frosbel: Joan Osborne poses an interesting question. “What if God were one of us?” What if He was an everyday Joe trying to get by in this life? Who would He be, and what would He look like? Modern Christianity attempts to answer this question through the person of Jesus Christ. Many Christians believe he was fully God and fully human, in a sense saying, “Hey Joan! Look to Jesus! He’s God! That’ll answer your questions and now you don’t have to sing that song anymore!” Most of us would at least be thankful for that.

What I am not thankful for is the horrendous and abundant contradictions that are created by this belief that Jesus Christ is very God of very God. What I want to focus on in this paper are the consequences of having a Savior who could not have truly died.

It is taught amongst many denominations that Jesus Christ died for our sins, but only in part. His man nature was placed in the grave and his God nature ascended to heaven. This idea is not supported by Scripture, in fact, the opposite holds true when we take the time to read our Bible. This way of viewing Jesus creates a lot of unresolved questions, of which I will address a few, but first I wish to focus on the following quote that is pretty standard of most Trinitarians.

“Only God could have died for our sins. No mere man could have possibly paid the price for all of man-kinds sin.”

With a nod of the head and an amen, this phrase is accepted by millions of Christians, yet for those who take the time to open their Bibles, a picture appears that is altogether different from the one that is painted from the pulpit. It is taught that only God could die for our sins, and that he chose to do so by manifesting himself as Jesus Christ. Yet when he died, his God nature returned to heaven, while his man nature went into the grave. This negates the very belief that only God can die for our sins because he doesn’t actually die! He goes back to heaven and the flesh he put on goes into the grave leaving us right back where we started! This leaves us in quite a predicament because if, according to this belief, God didn’t die – then our faith is in vain. Let us consider for a moment, what it would mean to our faith if Jesus Christ did not fully die.

Joan Osborne's "One of Us" song was the theme song for the American television series Joan of Arcadia.

The TV series "Joan of Arcadia" was created by Barbara Hall

I enjoyed watching it and used to look forward to watching the series until CBS pulled the rug on it after two seasons, allegedly for low viewing ratings. Pfft.

Watch the whole series over a weekend, trust me, it will be a humbling experience

Joan of Arcadia Season 1 Episodes 1 Part 1
Joan of Arcadia S01 E01 Part 1/5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeVrXGOt5ig

Joan of Arcadia Season 1 Episodes 1 Part 2
Joan of Arcadia S01 E01 Part 2/5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Red02ybMmmo

Joan of Arcadia Season 1 Episodes 1 Part 3
Joan of Arcadia S01 E01 Part 3/5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMI1O-Mz_S0

Joan of Arcadia Season 1 Episodes 1 Part 4
Joan of Arcadia S01 E01 Part 4/5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wzqga3iptY

Joan of Arcadia Season 1 Episodes 1 Part 5
Joan of Arcadia S01 E01 Part 1/5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRF0m7nm--8

Joan of Arcadia Season 1 Episodes 2 Part 5
Joan of Arcadia S01 E02 Part 2/5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbyVZDO-NDg

Joan of Arcadia Season 1 Episodes 2 Part 5
Joan of Arcadia S01 E02 Part 2/5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBtIlDhykyg

Catch up with the rest of the 45 episodes produced within the 2 seasons here
http://www.youtube.com/user/madika88/videos?view=0

Some of the memorable quotes from the series