Article #6 on the Passion of Jesus Christ
“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” – Jn. 12:32
In a downpour of divine wrath that no other living being could survive, beginning in Gethsemane, the newly resolved Spirit of our Lord emerged out of the Garden more determined than ever (Heb. 9:14). Upon being legally and ceremoniously burdened with the sins of the whole world, Jesus Christ was determined to take it to the Cross and hang there on display as an embodiment of divine love for all to gaze upon – “lifted up” – to personally absorb all of the wrath of God for sinners. In being spiritually perceptive of these things, Christ knew when the time had come when the work of Atonement was complete; literally, down to the very second, the Son of God knew that the wrath of God was about to be exhausted, therefore He said: “It is finished” (Jn. 19:30).
"There was no rebellion in His heart against the will of the Father to whom He had so completely subjected Himself. But unreservedly He cried, “Not as I will, but as You will.” No clarion blast, nor firing of cannons, nor waving of flags, nor acclamation of the multitudes ever announced such a victory as our Lord achieved in Gethsemane! He there won the victory over all the griefs that were upon Him and all the griefs that were soon to roll over Him like huge Atlantic billows! He there won the victory over death and even over the wrath of God which He was about to endure to the utmost for His people’s sake! There is true courage, there is the highest heroism, there is the declaration of the Invincible Conqueror in that cry, “Not as I will, but as You will.”
With Christ’s perfect resignation, there was also His strong resolve. He had undertaken the work of His people's redemption and He would go through with it until He could triumphantly say from the Cross, “It is finished!” A man can sometimes dash forward and do a deed of extraordinary daring, but it is the long-sustained agony that is the real test of courageous endurance.” – C.H. Spurgeon, Christ in Gethsemane
Neither men nor angels have ever seen anything like this before. This was a collision of love and wrath, and love prevailed; “…and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.” (James 2:13). Historically speaking, divine wrath was famously known to remove mountains; literally, the LORD overturned whole mountains in His anger through a worldwide flood in Noah’s day (Job 9:5; Gen. 6:5-7). Nevertheless, the Messiah encountered something much worse than earthly floods of water and yet remained unmoved! In a spiritual flood of divine wrath, the Eternal Spirit of the Son of God arose from underneath the water and marched forward until death.
Theoretically speaking, the fire of divine wrath is so fierce that it could easily devour the ocean and dry-up the great deep (Amos 7:4-5). Even so, at the end of the world, a great fire will fall from heaven and devour every sinner upon the face of the earth, and in the aftermath of this fiery consumption a new earth will emerge that has no more sea (Rev. 20:9, 21:1; 2 Thess. 1:7-10, 2 Pet. 3:1-14). However, even if the whole world is consumed in the fire of divine wrath, as the mighty forest of Lebanon, it would be insufficient for a burnt-offering, nor could it satisfy divine justice (Isa. 40:15-17)! Even after all this burning the wrath of God is unfinished. The Lake of Fire will still be burning in the heat of divine anger against the very same sinners, as hot as it ever was, and it will go on like this forever and ever (Rev. 20:15, 21:8). Nevertheless, when the fire of divine wrath was rained down upon Jesus Christ (let all the world know!), it was absorbed in full and completely exhausted.
“He suffered all the horror of Hell – in one pelting shower of iron wrath it fell upon Him with hailstones bigger than a talent. And He stood until the black cloud had emptied itself completely. There was our debt, huge and immense. He paid the utmost farthing of whatever His people owed.” C.H. Spurgeon, The Death of Christ
This should give sinners some pause. If the everlasting torment of thirty billion sinners in the Lake of Fire cannot ever satisfy the justice of God, or solicit compassion from the heart of the Father, so that the fires of the Lake continue to burn without intermission, everyone should be awestruck with amazement at every detail of suffering endured by Jesus Christ. If the eternal cries of billions cannot quiet divine anger, nor reduce the force of divine wrath, the world should marvel at how the cries of one Man were able to silence Heaven and bow the heart of the Father. Salvation isn’t cheap! The forgiveness of sinners was bought and paid for by Jesus Christ. If the timeless and everlasting fire of divine anger cannot ever be quenched, even though sinners are eternally tormented, everyone should take a closer look at the victorious ≈15 to 17 hours of unspeakable torment endured by the Son of God.
“But please observe…the dignity of His sacred Person made Him the most proper person for a Substitute. A mere man could at most only be a substitute for one other man. Crush him as you will, and make him feel in his life every pang which flesh is heir to, but he can only suffer what one man would have suffered. He could not, I will venture to say, even then have suffered an equivalent for that eternal misery which the ungodly deserve. And if He were a mere man, he must suffer precisely the same.
A difference may be made in the penalty, when there is a difference in the person, but if the person be the same, the penalty must be precisely and exactly the same in degree and in quality. But the dignity of the Son of God, the dignity of His nature, changes the whole matter. A God bowing His head, and suffering, and dying in the person of Manhood, puts such a singular efficacy into every groan and every pang, that it needs not that His pangs should be eternal, or that He should die a second death.” – C.H. Spurgeon, Expiation
Prophetically speaking, heaven and earth can and shall be shaken, but not even the full force of divine wrath could shake the Son of God as the Man braved the power of it until it became silent and still. This most perfect Man, whose Spirit is inexhaustible, and whose power is unstoppable, died for sinners; and therefore, the shedding of this blood is a priceless offering of reconciliation to condemned sinners.
“For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus; Who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.” – 1 Tim. 2:5-6
Being wiser than Solomon, the Anointed One knew exactly what needed to be done (Matt. 12:42). The Lord of the Sabbath had work to do (Matt. 12:8). No man has ever possessed the power or bravery to absorb the wrath of God! Nevertheless, as One greater than the Temple (Matt. 12:6), what was formerly impossible to mankind was then feasible by the Son of God (Mk. 10:27; Matt. 9:6, Mk. 2:10, Lk. 5:24).
“How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the Living God?” – Heb. 9:14
Every second of the next ≈15 to 17 hours from Gethsemane to the Cross was totally unprecedented: the Arrest, the Prison, the Judgment, the Bruises, Wounds, Stripes, Crown of Thorns, & Crucifixion. Why? Not because men had never been arrested, unjustly condemned, beaten, bruised, scourged, and crucified. Tragic things happen in a fallen world. However, what the Savior of the world encountered was different.
Physically & Spiritually: The Passion of Jesus Christ in Body & Spirit
Sometimes the physical realm is employed by God in the ministry of spiritual things. Take the experience of Israel in the Old Testament as an example, at a time when the people were affectionately called: “the Church in the Wilderness” (Acts 7:38). Mysteriously, the manna of the wilderness that Israel enjoyed was called a “spiritual meat” (1 Cor. 10:3; Neh. 9:20; Jn. 6:32-33, 35), and the water from the rock was called a “spiritual drink” (1 Cor. 10:4; Jer. 2:13; Neh. 9:15; Deut. 32:18), because the mere physical things were being used by God to minister spiritual things (in conjunction with each Israelite person’s faith in the LORD).
Even so, it stands to reason that this two-dimensional reality can exist in the mysterious experience of both salvation and condemnation, as a minister of divine love or divine wrath. Surely, the love of God in Christ was being manifested to Israel in the wilderness, even as Paul said, “and that Rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10:4, Deut. 1:31, 32:18). However, contrastingly, the wrath of God was being manifested in the physical things that Jesus Christ suffered. In this comparison: statedly, Israel was saved (Jude 1:5, Ex. 15:1-2, Isa. 63:14, Deut. 32:7-14, Jer. 2:2-3) and Christ was condemned (Rom. 8:3; Lk. 24:19-20, Acts 13:27-28).
This is exactly why the events that followed Gethsemane are of infinite significance. The details provided by the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are recorded to bear witness of one thing: the Passion of Jesus Christ. Literally, the arrangement of the historical events, totaling in 1 appearance before the Sanhedrin, 1 appearance before Herod, and 3 appearances before Pilate, ultimately resulting in two sentences of condemnation by the Jews & the Romans, are ordered in such a way to enforce this one thing upon the reader: Jesus Christ was not condemned by men. This wasn’t an ordinary situation of tragic injustice by corrupt earthly powers. Illustriously, in the forthcoming events the Son of God willingly surrendered to the condemnation of God.
“Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.” - Acts 2:23-24 | God so loved the world, |
Therefore, the physical things suffered had a spiritual power behind them. Faith sees the invisible (Heb. 11:1)! Can you see it? A spiritual arena of divine judgment was transcending over and manifest within the earthly acts of judgment that were taking place. It all adds up! Every judgment of condemnation by sinners against the sinless One was proportionate to the desert of condemnation due to all of mankind. When weighed in the balances of justice the verdict is settled. Everything done to this royal Man weighs more than the sins committed by all of mankind. In other words, justice is served in what the Son of God suffered.
“He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall my righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities.” - Isa 53:11
Do you see the travail of Jesus Christ? This is the condemnation of One for the salvation of all! The worthiness of this exchange is increasingly realized when you see how each physical blow that Jesus Christ endured struck with a spiritual force of divine power that cut deep into the soul. This is the real pain of the Passion that killed the Man. It can be medically proven that neither the scourging nor the crucifixion killed the Son of God, which is to say that our Lord didn’t die of blood loss or suffocation. Rather, the Son of God died of a broken heart. Jesus Christ was publicly condemned by both the Jews and the Romans; however, every act in the whole process was endowed with the full force of divine condemnation. This is how Jesus Christ died for sinners.
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