The Suffering of Christ

I would imagine that Adam’s grandkids periodically had to pull one of the cousins aside and tell them, “Don’t ask grandpa why he doesn’t eat apples. He seems to get really mad.” Eve cries out to Adam, “hey honey, I found some really delicious fruit over here,” and around the corner you may hear, “no way I’m falling for that one again!” Do you think Adam every joked about the Fall?

Various Passages | April 9, 2017

I would imagine that Adam’s grandkids periodically had to pull one of the cousins aside and tell them, “Don’t ask grandpa why he doesn’t eat apples. He seems to get really mad.” Eve cries out to Adam, “hey honey, I found some really delicious fruit over here,” and around the corner you may hear, “no way I’m falling for that one again!” Do you think Adam every joked about the Fall?

We probably look at the sin in the garden and at times wonder why it was such a big deal. It was just a piece of fruit after all. And yet that one sin damned all creation and resulted in every person being born in a state of sin and misery, bound to their sins, and headed to an eternal damnation. Apparently, it wasn’t just a piece of fruit.

Don’t we view our sins that way as well? Don’t we make light of them? Thomas Manton wrote, “We make light of sin, but Christ found it not so light a matter to expiate it. Do but consider his fears and tears and strong cries when he stood in the place of sinners before God’s tribunal, when God ‘laid upon him the iniquities of us all.’[1] There is no sin which bears no weight and was not part of that which demanded an infinite and perfect sacrifice.

Purpose Statement. Meditating on the consequences of my sin, I am motivated to a love for my Father and a hatred for my sin.

[The concepts for this message flow from many resources, but let me commend to you two resources that strongly influenced this content, those being Wayne Grudem’s section in his Systematic Theology on Christ’s sufferings and Martin Luther’s message “The Sufferings of Christ.”]

Reflect on the depth of Christ’s suffering.

He lived a life of suffering. Christ’s sufferings did not begin in the garden. They are not confined to the “Passion Week.” They began when he “took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.” ( NLT). He was brought into the world with no status or position. His family did not bestow on him great social honors. Likely, the tabloid like heading for his mother’s pregnancy resulted in criticism and a cold shoulder. The religious leaders seemed to be aware of these circumstances when they publicly accused him of being born of sexual immorality (). The author of Hebrews informs us that “although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered” ( ESV). Being from Galilee was about as glamorous as being from Waterloo. In other words he was born into humility. “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” ( ESV).

The Spirit led him into the wilderness for forty days to be tempted by Satan. Alone and hungry, he suffered the attack of Satan. His following ministry was marked by fame as went throughout all Syria () but not because people cared for him. They wanted his food and his miracles. The religious leaders opposed him at every turn, taunting him with derision and questions. Luke writes, “the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him and provoke . . . lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say” ( ESV). How exhausting that must have been. The Jewish people called him a “Samaritan devil! Didn’t we say all along that you were possessed by a demon?” ( NLT). They referred to Christ as “a glutton and drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” ( ESV). The Jewish leaders and their followers attempted to kill him numerous times and he barely escaped with his life (, , ).

Hardly are the sufferings of Christ limited to the moments surrounding his death. He lived a life of suffering. “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” ( ESV).

He suffered immensely in his gruesome death. While Christ’s life was a life of suffering, the climax of his suffering lie in the events surrounding his death. Crucifixion would have been one of the most agonizing of deaths. Josephus calls it “the most wretched of deaths.” “Victims were almost always executed without clothing, probably to make them more susceptible to blows and to increase their shame.”[2] The weight of one’s body would primarily be supported by their arms and hands which would have been fastened to the cross by nails. While hanging they would struggle to draw in a new breath. They would hang in such a fashion until they could no longer bear it. Their need for air would require them to relieve the pressure on their chest and lungs. To do so, they must push themselves up by placing all their weight on the feet which were fastened to the cross with nails and pulling upward on the nails driven into their wrists. As they pulled themselves up, their back which had been flogged repeatedly and bore the open bleeding wounds would scrape against the rough wood of the cross.

Melito of Sardis. He who hung the earth [in its place] hangs there, he who fixed the heavens is fixed there, he who made all things fast is made fast upon the tree, the Master has been insulted, God has been murdered, the King of Israel has been slain by an Israelite hand. O strange murder, strange crime! The Master has been treated in unseemly fashion, his body naked, and not even deemed worthy of a covering that [his nakedness] might not be seen. Therefore the lights [of heaven] turned away, and the day darkened, that it might hide him who was stripped upon the cross (Pass. 96–97).[3]

Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. 32 So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. ( ESV).

He suffered as he took on our sin. While Christ suffered immensely in his gruesome death, the greater sting of suffering lie not just in the physical death but in that which he took on himself in his death. He took on our sins. We may not fully appreciate this reality because we struggle to abhor sin the same way Christ would have. We have felt the pains of guilt and shame that come in our awareness of sin, and yet there is as well within us, at times, enjoyment amidst our sin. Yet, Christ never felt the weight of shame and guilt for personal sin.

Jesus was perfectly holy. He hated sin with his entire being. The thought of evil, of sin, contradicted everything in his character. Far more than we do, Jesus instinctively rebelled against evil. Yet in obedience to the Father, and out of love for us, Jesus took on himself all the sins of those who would someday be saved. Taking on himself all the evil against which his soul rebelled created deep revulsion in the center of his being. All that he hated most deeply was poured out fully upon him. Scripture frequently says that our sins were put on Christ: “The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (), and “He bore the sin of many” (). John the Baptist calls Jesus “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (). Paul declares that God made Christ “to be sin” () and that Christ became “a curse for us” (). The author of Hebrews says that Christ was “offered once to bear the sins of many” (). And Peter says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” ().[4]

He suffered as he was abandoned by his disciples () and His Father (). As he grieves in the garden, he takes three of his closest disciples with him. He tells them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch” ( ESV). We’ve all felt intense grief. At times such as those we turn to those we most cherish and desire their companionship. We need their presence. And yet, moments later, one of Christ’s disciples betrays him as a host of soldiers come to take him away. His disciples flee into the night. One of them holds out, that is until Peter denies being associated with Christ. At that moment Christ “turned and looked at Peter” (). There were none that remained to see him through this dark moment.

Even more intense than the rejection of his disciples was the rejection of His Father. As he hung on the cross, having taken on our sins, Christ cries out with a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ( ESV). He is crying out like the Psalmist, “How long are you going to leave me? Why have you left me for so long?” His source of strength and sweetest fellowship through the humility of his life had been placed in His Father, and yet at this darkest of moments, he was abandoned by His Father. Christ had taken on the sin of the world and His Father could not look upon sin. “He faced the weight of the guilt of millions of sins alone.”[5]

He suffered as he received God’s wrath and separation. Not only did his Father abandon him, as well the wrath of God was fully placed upon him. Instead of you experiencing the full brunt of God’s wrath, Jesus took upon himself God’s wrath. He became the object of God’s intense hatred for sin. From the time of the fall, God had “passed over former sins” ( ESV). His wrath towards those former sins was then fully placed on Christ, as well as the sins that would follow.

God had not simply forgiven sin and forgotten about the punishment in generations past. He had forgiven sins and stored up his righteous anger against those sins. But at the cross the fury of all that stored-up wrath against sin was unleashed against God’s own Son.[6]

It is with this understanding that we more fully understanding and appreciate when Christ cries out, “It is finished” (). Christ had taken on the wrath of God and it was done. God no longer poured out the wrath for all sin for all time on to Christ. It was done.

Reflect on our response to Christ’s suffering.

Don’t make Christ’s sufferings an abstraction. Don’t allow Christ’s sufferings to be simply a concept or theological statement. Too often we distance ourselves from the suffering’s of Christ. We place blame on Judas or the Jews or the Romans. True, Judas betrayed Christ. He was a zealot with a passion to see Christ take Rome by force and was motivated by greed. Yes, the Jews hated Christ and wanted him killed. They were envious of Christ (). They were proud, and Jesus threatened their position. He came with authority, and it wasn’t their authority. He humiliated them time and time again as their people followed Him, a nobody, a Galilean. Of course Pilate was no innocent bystander. He was willing to sacrifice Christ so as to preserve his political position. Pilate, Judas, the Jews, they may be the historical figures involved with the death of Christ, but we full well know that they were just actors on the great stage of God’s redemptive story. They are the “servants of your sins, and you are truly the one who strangled and crucified the Son of God through your sins.”[7] John Stott wrote, “Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us.”[8]

Feel the brunt of sins effects. And once we have remembered that it was our sin that killed Christ, remember that the sufferings of Christ should have been experienced by us. We should have lived a life filled with criticism, belittlement, and rejection. We should have felt the beatings and the gruesome death. We should have felt the full weight of our sin on our shoulders. We should have felt the abandonment of God the Father. We should have suffered the wrath of God. And even more so, we should have eternally suffered the wrath of God with no ability to ever cry “it is finished” for it would never be finished.

Feel overwhelmed by your sin. Meditate on the sufferings of Christ to the point where you feel terror and are overwhelmed within your heart. Your conscience should sink in despair at the reality of your sin being the catalyst for Christ’s sufferings. Feel the full weight of shame and guilt as you realize what you will not experience because of what Christ did experience. God’s righteousness demanded a payment and sacrifice. He was unwilling to release his Son from this horrible suffering, a suffering that was demanded on account of our sin and his desire to free sinners. Isaiah reminds us that Christ was “stricken for the transgression” of God’s people ( ESV).

Appreciate the grace in Christ. It is once we have personalized Christ’s death and felt the full weight of guilt that we can fully appreciate the grace of Christ. It is then and only then that we can experience the lifting of our shame and guilt. Only then is our conscience set free.[9] I acknowledge my personal sinfulness and culpability and then am reminded that “the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” ( ESV). That it is by Christ’s wounds that I have been healed (). That “for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” ( ESV).

See Christ’s love. And yet my journey into the sufferings of Christ do not cease. I continue on. I press through the grief brought on by my shame. I plow through the terror that overwhelms my spirit as I sense my guilt in Christ’s death. I see the light of grace as I realize that Christ took on my sin, and it is in the light of that grace that it dawns on me. Christ loved me! It was this love that motivated him to bear the heavy load of my conscience and my sin.[10] And as I stand marveling at the love of Christ for an undeserving wretch as myself, I realize that this isn’t even the full extent of love, for Christ’s love is a demonstration of God’s love. “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” ( NASB). So then, it is through the love of Christ that we are drawn even further into the love of the Father.

Hate sin. It is here, beside the Father, that I hate sin. I don’t hate sin because I now fear its punishment but instead I hate it because I realize what it did. I hate it because I love my Father. So then, as I fight sin I consider how Christ was taken captive, bound, and dragged from one court to another, dragged through the streets with a cross. As immorality and lusts fight for residence in my heart and mind, I think how bitter it was for Christ to have his flesh torn, pierced, and beaten over and over. When hatred and envy wage war against me and I am tempted to seek vengeance, I remember how Christ prayed for me and all his enemies, through tears. Can I not suffer a little as well, like Christ who suffered with great grief and anxiety as he prayed in the garden, abandoned by his disciples?[11]

Conclusion

Purpose Statement. As I meditate on the consequences of my sin, that being the much involved sufferings of Christ, I am motivated to a love for my Father and a hatred for my sin.

[1] Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, Volume 21 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1874), 9–10.

[2] Artemidorus II.61; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Roman Antiquities 7.69 [David A. Fiensy, “Crucifixion,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).]

[2] Artemidorus II.61; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Roman Antiquities 7.69 [David A. Fiensy, “Crucifixion,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).]

[3] Gerald G. O’Collins, “Crucifixion,” The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, 1210.

[3] Gerald G. O’Collins, “Crucifixion,” The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, 1210.

[4] Grudem, Wayne A.. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (p. 573). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

[4] Grudem, Wayne A.. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (p. 573). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

[5] Grudem, Wayne A.. Systematic Theology, 574.

[5] Grudem, Wayne A.. Systematic Theology, 574.

[6] Grudem, Wayne A.. Systematic Theology, 575.

[6] Grudem, Wayne A.. Systematic Theology, 575.

[7] Luther, Martin. The Complete Works of Martin Luther: Volume 2, Sermons 13-41 (Kindle Locations 3376-3378). www.DelmarvaPublications.com. Kindle Edition.

[7] Luther, Martin. The Complete Works of Martin Luther: Volume 2, Sermons 13-41 (Kindle Locations 3376-3378). www.DelmarvaPublications.com. Kindle Edition.

[8] John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 53.

[8] John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 53.

[9] Luther writes, “just as the sins flowed out of Christ and we became conscious of them, so should we pour them again upon him and set our conscience free.” Luther, Martin. The Complete Works of Martin Luther: Volume 2, Kindle Locations 3405-3406.

[9] Luther writes, “just as the sins flowed out of Christ and we became conscious of them, so should we pour them again upon him and set our conscience free.” Luther, Martin. The Complete Works of Martin Luther: Volume 2, Kindle Locations 3405-3406.

[10] Luther, Martin. The Complete Works of Martin Luther: Volume 2, Kindle Locations 3425-3430.

[10] Luther, Martin. The Complete Works of Martin Luther: Volume 2, Kindle Locations 3425-3430.

[11] This paragraph is a reworking of Luther’s paragraph at the following spot. His wording would have been awkward to the modern reader. but his flow of thought was beautiful. Luther, Martin, The Complete Works of Martin Luther: Volume 2, Kindle Locations 3437-3443.

[11] This paragraph is a reworking of Luther’s paragraph at the following spot. His wording would have been awkward to the modern reader. but his flow of thought was beautiful. Luther, Martin, The Complete Works of Martin Luther: Volume 2, Kindle Locations 3437-3443.