[Fortigurn]

The issue which trinitarians cannot avoid is the death of Christ. It is their refusal to acknowledge this, which leads to their misunderstanding of the gospel.

Let me show you by quoting from trinitarians themselves (all emphasis mine).

Here Calvinist Matt Slick attempts to explain how Jesus could have died without actually dying:

Quote

God cannot die. Jesus died. Therefore, Jesus cannot be God.
One of the doctrines that many people fail to understand concerning Jesus is the doctrine of the hypostatic union. This is in the teaching that Jesus has two natures: God and man.

In other words, Jesus is both God and man at the same time. This is why we see some scriptures that point to Him being divine and others pointing to Him being a man. Below is a chart illustrating the t[w]o natures of Jesus as derived from scripture.

Jesus is one person 
 
GOD MAN   
He is worshiped (Matt. 2:2,11; 14:33; 28:9)
He is prayed to (Acts 7:59; 1 Cor. 1:1-2)
He was called God (John 20:28; Heb. 1:8)
He was called Son of God (Mark 1:1)
He is sinless (1 Pet. 2:22; Heb. 4:15)
He knew all things (John 21:17)
He gives eternal life (John 20:28)
The fullness of deity dwells in Him (Col. 2:9) He worshiped the Father (John 17)
He prayed to the Father (John 17:1)
He was called man (Mark 15:39; John 19:5).
He was called Son of Man (John 9:35-37)
He was tempted (Matt. 4:1)
He grew in wisdom (Luke 2:52)
He died (Rom. 5:8)
He has a body of flesh and bones (Luke 24:39) 

This is not a made-up doctrine. Rather, it is a doctrine derived from observing God's word. It is true that God cannot die. It is also true that man can die. But we see that Jesus has two natures, not one.

It was the human part of Jesus that died on the cross, not the divine. But, because He is both God and man in one person, and because He was sinless, His sacrifice is sufficient to cover the sins of the world.

As you can see, Mr Slick does not believe that Jesus died. In fact, he doesn't even believe that Jesus ever lost his concious state.

[Fortigurn]

A trinitarian website here provides the following attempt to explain the problem:

Quote

Most folks, Christian or not, would answer "yes" to that question, but if you dig a little deeper, the answer is not so clear.

If Jesus was a human being, then Jesus died as all human beings do. What many Christians believe, not only about Jesus but about themselves too, is that no one really dies. There is a notion that humans are made up of two parts: a body and a soul.

The body dies, but the soul is immortal. When the body does, the soul floats away, perhaps to wander the earth to complete something left undone in life, or to enter some kind of "soul sleep", or to float up to heaven, descend to hell or maybe pass a few million years in purgatory. Jesus, in particular, is often seen as a human body with a divine soul.

As one said to me, "Jesus is God, and God cannot die. The man Jesus died, but his divine nature did not."

As you can see, this person does not believe that Jesus really died. In fact, they don't believe that anyone really dies.

[Fortigurn]

This article here (commencing with the title 'As Jesus' life was a divine person's totally human life, so his dying was a divine person's totally human death'), attempts to answer a question from a reader:

Quote

Q: Since Jesus was divine, how do we explain his death? Can the eternal God die? —James Miller, Lexington, Kentucky 

A: The background to this question is today's post-Christian perplexity as to whether physical death is the end of the person who lived in (or, more accurately, through) the now-defunct body.

All brands of materialists—scientific, philosophical, theoretical Marxist, secular irreligious, and antireligious European and American—say it is. Everyone else, from ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Norsemen to every form of religion and tribal culture the world has ever seen, has always been sure it isn't. Historic, Bible-based Christianity is part of this consensus.

On the nature of postmortem life there are great differences, but on its reality, agreement has been so widespread that current Western skepticism about survival seems a mere local oddity.

It goes on to say:

Quote

Incarnation gave the eternal Son of God capacity for this experience. "The Word became flesh" in the sense that without ceasing to be anything that he was before, he added to himself all that humanness in this world involves—namely, life through a body bounded by space and time, with all the glories, limitations, and vulnerabilities that belong to our everyday existence, including in due course leaving behind the body through which one has consciously lived all along.

Shakespeare, we know, acted in the plays he authored and produced, and that is a faint parallel to the co-Creator living an ordered creaturely life within his own created world.

In other words, Jesus was only play acting. He didn't really die.

[Fortigurn]

This page here attempts to answer the question when put by a Muslim:

Quote

Question:
Some Christians say that Jesus is God. Now God is immortal, then how can he die?

Also, they must realize that "Dead" means lifeless and devoid of all powers. So if he died, then someone else had to bring him back to life, since he is devoid of all powers. Therefore, he can not be God.

My answer:

Nowhere in the Bible does it say, "God died" as far as I can remember. I agree that would be paradoxical. God is the source of all life, he is life itself.
Do you believe when Muhammad died, his soul and spirit died? Or do you believe his body died and his soul is alive and in paradise?

God did not die, but the body, which he had taken on when he became human, this body died a real human death and a very cruel one indeed.

And Jesus was a real man, not like an angel who can take on "bodily form" for a while and then disappear again. Jesus incarnated into [h]is body, he was conceived, he was born, he was real man.

Again, we see Jesus the play actor, Jesus putting on a space suit to come to earth, a suit which he later discards when it has served its purpose. Again, we see that the body died, but not Jesus.

[Fortigurn]

Another site tries here, with much the same lack of success:

Quote

Yet even within scriptural boundaries the difficult questions continue. Jesus got hungry. Does that mean God got hungry? Jesus got tired. Does that mean God got tired? Jesus wept real tears. Was God crying?

But here's the tough one for me. Jesus was executed on a roman cross and died. Does that mean that God died?

[...]

Logic offers a ready answer. Jesus is God. Jesus died on the cross. Therefore, God died on the cross. Simple syllogism. But I don't know that can subject the scriptures to that sort of analysis—not when we are dealing with something like the Incarnation. As I said before, reason can easily lead us astray.

Quote

We could approach it differently. God didn't die on the cross. Rather it was the human nature that God had robed Himself in. The man died but not the God.

But I find this wholly unsatisfactory. It seems to be a denial of the Incarnation—it splits the human and divine natures such that Jesus can no longer be considered one person.

This person correctly identifies the tragic error into which the standard trinitarian dogma falls - not only does it commit the Docetist heresy (the heresy which says that Jeuss only appeared to die), it also commits the Nestorian heresy (that Jesus not only had two natures, but was two persons, one of whom died, and one of whom did not).

Traditional trinitarian dogma has never managed to get over this problem, and academics argue about it to this very day.

[Fortigurn]

Another website here just gives the stock trinitarian line - only his body died:

Quote

Q: If Jesus is God, how could he die? If Jesus died on the cross, then how can he be alive today?

A: His body really did die. The Roman soldiers made sure of that. They were experts at killing people.

Of course, this is not what the Bible says. You will note the way in which trinitarians will do backflips to avoid the conclusion that Jesus actually died.

But the entire farce of the doctrine is really illuminated when the trinitarian attempts to explain the substitutionary atonement.

You see, the key idea behind the substitutionary atonement is that a Divine being had to die - and yet the trinitarian keeps telling us that only 'the body of Jesus' died.

Having previously assured us that 'It was the human part of Jesus that died on the cross, not the divine' on one part of his website, Matt Slick says something completely different here:

Quote

Why is it necessary for God to die for our sins?

Muslims often ask why it is necessary for God to die for man's sins. Why can't we just confess our sins and have God forgive us? Isn't that enough?

Following is an attempt to logically demonstrate the necessity of God atoning for our sins.

You will note that the entire argument which follows is predicated on 'the necessity for God to die for man's sins'. This completely contradicts the statement elsewhere on Mr Slick's site that 'It was the human part of Jesus that died on the cross, not the divine'.

Let's see what he goes on to say:

Quote

Since God is infinite, our offense against Him has an infinite effect.
It is the infinite God we have offended, therefore, the sin results in an infinite offense against God.

A finite person cannot remove an infinite offense against an infinite God.
A finite work cannot remove an infinite offense because the effort of a finite person will always fall short of meeting the justice of an infinite God.

[...]

Death is a punishment of God and damnation follows death.
Since it is just that sin must be dealt with, God must meet that requirement of justice.

This is so, because a finite person cannot please and infinite God's just requirements of holiness and purity.

Note carefully that 'A finite person cannot remove an infinite offense against an infinite God', and 'a finite person cannot please and infinite God's just requirements of holiness and purity'- and yet Mr Slick has already insisted that 'It was the human part of Jesus that died on the cross, not the divine'.

Unfortunately Mr Slick is not only failing to read his Bible, he is failing to read his own words. Like most trintiarians, Mr Slick doesn't really know what he believes.