9 Mark,

You said:

I’m not sure why you have come to the conclusion that there is only one will in the Godhead-where is your scriptural basis for this. I don’t believe it is right to seperate Jesus deity at any points, for the point of salvation is that God himself comes to earth to die the perfect substitutionary death in our place. If it was purely Jesus human side at the cross then his death is ineffective. Who was tempted in the desert- Jesus man or Jesus God.

There is only one united will in the Trinity because God is united as one Being although three persons. In the Old Testament there is never any difference of will between the persons. In the New Testament Jesus claims to be one with the Father.

Joh 10:30 “I and the Father are one.”
Joh 10:38 but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.”

Since one can never find disunity in the Trinity and since all agree and all work together and all are the one Being of God, there cannot logically be a opposing wills.

It wasn’t just “God Himself” who came to earth to die other than the person of the Word of God came to take on flesh. God cannot die. God also cannot be tempted so we can understand that it was the humanity of Jesus that was tempted.

Jas 1:13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.

It is incorrect to say that the death of the God-man would be ineffective if only the flesh died and God didn’t die. Since God cannot die, but He can take on flesh, it would be the flesh that died not God Himself. Yet as truly God, Jesus’ death had infinite value.