I'm in complete agreement with you on the first one, but I'm not so sure about the second one. "Jesus Christ" is the name and title given to the human being that was born of Mary. We know He was also the Son of God who was with God before the world began, but He wasn't at that time "Jesus Christ", as far as we know. The name "Jesus" (Jeshua, or whatever that name would be in the heavenly tongue) was only introduced to us as His name just before He was born, and the title "Christ" was added later. Perhaps the name "Jesus" was used before then, or perhaps not). The man Jesus Christ did not exist before He was born to Mary. But He, the person that is Jesus Christ, did in the Godhead.
So I tend to agree with your second point as well, with the caveat that Jesus Christ, the Son of God probably continued to exist while Jesus Christ the man may have ceased to exist. I could be convinced otherwise.
A rose, by any other name, is still a rose. Right?
Since we are talking about what it means to die, I think this, more or less semantic point, only serves to muddy the water but it is true that He whom we call Jesus was not always a man but became a man at the incarnation. The point is, however, that Jesus Christ, the man, exists right now - as a man with a physical body and scares left by the crucifixion. At what point do you suggest He could have ceased to exist and why would you suggest such a thing?
So, enlighten me. Can a "triune God" ever be separate from Themselves?
Yes. At least in some meaningful way. (
Matthew 27:46 &
Mark 15:34).
I answered directly because I understand the thrust of the question but you should be careful not to fall into thinking that the Trinity doctrine is some kind of self-contradictory teaching. Your question could be read in manner that would imply that God is both singular and triune in the same sense. That is not what the bible teaches. So suffice it to say that in whatever sense they are seperate persons, they can be seperated from each other's fellowship, as Jesus Himself indicated happened while He was still on the cross.
I have no idea except that one is in some location, either spiritually or physically (or both) apart from the others.
They were with each other before the world began. They were still one while Jesus was on the earth, but Jesus was "sent from God" or "sent by God". We don't consider either of those separate, but they could be. Jesus was "forsaken" by the Father, but was the Son of God separated?
@JudgeRightly commented that He was "forsaken", and it could mean separated--he has a good point, but we haven't finished the conversation). I'll plead a fair amount of ignorance here about how the Trinity, the One God, could ever be separated from each other, just as I'll plead a fair amount of ignorance about how a single God can have relationship with Himself in the other two persons.
Again, your speech seems to at least imply a contradiction that is not there.
Is there one and only one God?
Yes!
Is that one God triune in nature?
Yes!
Two separate questions, the former has to do with the quantity of a thing, the latter has to do with the nature of that thing. There are lots of things around you that have a similar quality and you understand it intuitively. A tree has roots, a trunk, branches and leaves. The leaves aren't the trunk and the trunk isn't the roots but all are not only one with the tree, they are the tree. And it gets really complicated if you try to get specific about where the roots end and the trunk begins and where trunk ends and the branches begin or where the branches end and the leaves begin. The closer you look, the more the boundaries are blurred into non-existence but if you remove a leaf, that leaf is dead because you've cut it off from it's source of life. It may not look dead right away but with time, the truth of its condition is made apparent.
God is THE source of life. He is Life itself. Thus, to reject God is to embrace death and to be separated from Him is the very definition of death.
I agree with most of this, but disagree with what that "place" is and how it applies.
Why?
Why is it a problem saying that He died (at least the man part of Him, but not just the physical part of Him)--that He completely ceased to function? And then He was resurrected and life started again?
Because it is in conflict with scripture. Jesus Himself said that He would be in paradise that day and not only that but He couldn't have taken up His life again, as Jesus explicitly said He had the power to do (John 10:18), if He had been in some sort of an unconscious dormant state.
Now, I understand that the bible says that Jesus was raised by the power of the Holy Spirit and that is entirely true and it immediately gets back into a discussion about the Trinity and where does one member start and that other end and to what degree are they are the same thing, etc, etc and so I readily admit that it is a complex issue that we have not been given sufficient information about to have the ability to discuss it is any great detail but, I submit that the details don't really matter for our purposes because the fact is that, to whatever extent God the Son is distinct from the Father and Holy Spirit, it was Him and ONLY Him (i.e. God the Son) who laid down His life. It wasn't the Father who was in the grave for three days. So, even if we granted that you're right for the sake of argument, how would God the Son being in an unconscious dormant state not be a significant separation from the rest of the Godhead?
What is a man's "spirit"? Is it a spiritual being that is trapped in a physical body? Spiritual beings don't seem to lack anything, except a way to interact with the physical world, so why does a spiritual being need a body at all?
Doesn't that question answer itself?
We know biblically that there is a spiritual realm and a physical realm. We also know that man is a three fold being. You have a soul, a spirit and a body (I Thessalonians 5:23 and elsewhere). Your soul is you. It is your mind, emotions, personality, etc. Your spirit is that part of you that interacts with the spiritual realm and your body is that which interacts with the physical realm. This is the way in which man was created and so a disembodied spirit is an incomplete creature.
I should point out that, as we've already been discussing, it is rather more complex than what I just said because your soul, spirit and body are all integrated in a manner that makes all but impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. We know for example that your mind is housed, at least to a great degree, within your physical brain (and perhaps to some significant degree, your physical heart as well) and where the boundary is between the two is less than clear.
I will say that man is given something of God's spirit. God breathed into the clay that was to become Adam the breath of life, and he became a living creature. So it is more defined than what you suggest--in that case it was a life force given by God to animate something that was lifeless. And what is it that we will return to? the same thing.
[Gen 3:19 KJV] In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.
Notice that the verse doesn't say, "Your body is dust and to dust it shall return." Rather "YOU are dust, and YOU will become dust once more."
No. Use of scripture in this manner (i.e. ignoring the context) is not proper. It makes it possible for you to have ANY wacky doctrine that you can dream up and utterly impossible to falsify any theological claim. The context here makes clear what is being said. It is not trying to say that we ARE the dust of the ground but that our bodies are. It was Adam's BODY that was made from the dust of the ground and Moses was simply saying that our body will decompose back into that which it was made from.
Incidentally, I've seen people attempt to suggest that because the Hebrew and Greek words used in the Bible for 'spirit' or 'soul' are words that can also mean breath that they are therefore the same thing. This is just not so. When one word means two (or more) things, that doesn't make the those separate things the same thing. The right side of your house is not related in any way to a constitutional right nor is it related to being right (i.e. neither factually correct nor morally right). There are some such uses of words were the meanings over lap but even then they aren't synonymous to the point that they are talking about the same thing. As always, the specific meaning of a word is determined by the context in which it is used.
There is a similar thing that goes on in the bible with angels and stars. It seems the bible intentionally blurs the distinction between the two to the point that at some places its rather hard to tell whether its talking about stars or angels but this does NOT mean that the stars we see in the sky are angels, as I've seen more than one Christian teacher attempt to assert.
Clete