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From the evangelical perspective, considering that Jesus has both human and divine natures in one person, did His divine nature suffer on the cross along with his human nature?

Robwest
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    Welcome to Christianity.SE. For a quick overview, please take the Site Tour. For your question to work here, you would need to specify a Christian denomination whose answer you want. Otherwise it's far too broad for this site. See: What topics can I ask about here? and: How we are different than other sites. – Lee Woofenden Dec 21 '16 at 07:21
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    I don't think that you do need to specify only a single denomination, but it wouldn't hurt to clarify that you do want the Chalcedonian view of the Trinity (ie the view that Christ did have two natures, which is taught by Catholicism, Eastern, Orthodoxy and Protestant). – curiousdannii Dec 21 '16 at 13:12
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    Interesting question as you ask if Christ's Divine nature suffered , yet did not die! – Ken Graham Dec 21 '16 at 15:58
  • @KenGraham, astute observation as it wasn't explicitly stated in the question. But of course we know from the Bible that God cannot die. However, if death is defined as separation from God, was not Jesus experiencing this when He cried out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken me? (Up until that point in His suffering, Jesus had endured excruciating pain but had been silent, or in the case of the soldiers nailing Him to the cross, He prayed for their forgiveness!). His cry of forsakenness surely represented a separation of God the Son from God the Father as He endured the wrath of God. – Robwest Feb 06 '17 at 01:54

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Just as there are differences of belief about the nature of Christ, there are some different ideas about this in some branches of Christianity. However the mainline orthodox belief has a pretty settled answer to this: yes.

Assuming ⓐ the trinity, one God in three persons and ⓑ that Jesus was God the son having two complete natures, the logic goes something like this. Different branches of Christianity use different terms for some of this, but the basic argument is the same.

  1. The ‘cup’ as referenced in Jesus' prayer was God's divine wrath against sin.
  2. Yes Jesus bore physical suffering as a human and his human nature bore the brunt of the pain the Romans inflicted.
  3. But the significance of the cross was more than just a Roman torture and execution, he was also subjected to God's wrath.
  4. “Why have you forsaken me?” was not a question about why he was left to hang on at tree, it was an expression of God turning his back on his son, subjecting him to ‘death’ in the sense of separation from God.
  5. No human nature would have been able to bear that punishment inflicted directly by God — ­he would have neither the stamina nor the value to make such an action more meaningful than it was for the thieves he was crucified with.

Ergo the divine nature of God must have been subjected to and born the divine wrath side of things.

I question some time ago that asks about the same problem from a different angle, see How is Christ's death so significant? for a little more detail on the significance of “one man on a cross”.

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Caleb
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  • The Bible says 'God made Him to be sin Who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.' It would seem Jesus as a divine member of the Trinity could not be made sin since He is perfectly holy. Perhaps in His human nature He was made utterly sinful , and in His nature as God, He suffered both the weight of that sin vicariously and the 'lostness' of being separated from God. Was that separation itself, then, the wrath of God? (The concept of 'hypo-static union' I've heard before seems somewhat elusive in that it doesn't convey information about the relationship.) – Robwest Dec 21 '16 at 07:51
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    @Robwest This is quickly headed down a road towards being a “truth question”, a sort we don't handle on this site. I answered it as an overview of what the most prevalent belief is on this issue. If you want to argue that's not correct then this whole thing will end up being off topic for this site. You may want to do some more research (there are many good books covering this topic) or ask specific questions about how various theological traditions deal with this issue, but comments aren't for starting a discussion about your own theory. – Caleb Dec 21 '16 at 08:28
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    This is really not an overview, but a generalized Protestant answer to the question. Only Protestantism subscribes to penal substitution, which is the basis of this answer. The question is a truth question, and should be closed unless it is either scoped to a particular denomination or explicitly made into an overview question. And even if it were made into an overview question, this answer does not provide an overview of the major Christian viewpoints on this question, since it doesn't even cover Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity. – Lee Woofenden Dec 21 '16 at 11:10
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    @Lee This line of reasoning is not specific to Protestantism nor does it depend on penal substitution. Catholicism and Orthodoxy have different expressions of “atonement” that vary substantially, but this basic line of reasoning that it was important during his death that he was more than just a man and that he could bear more or was worth more because of being God is still there in some form. I didn't claim this represents 100% of so called Christian views, but covering Protestantism, Catholicism and Orthodoxy is the lion's share. – Caleb Dec 21 '16 at 12:07
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    This is definitely not a line of reasoning that Eastern Christianity accepts about the nature of the atonement. And "to bear that punishment in the place of all of humanity" is a specifically Protestant, penal-substitution-based line of reasoning, which is not accepted in Catholicism even if some of the rest of the reasoning is. This is very clearly a Protestant line of reasoning, and not an overview. – Lee Woofenden Dec 21 '16 at 17:49
  • The link is to the section on Eastern Christianity in the "Atonement in Christianity" article on Wikipedia. It shows that Eastern Christianity does not accept the wrath-based, satisfaction or substitutionary theories of atonement that are the basis of Catholic and Protestant soteriology, the Protestant version of which you have outlined. – Lee Woofenden Dec 21 '16 at 17:54
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    @LeeWoofenden Did you miss the bit where I started off with «Different branches of Christianity use different terms for some of this»? Sure my terminology is very Protestant flavored, but the basic logic of some or all of those points being brought together does hold for all three main traditions. – Caleb Dec 22 '16 at 15:29
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    This article argues that ideas of penal substitution may be found throughout Church history, and are not a peculiarly Protestant innovation: https://www.tms.edu/m/tmsj20i.pdf It cites for its support: Ignatius, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Epistle to Diognetus, Justin Martyr, Eusebius of Caesarea, Eusebius of Emesa, Hilary of Poitiers, Athanasius, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Ambrose of Milan, John Chrysostom, Augustine of Hippo, Cyril of Alexandria, Severus of Antioch, Oecumenius, and Martin Luther. – Paul Chernoch Dec 22 '16 at 15:57
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    @Caleb I'm sorry, but that is simply not true. It is not just a matter of terminology. And it is a common (and very annoying) error of Protestants to think that all Christians agree with their doctrines. Did you actually read the linked article section on Eastern Christianity's view of atonement? It says: "Thus the Orthodox emphasis would be that Christ died, not to appease an angry and vindictive Father or to avert the wrath of God upon sinners, but to defeat and secure the destruction of sin and death" (emphasis added). Your answer does not at all describe Eastern views of atonement. – Lee Woofenden Dec 22 '16 at 16:49
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    @Caleb Catholicism, also, does not accept the penal substitution model that you have outlined. Their doctrine of atonement has come to be based primarily on Anselm's satisfaction theory of atonement, which does not involve Jesus taking the penalty for our sins, but rather Jesus satisfying the honor of the Father. Although penal substitution developed out of Anselmian satisfaction theory, it is a different theory, and it is not believed outside of Protestantism. – Lee Woofenden Dec 22 '16 at 16:52
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    @Caleb You are, of course, free to believe what you want about the Atonement and salvation. But you are in complete error if you think that the other branches of Christianity agree with Protestantism on these matters. They do not, as you can see simply by reading the various Wikipedia articles on these subjects. Therefore once again, your answer is not an overview, even if the question had asked for an overview, which it didn't. – Lee Woofenden Dec 22 '16 at 16:56
  • @PaulChernoch I've read that article before. But the author is reading penal substitution into all of those quotes. Those early authors were not talking about penal substitution, but about ransom theory and Christus Victor, which were the primary theories of atonement in the first thousand years of Christianity. This is a perfect example of Protestants thinking everyone else believes what they do about atonement and salvation. Catholic and Orthodox scholars do not accept Vlatch's and other Protestants' interpretations of those early church fathers. – Lee Woofenden Dec 23 '16 at 03:56
  • @PaulChernoch All you have to do is read the very first sentence of the penal substitution article on Wikipedia to see that: "Penal substitution . . . is a theory of the atonement within Christian theology, developed with the Reformed tradition" (emphasis added). And the very first sentence of the "History" section reads: "In scholarly literature it has been generally recognised for some time that the penal substitution theory was not taught in the Early Church." Beyond that, the history of penal substitution isn't relevant to the question. – Lee Woofenden Dec 23 '16 at 04:01
  • @Caleb Jesus frequently cited the OT when he taught. His disciples called him Rabbi. Teaching was his thing. Citing the opening line of Psalm 22 was Him teaching the audience who was mocking him: the Pharisees/Priests who asked him why he did not save himself. He was speaking in shorthand for those who knew the OT; "I know how this ends, and I knew this was coming." It's the same as me saying "the Lord is my shephard" and everyone in my men's group knowing exactly what I am referring to (Psalm 23 and its message). – KorvinStarmast Feb 10 '17 at 03:58