Substitutionary and Second Death of Christ

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We know that Christ died the death that was ours, and the death that was ours was the wages of sin which is death, or eternal death, without the substitutionary death of Christ. Christ had to die an eternal death. How did He do this when Divinity cannot die? He died to His former first, original estate of Being FOREVER. To what degree?

  • His first estate, original state of Being was PURE DIVINITY.
  • His second estate of Being was Divinity combined, "cumbered" with humanity.

This encumbrance was a sacrifice compared with His first estate of Being, wherein He was omnipresent, for example. He was not omnipresent in His second estate of being combined with humanity:

“Cumbered with humanity Christ could not be in every place personally, therefore it was altogether for their advantage that He should leave them to go to His Father and send the Holy Spirit to be His successor on earth. The Holy Spirit is Himself divested of the personality of humanity and independent thereof. He would represent Himself as present in all places by His Holy Spirit.” E.G. White, (Manuscript Releases Volume 14 (No’s 1081-1135) MR No.1084.

Since Christ is "cumbered with humanity" forever, it is reasonable to me to conclude that He is not omnipresent forever. Thus His Holy Spirit became His successor on earth because His Holy Spirit is divested of the personality of humanity and independent thereof, and He will forever represent Himself as present in all places by His Holy Spirit, which is the original life, breath, mind and soul of His original estate or state of Being, which He laid aside as a gift for us at His Incarnation. This is how and why we can partake of the DIVINE NATURE of Christ.

Ellen White said that the gift of His Holy Spirit; His life, breath and soul, is the greatest gift He could bestow to man. So to spurn this gift by attributing it to another person--a third, separate and distinct person from Christ, is to discredit and denigrate the Son of God by saying that He did not give us His ONE, ETERNAL, HOLY SPIRIT--His very life, breath, mind and soul, as the greatest gift He could bestow, but rather sends us another person via some third, distinct, separate person Holy Spirit. This has everything to do with the Atonement. This has everything to do with the Sanctuary Message, all of which pointed to Christ and His great Sacrifice for us. Ellen White saw both GONE, The Upward Look, 152. The trinity doctrine effectively does away with the fact that Christ gave us His own personal life, breath, mind and soul. That does away with the Atonement and the Sanctuary Service through which that gift of the Son to us was effected.

The eternal death which Christ died, was not one of fire and torment that unrepentant sinners will experience at the end of all things. It was death to His first, original purely divine state of Being. That was eternal, because He took upon Himself the form of a servant and humanity eternally. Only some sacrifice on the part of the Son that was eternal would satisfy the Everlasting Covenant Testament Agreement between the Son and the Father. Thirty-three years as a fully human--fully divine being who died for three days and rose again, would not satisfy the terms of the Testator Covenant.

Christ's Second Death

Christ's first death was when He died to His first estate, original life in the Sanctuary of Heaven, at His Incarnation.

"Such was the service performed 'unto the example and shadow of heavenly things.' And what was done in type in the ministration of the earthly sanctuary is done in reality in the ministration of the heavenly sanctuary." E.G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 420.

Christ could have returned to His original estate of Being at any point before His death on the Cross. For example, He could have done so during His Gethsemane experience. However, after He commended His Spirit to His Father on the Cross, He forever died a second death to His first estate of Being before His Incarnation. The first death was at His Incarnation. The second death was on the Cross, when He commended His Spirit to the Father. It was then forever too late to renege on His commitment to the Everlasting Covenant, and this constituted a second death to His original life Being before His Incarnation.

Ron Beaulieu