Did Jesus die?

The short answer is yes. In the Lamentations at the Tomb during Holy Week, we sing “O Life how can’st thou die?” The hymn presents Jesus’s death on the Cross as a fact: the question is rhetorical. And yet, at the same time, the question is phrased as a contradiction. It is common for hymns in the Orthodox church to phrase “mysteries” (mysterion in Greek) as contradictions, to express the inexpressible. The purpose is to make us realize the limits of human knowledge and logic, to make us aware of a truth so deep that it cannot be completely comprehended nor explained in words. The expressions of truth in contradictions is one way that the church deals with what we call “Apophatic Theology,” theology by negation. For example, we say in the Divine Liturgy that God is Ineffable, meaning there are no words to describe him, and yet must try. We must try to explain the unexplainable in words and then we must admit that we have failed. That is basically what expressing truth in the form of a contradiction accomplishes: we see both the truth that we are trying to describe and at the same time we see that our human faculties are inadequate when it comes to understanding that truth in its full reality.

But let us try to use some more words to describe Jesus’s Death and Resurrection. Jesus Himself says “I am the Way , the Truth, and the Life,” (Jn. 14:6) . Life is the opposite of death. How then could he die? Not only that, but He is the One who gives life: He is the Creator. He is Co-creator with the Father and the Holy Spirit. How then could the one who gives life die? Moreover, as God, Jesus is eternal. How could the eternal One die? Well He did, and not only did He but His death is in fact the only logical option for our salvation. We die. God’s purpose for us, however, was that we would not die. God’s purpose for us when he created us was for us to live eternally with Him. So, to resolve the problem, God became like us. God the Creator, entered into His Creation and became part of it: He became human. As a human he had to die, like us. But as God, death had no power over Him, and so He was resurrected in 3 days. The 3 day Resurrection of Jesus is contrasted with the fact the Lazarus was already dead for 4 days. After a 4 day period the body has already started to corrupt (that is the purpose of embalming). But Jesus, as God, is incorruptible, and so he was resurrected after only 3 days so that there could be no doubt that he remained incorruptible. By dying and being the Life, Jesus defeated death not only for Himself but also for us. Therefore, in the paschal Homily, St. John Chrysostom quotes St. Paul “O Death where is thy sting? O Hades where is thy victory?” (1 Cor. 15:55)

When we say that death is defeated by Jesus’s death on the Cross, we mean that Jesus’ resurrection also makes possible our own resurrection. I know of no better description of how Jesus’ Death and Resurrection makes our salvation possible than in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, which we read for every baptism:

“Brethren, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. The death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 6:3-11)

By St. Paul’s impeccable logic if we share in Jesus’ death, we also share in His resurrection. We therefore will be able to live with God eternally as He originally intended. But in saying these words we have encountered many mysteries in the process. How is it possible for the Creator to become part of Creation? Yet this is exactly what happened in Jesus’ incarnation. How is it possible for the dead to be raised up? Why is death not final? Yet even before Jesus’ own death and resurrection he demonstrated the possibility of raising the dead on two occasions in the Gospels: the raising of Jairus’ daughter and the raising of Lazarus. So clearly death is not final, as hard as it is to wrap our minds around it. All of these questions touch on mysteries, and all of them are truths far deeper than what we are able to grasp in our human limitation or to explain with words. Nonetheless, we declare all of these mysteries as realities.