“What shall I do, then, with Jesus, who is called Christ? ”Pilate asked.
They all answered: “Crucify him”
Many descriptions we read and hear about Jesus’ suffering focus on the physical part of his suffering; undeniably scourging and crucifying were extremely painful. In most cases death was agonizingly slow.
Some say that Jesus suffered so much more than the other two men who were crucified at the same time because he was innocent. Yes, Jesus was innocent; in our eyes this was a political murder. It was not Jesus, though, who was hanging there; it was you and I. He suffered the penalty we were supposed to suffer. But why did he have to die such a gruesome death?
John Calvin, (a 16th century theologian) in the Institutes of the Christian Religion, gives us the reason. He says: “The very form of the death embodies a striking truth. The cross was cursed not only in the opinion of men, but by the enactment of the Divine Law. Hence Christ, while suspended on it, subjects himself to the curse, and thus it behooved to be done, in order that the whole curse, which on account of our iniquities awaited us, or rather lay upon us, might be taken from us by being transferred to him.”
In addition to this physical suffering another suffering did take place. The Bible gives a few examples of this suffering. It takes place after an individual has physically died and the soul and the body are separated from each other.
One example is the parable Jesus told about a rich man and Lazarus. In Luke 16: 24, the rich man states: “I am in agony in this fire." “They (the angels) will throw them (everything that causes sin and all who do evil) into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”. Why were they, although they were dead, in agony and were weeping and gnashing their teeth? Because, in addition to having died physically, they had been rejected by God.
This rejection, this forsakenness, this everlasting death, is the punishment we would have received in addition to our physical death if Jesus had not substituted for you and me. This punishment, this rejection, this God forsakenness, is being in hell. Jesus did not suffer only the physical punishment; he also experienced those pains of hell. He descended into hell, the place of ultimate God-forsakenness.
One of the things that Jesus spoke when on the cross was, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Calvin, in dealing with the statement in the Apostles Creed where it says, “He descended into hell” wrote that: “if Christ had died only a bodily death, it would have been ineffectual.
No- it was expedient at the same time for him to undergo the severity of God’s vengeance, to appease his wrath and satisfy his judgment. For this reason he must also grapple hand to hand with the armies of hell and the dread of everlasting death.” In the same section he says that “not only was the body of Christ given up as the price of redemption, but that there was a greater and more excellent price- that he bore in his soul the tortures of condemned and ruined man.” Later he wrote, “And surely, unless his soul shared in the punishment, he would have been the Redeemer of bodies alone.”
There are different opinions of when and for how long this forsakenness took place, but that it did take place is indisputable.
God accepted Jesus’ suffering and rejection as a substitution for our punishment and, after the payment had been made, raised him from the dead. In time He will raise us also. Those who accept the fact that Jesus was our substitute are raised to eternal life, not only physically but also to a restored relationship with God. Those who reject Jesus’ offer are also raised physically, but to eternal rejection.
There are two reasons why the awareness of Jesus’ soul suffering is important. First of all, it shows us, Christians, how great a calamity we have escaped by accepting the fact that this was done for us, and secondly, it shows how great a condemnation is waiting for those who reject this rescue.
