The Substitutionary Spiritual Death of Jesus Christ

The Lord Jesus Christ, through His human nature, suffered a spiritual and physical death on the cross, as a substitute for each and every member of the human race-past, present and future.

These substitutionary deaths dealt with several problems for fallen humanity.

They provided deliverance from eternal condemnation, condemnation from the Law, spiritual death, the sin nature, personal sins, slavery to Satan and his cosmic system.

This deliverance is appropriated through alone in Jesus Christ alone.

However, today’s Bible class will concentrate on the relationship between the spiritual death of Christ and the spiritual death of the human race as well as personal sins.

Through the function of human volition, the sin nature produces personal sin, mental, verbal and overt acts of sin.

Spiritual death is the direct result of Adam’s original sin in the Garden of Eden.

His progeny, namely the human race are now sinners by nature because of his disobedience.

His sin not only plunged him into spiritual death but also his progeny which results in physical death and ultimately eternal condemnation.

Therefore, in order to solve these problems of the human race, our Lord had to suffer these deaths as a substitute for sinful humanity.

Our Lord’s spiritual death is recorded in Matthew 27:46.

Matthew 27:45 Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. 46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” that is, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?” (NASB95)

When the Lord Jesus Christ cried out “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? He was experiencing spiritual death meaning that He was experiencing loss of fellowship with His heavenly Father.

In John 19:30, the Lord triumphantly said “It is finished” while He was still alive and which statement refers to the payment of our sins.

John 19:30 Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!’ And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.” (NASB95)

Therefore, it was His spiritual death that was the payment for our sins and not His physical death since the consequences of the human race possessing a sin nature and committing personal sins is spiritual death, i.e. loss of fellowship with God.

In His sinless human nature, our Lord suffered the loss of fellowship with the Father during those last three hours of darkness on the cross so that we might never suffer the second death in the eternal lake of fire, which is eternal loss of fellowship with God.

Therefore, God the Father considers Christ’s spiritual death to be the believer’s since this death dealt with the believer’s problem of spiritual death.

Every person that is born into the world is physically alive yet spiritually dead and possesses a sin nature as a result of God imputing Adam’s sin in the Garden of Eden to his posterity, i.e. the human race.

This sin nature and spiritual death manifest itself in the life of a human being through the function of the volition in obeying the desires of the sin nature.

The fact that our Lord’s spiritual death was the payment for our sins and not His literal blood is illustrated in Isaiah 53.

Isaiah 53:10 But the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand. 11 As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities. (NASB95)

“Anguish of His soul” refers to the intense suffering of our Lord’s human soul as a result of losing fellowship with the Father and which suffering no angel or man will ever be able to identify with since no angel or man has kept themselves experientially sinless.

Notice that Isaiah says that the anguish of the Son’s soul while experiencing spiritual death “satisfied” the Father, which refers to propitiation.

This passage further substantiates that it was the Lord Jesus Christ’s spiritual death that propitiated the Father and not His literal blood.

The greatest suffering the humanity of Christ endured on the cross was “not” the physical and mental torture of the cross but rather when He experienced loss of fellowship with His Father during those last three hours on the cross as a result of receiving the imputation of the sins of the entire world by the justice of the Father.

The physical suffering that our Lord endured through the scourging and beatings at the hands of the Jews and Romans as well as the crucifixion itself were in fact part of His bearing the judgment for our sins.

Remember, the unbeliever will suffer eternity in the Lake of Fire in a resurrection body according to Daniel 12:1, Romans 2:7, Revelation 20:11-15 and many other passages and this suffering is not only spiritual death but also physical suffering.

Thus, since our Lord died spiritually so that no human being will be separated from God for all of eternity in the Lake of Fire so Christ suffered the physical torture so that no human being will suffer physically forever in the Lake of Fire.

Our Lord’s loss of fellowship with His Father in His humanity during those last three hours in darkness on the cross was infinitely more painful to our Lord than the physical suffering He had endured and was enduring.

Our Lord’s loss of fellowship with His Father in His humanity during those last three hours in darkness on thecross was valued infinitely more by the Father than the shedding of His literal blood or His physical suffering.

This is not to say that the Father did not value the physical suffering of His Son, or His literal blood, which was sinless, He did, but literal blood though sinless cannot resolve man’s problem of separation from God under spiritual death.

A sinless human being suffering the loss of fellowship with the Father was the penalty that had to be paid in order to redeem human souls from the curse of Adam sin of disobedience and spiritual death.

Our Lord died spiritually and was separated from His Father during those last three hours on the cross so that we might never be separated from God for all of eternity due to sin.

During the last three hours on the cross, God the Father imputed every sin in human history-past, present and future to the impeccable humanity of Christ in hypostatic union.

Consequently, Christ voluntarily suffered the penalty for this imputation as our Substitute, which was spiritual death (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13).

This spiritual death served as the propitiation for these sins, the reconciliation of the world to God, the redemption of the entire human race out of the slave market of sin and the basis for the forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation.

Imputation is the function of the justice of God in crediting something to someone for cursing or for blessing.

Sin is any thought, word or action that is contrary to the will and holy character of God and is thus disobedience to the commands and prohibitions of God.

Therefore, during the last three hours on the cross, God the Father imputed every sin in human history-past, present and future to the impeccable humanity of Christ in hypostatic union.

During the last three hours on the cross, God the Father credited to the impeccable humanity of Christ something, which did not belong to Him, namely the sins of the entire world-past, present and future!

When the sins of mankind were imputed to the impeccable humanity of Christ, the justice of God took action and pronounced a guilty verdict.

Therefore, when Christ was receiving the imputation of the sins of the world, God was not projecting into the soul of the human nature of Christ the sins of the world, nor does imputation put Him into contact with sin.

This imputation made the Lord a curse for us and set Him up to receive the penalty for our sins, which is spiritual death, i.e. separation from God or in other words, loss of fellowship with God.

When Christ cried “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” He was suffering the “consequences” for our sins, which was separation from the Father and was “not” coming into contact with our sins, nor was He becoming literal sin.

The Lord Jesus Christ could not experience or come into contact with sin unless He Himself chose to sin since you cannot experience or come into contact with sin unless one chooses to sin and so therefore, there is no way possible that the Lord could come into contact with our sins or experience them.

Furthermore, the imputation of every sin in history to Christ does “not” mean that Christ became literal sin, which is a heretical statement.

If the Lord did become literal sin then He would no longer be qualified to be our perfect Substitute.

Therefore, Jesus Christ died spiritually meaning that in His human nature, He was separated from His Father in the sense that He lost fellowship with His Father during those last three hours on the cross.

He suffered this spiritual death so that no member of the human race should have to experience a permanent loss of fellowship with God for all of eternity.

Thus, the believer is identified with our Lord’s spiritual death since this death spared the believer from the second death in the eternal lake of fire.