cannot co-exist with flesh, he is uncreated, we are created, he is eternal, we are temporal, etc. Jesus was very man, and very God. Not 50% man, and 50% God – but 100% both, in a unity that is expressed in the Bible – he was (and is) the God-man.

Therefore, when Jesus died, the human died – (for as you say, God cannot die) – and it was the body of Jesus that was resurrected and glorified, for the divine son of God had no need of glorification, for God is glory.

While you may have slightly misunderstood the incarnation in the past, that does not diminish what our Lord Jesus Christ did for you and me, and what he does now. He is Lord, he lives, he is risen.

Hope this helps.

In Christ,

Greg Albrecht