I think you are missing just how complicated this truly is. Did Satan really believe that He could make God antithetical to Himself? Antithetical to His own existence? Just who/what was Satan tempting? Why was Jesus rewarded afterwards? Why did God the Father introduce Jesus as He did at the baptism? Why did He say that along with "in Him I am well pleased."? What about Jesus pleased the Father such? Did God bleed when the Romans struck Him? Can God bleed? Did God really get stressed out about the cross to the point that unlike most humanity, He sweat drops of blood? Why would/did God get so stressed out? If Jesus is God, and the Father is God, how can the Father know something as God that Jesus doesn't know as God? (Or the Holy Spirit know as God?) What is the distinction here between Jesus and God? If the only being of thought in Jesus is divine, is God, then how can He not know as God?
There is no doubt that Jesus is God. There is no doubt that Jesus is the Logos become flesh, God incarnate. There is no doubt that Jesus came in the flesh as John said. The issue is, just what does it mean to say Jesus came in the flesh? Why stress that? This is not something that we can hope to truly comprehend before we actually see it. If you have one person with two natures, then by definition that one person IS two natures, right? However, we clearly have John speaking of two parts. The Logos that was both with and was God, and the flesh, which the Logos became flesh. Some time ago in research, I read it put as there are two spirits/two natures in Christ that coexisted as one in perfect harmony. While two natures/two spirits, they spoke as one. That is how perfect the union was. The Logos and the flesh.
Who died on the cross? Human/flesh or God/divinity? Which is worse, to say that a person with title who exists in the trinity was forsaken by the others for a moment due to humanity's sin, or that the trinity was torn apart by God (Jesus) dying? The body, the person (which you have Berhkhof saying is divine) dying, and then the spirit being made alive. Is that a soul, which you are saying Jesus did not have a human soul, which is to say, a human person? Did God actually die, that is, was God separated from Himself?
This would be the reason why I would say that this is complicated. Some questions are most possibly not correct, but if any are, they need an answer, right?
Jesus is the second member of the trinity, the Son of God, also, before becoming Jesus, was the Logos who was both with and was God. The name Jesus, the personage of Jesus came with the Logos being made flesh, when God became flesh/incarnate.
This is not a or the final answer. These are questions that show where there are possibilities that our comprehension of just who God is may fall short. That is all. I believe John 1 as written. I believe I John where it says Jesus came in the flesh. I also believe Paul when he says that God made Him who knew no sin to be sin. Can God's holiness be stained in such a way? If sin is everything God is not, what does it mean when it says God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us? Am I looking for answers that destroy what you believe? NO, NO, NO, NO, NO x infinity. If you believe Jesus is God, you are on the right track (obviously.) If you believe Jesus came in the flesh, you are on the right track, according to John. This is to question the extraneous. The nuance. It is the reason I don't like named/titled beliefs. They are rigid and have no flexibility.
Do you agree with this from Got ?
I think became a sin offering better describes the passage in light of the entire NT.
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (
2 Corinthians 5:21). This verse has inspired a great deal of debate among theologians over the years. There is no doubt that the verse expresses a unique truth about Jesus:
He became sin for us. While on the one hand the verse states the simple gospel truth that Jesus took upon Himself the sins of all who would ever believe in Him, it also makes a somewhat enigmatic statement. How exactly did God make Jesus to
be sin for us?
Perhaps the best way to understand
He became sin for us is to begin with what it does
not mean. First, it does not mean that Jesus actually became sin itself. To posit such a theory denies all of Scripture, which clearly presents Jesus Christ as the One in whom there is no sin (
1 John 3:5), who commits no sin (
1 Peter 2:22), and who is holy, blameless, and pure (
Mark 1:24;
Acts 3:14;
Revelation 3:7). For Jesus to “become” sin, even for a moment, would mean He ceased to be God. But Scripture presents Jesus as “the same yesterday, today and forever” (
Hebrews 13:8). He was and is and always will be the Second Person of the Godhead (
John 1:1).
Second, the idea that Jesus became sin for us does not mean that He became a sinner, not even for a moment. Some have said that Christ may be considered as the greatest of sinners, because all the sins of mankind (or at least of the elect) became His own sins. When Christ suffered in our place and died for us, He bore the punishment for
our sins in His own body (
1 Peter 2:24). But Jesus at no time became a sinner personally.
Third, it does not mean He was guilty of actual sin. No one is truly guilty who has not transgressed the law of God, which Jesus never did. If He were guilty, then He deserved to die, and His death could have no more merit than that of any other guilty person. Even the Pharisees who sent Jesus to Calvary knew He was guiltless: “And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed” (
Acts 13:28).
If
He became sin for us does not mean Jesus was sin, or a sinner, or guilty of sin, the proper interpretation can only be found in the doctrine of
imputation. This is confirmed by the second part of
2 Corinthians 5:21: “So that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” To impute something is to ascribe or attribute it to someone. On the cross, our sin was imputed to Christ. That is how Christ paid our sin debt to God. He had no sin in Himself, but our sin was imputed (attributed) to Him so, as He suffered, He took the just penalty that our sin deserves. At the same time, through faith, Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us. Now we can stand before God sinless, just as Jesus is sinless. We are not righteous in ourselves; rather, Christ’s righteousness is applied to us.
So, “God made him . . . to be sin for us” means that Jesus, although sinless, was treated
as if He were not. Although He remained holy, He was
regarded as guilty of all the sin in the world. Through imputation of our sin to Him, He became our
substitute and the recipient of God’s judgment against sin. Having saved those who believe, He is now “our righteousness, holiness and redemption” (
1 Corinthians 1:30)
