And can it be that I should gain
An int’rest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain?
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, should die for me?
’Tis mystery all! The Immortal dies!
Who can explore His strange design?
Author: Charles Wesley (1738)
The hymn “And Can It Be That I Should Gain?” is arguable the best hymn ever written. It is one of the greatest expressions of faith and confidence in the Gospel. The hymn is a proclamation of God’s saving grace; of wondrous salvation truths; and of the confession of an unworthy sinner expressing is awe at the great sacrificial love God has shown him through the death of His only begotten Son, Jesus. Perhaps, no song better sums up the gospel. It is believed that Charles Wesley wrote the hymn within hours upon his conversion.
Nevertheless, there is a controversary about that great hymn of Charles Wesley that never really bothered me until recently that I have been convicted about the weightiness of a faulty view of Christology (the study of the Person and work of Jesus Christ) through the teaching of the late R.C Sproul and John Gersner. At the heart of the controversary is the idea that the hymn suggests that God dies as seen in the words of the hymn above.
Something unique happened on the Cross when Jesus experienced the full wrath of God the Father. No one is really skilled enough to fully grasps all that happened on that Old Rugged Cross. How can it be that the Immortal One dies? The juxtaposition of those two words in the hymn conveys well the paradox of the Cross. Surely, it is an impossibility for an immortal being to die. If indeed an immortal being dies, then such being cease to be immortal at that moment of death and is only mere mortal – because, to be immortal is to be deathless and everlasting.
Personally, I don’t think the hymn writer is wrong to suggest that God somehow dies for him, but I do think such saying (in a general way) can be dangerous and could lead to heresy because God is from everlasting to everlasting, and thus cannot die. But to some degree, it is true that God died on the cross 2000 years ago because the man who shed his blood was 100% God and 100% man.
“When we say Jesus was God, we don’t mean that the whole of Jesus was divine because the human nature was not divine, but he had a divine nature, and that is what we are saying when we say that Jesus is God, we are saying that he is God incarnate, God united with the human nature.” – RC Sproul.
There was a time when Jesus (God the Son) was not a man, but there was never a time when he wasn’t God Almighty. Jesus has a divine nature and a human nature [1 person with 2 natures]. To be clear, his human nature did not do the miracles (and it is not really appropriate to say that a nature acted, since he is a person, and the natures do not operate abstractly of the person), but he as a person did the miracles. There is a sense in which Jesus was God and he wasn’t man, and in another sense, he was man and not God. Jesus physically died in his humanity, but not in his Deity.
So, in a nut shell, God died without actually dying.
The man who shed his blood at Calvary was a true man but not a mere man. He was the fullness of the Godhead and because of that the human blood he shed was the blood of (belonging to, attributed to) God who has no blood [Act 20:28]. Heidelberg 14 says: “Can any mere creature make satisfaction for us? None; for first, God will not punish any other creature for the sin which man committed; and further, no mere creature can sustain the burden of God’s eternal wrath against sin and redeem others from it.”
It was Jesus who bled for Adam’s helpless race. Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners [1 Timothy 1:15]. “In the beginning was the Word (Jesus), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” – John 1:1 &1:14. From these verses alone, it can be established that Jesus is not a god, Jesus did not become God, Jesus does not aspire to be God but that Jesus Christ is God. “The plainest reason why the Son of God is called the Word, seems to be, that as our words explain our minds to others, so was the Son of God sent in order to reveal his Father’s mind to the world.” – Matthew Henry.
To conclude with, I think it is important to bear in mind that the truth about Christ is critical, being right about Christ is critical. “The right understanding of Jesus Christ is essential to the gospel and to salvation. ‘If anybody preaches another Christ, let him be accursed.’ – Galatians 1:8. The right answer alone can lead to salvation.” – John MacArthur.
In Christ Alone 