Christ Suffering on the cross
(Passive Obedience)


Although Christ obeyed the law without a flaw His entire earthly life, which was on our behalf, He also took upon Himself the sufferings necessary to pay the debt/penalty of our sins.

There are 2 aspects of this suffering ,one was that He suffered His entire life in inhabiting flesh and living on earth, and the other is the pain of the cross.

A) Christ suffered His whole life:
Hebrews 5:8- although Jesus is fully man and fully God, He did acquire knowledge and experience by living as a human being. Through what He suffered and endured, obedience towards the Father in the midst of temptation was learned so that His human moral ability would be strengthened. We must remember, that although Jesus was fully God, He did learn and acquire knowledge.

John 11:35- Jesus wept at the death of His close friend Lazarus. He felt the pain of losing someone close to Him, whom He loved, and wept. This is honest sorrow that we see coming from Christ, not a lack of faith or trust in God, but sorrow at the reality of suffering and death, and what it creates.

Isaiah 53:3- Christ is the man of sorrows, Jesus was acquainted with grief. Not only on the cross, but all through His life He knew sorrow. Whether it was in the wilderness fasting and being tempted by Satan, or in the garden of Gethsemane sweating blood, Jesus knew the reality of what it meant to suffer.

B) The pain on the Cross :
Matthew 26:28- Jesus tells His 3 close disciples the intense pain that He feels, the sorrow was so extreme He says “even to death.” Now we will look at 4 aspects of the pain that Jesus experienced on the cross. We look at this not to gain knowledge of His pain to seem wise and honorable, but to get a small glimpse of the pain Christ endured to bring redemption to a fallen world. Also, to see our sin and how disgusting and horrid it was in the sight of a holy, pure, majestic God.

Now the bible does not say that Jesus suffered physically more than any man, though we must remember that crucifixion, to this day, is still seen as one of the most horrible forms of execution ever to be devised by man.

1) physical pain
Jesus had His backed whipped with the cat of nine tails, a crown of thorns pressed upon His head, ribbons of flesh hanging from His body, made to carry His cross to Golgotha; then having 9 inch nail hammered into His wrist and feet. Not only that, lifted up on the cross and having to pull Himself up to breathe which brought searing and excruciating pain to His physical body.

2) The pain of being the sin bearer.
Jesus bore the guilt of sin… Have any of us ever sinned? of course we have, have any of us ever felt guilty after that sin? Most may say yes, some not sure, but more than likely we all have. As our walk with the Lord grows, when we sin we will feel more guilty of that sin and the Holy Spirit will convict of and cause us to repent. Now, imagine Jesus, who was the opposite of sin, the thought of sin or evil, was contradicted everything in His character and being. Though it is hard to imagine, more awful than the physical suffering of He endured was the psychological pain of bearing the guilt for our sin. Imagine the most intense anguish you’ve ever felt after you have sinned, and the guilt you felt, that was upon Christ, but not only Yours, but the sins of MANY! Wayne Grudem writes “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 our FULLY upon HIM.”
Isaiah 53:6,53:12 John 1:29 2 Corinthians 5:21 Galatians 3:13 Hebrews 9:28 1 peter 2:24

Grudem again writes “The passage from 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Isaiah 53:6 indicate that it was God the Father who put our sins on Christ. How could that be? In the same way in which Adam’s sins were imputed to us, so God imputed our sins to Christ -- that is, He thought of them as belonging to Christ, and, since God is the ultimate judge and definer of what really is in the universe, when God thought of our sins as belonging to Christ then in fact they actually did belong to Christ. This does not mean that God thought that Christ had Himself committed the sins or that Christ Himself actually had a sin nature, but rather that the guilt for our sins ( that is, that liability to punishment) was thought of by God as belonging to Christ rather than to us.

3) Abandonment
Not only did Jesus suffer the physical pain of the cross and the pain of bearing sin, He was also left alone to bear it all. As we see in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus took with Him Peter, James, and John, and said “My soul is very sorrowful, even unto death; remain here and watch” (mark 14:34) Jesus confided in these men, out of 12, these 3 were close to Him, in a time of pain, agony, and sorrow, Jesus confides in them as a close friend to another. Yet what do we read in Matthew 26:56 “all the disciples forsook Him and fled.” Once Judas came with the soldiers to arrest Jesus, not only did some of His disciples forsake Him, but even those who were closest to Him fled.
Now what is worst than being abandoned by friends? Imagine, being rejected by your Father, or parents? The relationship Jesus and God the Father have is not even worthy to be compared to an earthly Father, Son relationship. At times we say “I hate you dad” or even the father may let us down, or he may not have been there so we don’t care about him. But God the Son and God the Father shared perfect love, eternal perfect, sinless, pure love, and now, for us and because He loved us, He is being rejected by His Father because He is now the sin bearer. Jesus shows that He and the Fathers relationship, and sweet, pure, fellowship is finally cut off by crying out “Eli, Eli, lama sabachtani? That is, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” As Grudem writes “ As Jesus bore our sins on the cross, He was abandoned by His heavenly Father, who is “of purer eyes than to behold evil” (Habakuk 1:13) He faced the weight of the guilt of MILLIONS of sin ALONE.”

4) Bearing the wrath of God

Since Jesus bore the guilt of our sins alone, God the Father, the perfect, holy, Creator of the entire universe, poured out His just wrath, fury, and anger on Christ. Jesus became the object of The Fathers intense hatred for sin and vengeance against sin, in which He had been patiently storing up since the sin of Adam.

Romans 3:24-26- we see in this text that Jesus bore the wrath of God for 2 reasons.
1) to justify sinners and pay their debt, by grace through faith
2) to show God’s justice, righteousness and holiness

The ESV commentator writes: “Paul repeats again, because of its supreme importance, that God has demonstrated His righteousness, I.e., His holiness and justice, at the present time in salvation history. In the cross of Christ, God has shown Himself to be just (utterly holy, so that the penalty demanded by the law is not removed but paid for by Christ) but also the justifier (the one who provides the means of justification and who declares people to be in right standing with Himself.) and the Savior of all those who trust in Jesus. Here is the heart of the Christian faith, for at the cross God’s justice and love meet.”

3 other propitiation passages:
1) Hebrews 2:17- The only way that Christ could have been our High Priest was by becoming like “His brothers in every respect.” Jesus had to become human to in order to serve as the High Priest on behalf of humanity. We also see, again, the act of propitiation. Christ, was not only the High Priest, but also the sacrifice which absorbed the punishment meant for us.

2) 1 John 2:1-2: this does not speak of salvation is applied to all of the world but speaks of it being made available to the entire world. Christ “bore the wrath of God” for those who put their faith and trust in Him.

3) 1 John 4:10- We see here that we did not love God, but God loved us FIRST. It is one thing to tell someone, “I love you” and another to show act of that love. God shows the act of His perfect love to His people that He sent down His Son to remove the wrath that we deserved because of disobedience. So God doesn’t only say “I love you son/daughter” but because He does love us He says “if you want to look at the depth of my love for you, look at the cross in which My anger, hatred for sin, and justice has been shown by the sacrifice of My Son.”

It was a penal substitutionary atonement. Penal, in which there was a penalty that had to be paid for. Substitution, In that He took our place on the cross; and atoning, in that there was a party that was wronged, Which is God, and there needs to be an amends made, which only can come by the cross.

So now, as we view the cross of Christ and realize both the physical and spiritual pain, and the abandonment and wrath that needed to be paid for, we now see that Christ is more than worthy of our worship, love, and obedience not only now and our daily walk, but for all eternity.