The Enormity of His Sufferings

Mel Gibson’s  graphic portrayal of the sufferings of Jesus in the ‘Passion of Christ’ horrifies some Christians. The movie follows his brutal treatments beginning from the Garden of Gethsemane unto His death on the cross.

 

Jesus feared the time ahead. On the Mount of Transfiguration Moses and Elijah told Him what to expect. They were discussing His decease.

 

He asked his three favourite apostles to support Him in prayer; Instead, they kept on falling asleep. Jesus showed His frustration and disappointment at the weakness of our flesh.

 

Jesus was the substitute lamb to be sacrificed on God’s altar as soon as He laid down His own will, “Nevertheless, your will be done.” He sweated clots of blood because of the terror that lay ahead. 

 

As soon as the priestly mob laid hands on Him it was done. The sin of all mankind past, present and future was transferred into Him as also happened to the innocent bulls, sheep and goats in the Tabernacle of Moses; The individual sins of billions upon billions of people.

 

"But the Lord was willing 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 succeed in His hand" (Isaiah 53:10, Amplified Bible). He was born to die as our substitute. He is our Redeemer.  He purchased our lives and suffered Himself in our stead in Hell. The penalty that each one of us would have deserved in the Lake of Fire for all eternity.

 

At communion we remember His sufferings, the stripped Matza symbolising the brutal scourging that tore out strips of flesh. The wine for the blood from his five wounds, not mentioning the spiked crown of thorns pressed firmly upon His head. Neither the Scripture nor history mentions flies that would have descended upon His open wounds and crawled up his bleeding nostrils and ears. The Lord spared readers from that but any sensible person can read in-between the lines.

 

I once saw a calf, the placenta and the still bleeding cow on a sunny but cool day  in the Bavarian alps. I was horrified to see flies of all sizes I never knew existed covering them like a blanket, crawling everywhere. I can’t even bear a fly crawling up my nose for only one second. Yet, Jesus was there, not threatening revenge but totally surrendered and quiet in absolute agony heaving against the nails in his feet for every breath.

 

Christianity adores Him with paintings and sad worship songs for all His sufferings. He suffered on Calvary and that’s it. His disciples were relieved when he finally died and was eventually covered with balms and placed in a tomb - the same balms that were given prophetically to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem, Myrr and Frankincense. 

 

But hang on!

 

Everybody forgets that that wasn’t the end. After committing His Spirit to God, He descended into Hell (Matthew 12:40; Ephesians 4:9-10). He didn’t just fall asleep! Think of poor Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31). One is comforted above, the other beginning to feel the torments of hell below. That was no parable. Lazarus is a named person. It was an eyewitness account described by Jesus. The rich man immediately began to feel the initial torments of hell - heat.

 

What happened to Jesus in Hell?

 

On Jesus clung the individual sins of billions of people. When Jesus descended into hell, contrary to the claims of that false apostle Vic Hall in Brisbane who claimed that Jesus never went to hell, the demons in charge of hell would have received Jesus with great glee. Anyone who has watched some of the true near-death experiences (NDE) on YouTube knows how demons receive with special ‘warmth’ people who once followed Christ and drove demons out of people.

 

A person, such as Hitler, burning in hell experiences his flesh melted and eaten away only to be restored again, the never-ending cycle repeated for all eternity. This is what he commanded to be done to countless Jews and political prisoners.

 

Others who were mean in life, relieve their regrets only to have scenes repeated over and over again, having to endure the sulfurous stench and screams that reverberate in the Lake of Fire.

 

 

Jesus Arriving in Hell

 

Now imagine Jesus, the personification of sin, arriving in hell. The demons waited for this moment for thousands of years. He cast them out of people now they were going to get their revenge. For three days only???

 

Remember John 3.16, the verse we use  to declare salvation in the name of Jesus Christ? In verse 17 say, “ For as Moses lifted the serpent in the wilderness so must I be lifted up”. What was he referring to?

In the days of Moses when the people murmured once too often against the Lord, the Lord sent venomous serpents into the camp.  Thousands died. The remedy for bitten people was to come in repentance to the tent of Moses and look upon the brassen serpent.

 

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Meditate on what this means. Jesus died and took upon himself the penalty of death and eternal hell for you and me. What is the penalty I deserve? As the scripture says, the wages of sin is death but we know that its more than just that. God’s promise to the wicked is this, that if they die in their sin they shall end up in the Lake of for all eternity. That’s the gospel we preach, isn’t it? 

 

So how did Jesus achieve that by dying on the cross? He certainly went to hell but only for three days. How did he substitute, for billions of individuals, their punishment that a holy God commands? It’s impossible to do that by suffering only for 24 hours and then going to hell for only three days. Substitutionary atonement is called a vicarious death. One offering his life up so that another may live. This occasionally happened during WWII when a compassionate volunteer traded his life for another facing the firing squad (John 15:13).

 

Jesus knew a secret that for the sake of his disciple’s peace He did not reveal to them. Moses and Elijah no doubt prepared Him for the enormity that lay ahead  on the Mount of Transfiguration when they talked about his decease. Jesus withheld His foreknowledge. Jesus  knew that we wouldn’t believe even if he told us.

 

It is no wonder that the mighty God-Man of faith was terrified in the Garden of Gethsemane. Angels had to comfort Him. He sweated clods of blood. He was obviously reminded by Moses and Elijah that he would have to fulfil the penalty of sin for every soul in accordance with the law of Moses and the prophets. He would have to go through death and eternal judgment in hell for every single individual. Pause and let this sink in.

 

How could he do that in just four days? The tragedy of it all is that in the spiritual realm, whether in heaven or in hell, there is no time. The Father can dilate time back and forth. This is why our God has foreknowledge that always comes to pass.

 

As the lyrics says in a hymnal, “when we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the Sun, we’ve no less days than when we first begun.” The lyrics proclaim the absence of the feeling of time in eternity contrasting to time on the earth. Einstein proved that when an object approaches the speed of light time dilates. Time no longer has meaning, implying no aging. That will happen to us once we are in our ageless resurrection bodies when we totally depend on Him, the light of the world.

 

To fulfil the Law and the prophets Jesus had to do that for every single individual. In hell he had to experience the full penalty for every single individual whom the Father had chosen to redeem, from their sin.

 

He fulfilled death, the wages of sin is death (Genesis 2:17; Ezekiel 18:4; Romans 6:23). Then he had to fulfil the second part of the gospel for every individual; To spend eternity in hell. Now multiply that billions of times for all that have been redeemed since Adam and Eve.

 

How could He have done that spending only three of our days in hell? The answer is that eternity has no meaning in time. He spent eternity in hell for me and for all of us, eternity swallowing up eternity. Thus He fulfilled the Law and the nprophetsIn His death He experience that for each one of us. Only a God could do that.How much should we love Him?

 

Is the enormity of His sacrifice for each of us beginning to be appreciated?

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There was no Plan B. Because They loved, the triune godhead made a covenant with themselves that Jesus, God incarnate in man, would fulfil. The fallen angels knew nothing about this because in the beginning they had not even been created. This was the plan of the Father, the  Word (‘Son’) and the Holy Spirit (John 1:1). Had the fallen angels  known of this legal loophole, Satan would have never crucified Jesus (1 Corinthians 2:8). So after eternity upon eternity in hell, but only measured as three days on earth, presto Jesus was resurrected sinless!

 

Why for three days? Because the number three symbolises that it was all under the control of the trinity. Praise God.