How could Jesus Christ suffer and die, when he was himself the uncreated Word of God?
The Lord Jesus Christ suffered and died not in his divinity, which is impassible, but in his humanity, and not because he could not avoid it, but because it was his own will and the Father’s will that he should suffer and “be crushed by pain” (Isa 53:10). The Lord himself said: “I lay down my life, so that I may take it again. No one takes my life away from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again” (Joh 10:17–18).
Because the one who suffered in the flesh is the divine person of the Word, the Church rightly sings at every Divine Liturgy:
Only-Begotten Son and Word of God, who being immortal, yet condescended for our salvation to be incarnate of the holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary… You were crucified, O Christ our God, trampling down death by death, being One of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit: save us! (the hymn O Monogenēs composed by St Justinian, in the Divine Liturgy).
