“Allah said, O Jesus, I shall cause you to die and will exalt you in my presence and shall purify you of the ungrateful disbelieving people, and shall place those who follow you above those who deny the truth, until the Day of Judgement; then to Me shall all return and I will judge between you regarding your disputes.” (Qur’an 3:55)
“Allah! There is no god but He,-The Ever Living, the Self-Subsisting, Eternal.” (Qur’an 3:2)
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Can God Die?
The answer to this question is the death knell to Christianity.
This is the question that every Christian who thinks he/or she is saved should really know the answer to. This is the question that anyone who is even considering Christianity as a viable faith tradition should be asking themselves.
This is why Christianity fails as a faith tradition on a very basic and fundamental level.
It simply does not reveal the true nature of God. In Islam, God is the Ever-Living God, and as such it is an impossibility for God to die. A dead god would be no God. A God that dies even for a fraction of a nanosecond in time could not by definition be called ‘The Ever Living’ God.
We have dealt with this subject here:
“God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.”(1 Timothy 6:15-16)
“Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and listen to all the words of Sennacherib, who sent them to reproach the living God.” (Isaiah 37:17)
So now who or what died on the double-cross?
There are serious intra-Christian debates that rage over this issue until this very day. You would think the answer would be simple: “Jesus died on that double cross.” That is until you investigate the debate that rages between Miaphysis, Monophysis, and Dyophysis.
One group proclaims that Jesus has divinity and humanity continuing in Him without mixture or separation, confusion or change. He is one and the same person both in his eternal pre-existence.
They claim that if you separate the natures after the union and say that Jesus is in two natures, you will be confronted with serious theological problems. For example, you will have to admit that Jesus merely died as a man.
Yet that does not take the Oriental Orthodox off the hook either. Because statements like “without mixture or separation” are really not saying anything at all. Did his one nature that is neither mixed or seperated die?
So, in strict Monophysitism, the crucifixion risks meaning that God’s single nature actually suffers and dies—a view many Christians consider theologically problematic.
If Jesus had only one, divine nature (Monophysis), then He didn’t truly die, as God cannot die. This would make the Crucifixion a sham. In this view people witnessed nothing more than a hologram on the double cross.
If Jesus were two separate persons (called Nestorianism), then only a human person died, and God merely watched. This would mean humanity was not truly saved.
Just as God is not tempted, doesn’t increase in knowledge, doesn’t require sleep, God does not die.
God didn’t die. God’s essence did not die. God the Father did not die. God, the Holy Spirit, did not die. God the Son did not die.
That is the end of Christianity. It so frustrates Christians in debates with Muslims that the Christian immediately pushes a panic button and will either introduce a non sequitur, or statements that are not analogous at all.
“Even my Muslim friends don’t believe that death is the cessation of life!” I have heard one of them say. So the Christian tries a diversion tactic. Say something truthful about your opponent that they are forced to agree with and take the tension out of the room.
To our dismay, time and time again, Muslim debaters let Christians off the hook on this.
True, Muslims believe that there is life after death, but the Christian is trying to avoid the subject of death altogether. Muslims also believe that our souls are created; they are not eternal. Muslims believe that we do indeed die.
So that which Christians claim died on the double-cross: Was it created or eternal? And notwithstanding the fact that there is life after death, back to the pointed question:
Who or what died on the double-cross?
If they say a man died on the double-cross, then there was no redemptive sacrifice. After all, what is the point of the incarnation if man alone can atone for the sins of mankind.
Saying the god-man died is also nonsensical, as that would be saying that the two natures co-joined died.
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28)
Which also begs the question: what did God really sacrifice?
We can’t say God sacrificed his life because God cannot die.
We can’t really say that God sacrificed his son because he got his son back.
We can’t even really say that God sacrificed time, as God exists outside space/time.
Which also still leaves our Christian friends in their sin.
All that happened, in reality, was a cosmic charade. In the end, a man was left to suffer. God didn’t partake in any suffering. It was simply flesh that was abandoned on the double-cross.
Perhaps this is why the writer of this Gospel is making a theological statement.
It says, “About the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice,” ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (Matthew 27:46)
Jesus is speaking as flesh here. The Father can never abandon the Son because they are co-eternally joined in one essence.
All that was left was flesh, the same flesh that we are told can’t please God.
“Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.” (Romans 8:8)
The Creator cannot be overcome by his creation. Both death and life are creations of God.
“Who has created life and death that He may try you which of you is best in conduct; and He is the Mighty, the Forgiving.” (Qur’an 67:2)
It is both blasphemous and nonsensical to think of a God that is one in essence that is shared with three persons, that anyone of those persons could actually be dead. That in and of itself would destroy the Trinity.
The central theme of Christianity is that the Divine entered into his Creation and died for us. It is the very undoing of the Christian faith tradition itself.
“And say: Truth hath come and falsehood hath vanished away. Lo! Falsehood is ever bound to vanish.” (Qur’an 17:81)
“And when they hear what has been revealed to the Messenger, you see their eyes overflowing with tears because of what they have recognized of the truth. They say, “Our Lord, we have believed, so register us among the witnesses.” (Qur’an 5:83)
May Allah Guide them to the truth so that they do not burn in hellfire.
Prima Quran 