The Suffering and Death of Jesus For Us

Discipleship Training Ministries, Inc.
1789 Iglehart Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104-5215 : Info: Phone (651) 283-0568 : www.dtminc.org

Notes for the Ekklesia Meeting
Sundays @ 10:00 a.m. Today’s Date: July 2, 2006

The Suffering and Death of Jesus For Us
by Dan Trygg

"Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed? 2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground. He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. 3 He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. 4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. 6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him." Isaiah 53:1-6


"I gave My back to those who strike Me, And My cheeks to those who pluck out the beard; I did not cover My face from humiliation and spitting." Isaiah 50:6

"…His appearance was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men." Isaiah 52:14b

Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ, begins to capture the incredible torment that Jesus went through, physically, for us. Even though God had spoken very descriptively through Isaiah the prophet about the extent and nature of His sufferings, we cannot fully grasp what He went through for us. He was repeatedly struck in the face, endured humiliation and became the butt of their humor as they mocked and beat him. They spit in His face, and in mock tenderness reached to stroke His beard, only to pull out handfuls of it in scorn. They whipped Him, reducing His muscled back, sides and legs to a shredded, bleeding pulp. The entire Roman cohort (600 men) gathered to pay their scorn and mock the King of the Jews, one-by-one adding his share to the humiliation and the beating of His face and body. They wove together a wreath of thorns and jammed it on His head. As they mocked Him, they beat Him about the head with the cane reed they used as a mock scepter. We know that Jesus was sentenced by Pilate by 6 a.m., and was put on the cross by 9:00 a.m. (Jn. 19:14 [Roman time]; Mk. 15:25 [Jewish time]). What happened in those intervening hours must have been horrific. If Isaiah’s prophecy was borne out, that His appearance was marred more than any man, then He must have been virtually unrecognizable. The repeated beatings, the swelling, then being beaten again by numerous people, left Him a pulverized swollen, black and blue, bleeding and oozing mess.

Jesus began the journey from the governor’s palace to the place of execution. He started out carrying His own cross, as was customary for condemned criminals. Normally, the scourging took place at the execution site, right before being nailed to the cross, so that the victim would still be fit enough to carry his cross. In Jesus’ case, however, Pilate had given the order for Him to be scourged earlier, hoping to satisfy the crowd and intending to release Him. By this time, some three hours later, He was so weakened by the whipping, beatings and torture that He collapsed under the load. The Romans forced a passerby, Simon from Cyrene (modern-day Libya) to carry His cross the remainder of the way. The total distance was probably about 500 yards, or less, through the winding streets of the city. Although the exact site is unknown today, we do know that it was near a main road coming in from the country. The most likely spots would have been to the West or North of the city.

Many of our romanticized depictions of this event fall away when we remember the Roman purpose for this torturous death. The intent was to make a spectacle, an example, of the condemned. Therefore, the crosses were placed quite near the busy roadway, and the condemned were probably fairly close to the ground, only suspended one or two feet above the ground, not elevated high up, as is often portrayed. The closer to the eye of the passerby, the better. The Romans wanted the torturous death struggle of the victims to be clearly seen, and vividly emblazoned on the mind of those who had to walk by. Each person was stripped totally naked. No loincloth was given to preserve any sense of modesty. Again, the point was to totally humiliate, debase, and remove any dignity that the condemned person may have had. When Jesus and Simon had arrived at the designated spot, Jesus would have been stripped, placed upon the cross, tied to the beams with rope, and nailed through the hands into the crossbeam, and through the ankles or feet to the vertical beam. Often the feet rested upon a small shelf, to allow the victim to partially support himself, and thus extend the suffering.

Crucifixion was considered the most horrific and painful way to die in the ancient world. It was universally feared by all. The "genius" of this execution method lay in the fact that, as the person weakened, and began to slouch, it was impossible to exhale. Because the arms would keep the chest expanded, unless the victim stood or pulled himself up, he could not get fresh air. Of course, any such movement would aggravate the already swollen and painful impalings. The agony of this form of execution was prolonged and extremely painful. The swelling of the wounds, the lack of fluids, produced traumatic fever and an excruciating, pounding headache. The unnatural placement of the body, coupled with the inability to move, caused severe, agonizing cramping of the muscles. In addition, the sun, insects and even birds would further increase the level of torture upon the exposed flesh. The victim was left in this exposed, helpless condition until eventually the resources of his body gave out and he suffocated to death. As he struggled to breathe, with each breath came excruciating pain and cramping, as he had to push and pull himself erect enough to exhale and inhale. This became more and more extreme, as the body failed. The panic of suffocation, the desperate struggle to get another breath, added to and extended the torture, until the victim slumped into complete body failure and death. It was not uncommon for victims to last for two or three days upon the cross.

While all of this was beginning to overtake Jesus, the physical struggle was not the most significant pain and torment He endured while upon that cross. There was another dimension which Jesus was experiencing which would not have been visible to the eyes of the onlookers. Isaiah prophetically told us that He would bear our sorrows and griefs. He was punished for our transgressions. Peter tells us that He bore our sins in His body while on that cross (I Pet. 2:24). II Corinthians 5:21 tells us that somehow He, who was sinless, became the very embodiment of sin for us. He bore the chastening which we deserved, so that we might have reconciliation with God, instead of His wrath. This makes little sense to us in modern-day, individualistic America. God had introduced the background of substitutionary atonement way back in the garden of Eden. The skin coverings for Adam and Eve’s nakedness required the death of animals. The entire sacrificial system depended upon the notion that an animal could serve as a substitute for the guilt of the worshipper. The problem with animal sacrifices, however, is that their lives were not of equal value in exchange for the life of the one offering the sacrifice. The notion of substitution was clear, but the means was inadequate. Jesus, however, was a voluntary sacrifice of infinite worth. If He could take sin upon Himself, and actually pay for it through His death, then it would be more than temporarily covered. It would be removed forever (Heb. 9:11-10:22).

The agony of soul, which had been momentarily revealed in the garden of Gethsemane (Matt. 26:38; Lk. 22:44), was where the real struggle with death that Jesus endured lay. In order to set humanity free from the penalty and power of sin, He had to pay the full price for our sin while on that cross. Somehow He had to experience, and endure, an intensity of punishment that would more than offset the wrath of God which was accumulated by the sin of every person who ever lived on this planet. Isaiah tells us that "by oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due?" (Isa. 53:7,8). He took the death stroke which really belonged to others. He paid the price for them, so they would not have to experience God’s wrath, if they would only accept this provision from above. Like the serpent on the pole, which God provided to Israel in the wilderness, to escape the death of snakebite, in Jesus God was providing another source of healing and deliverance hung upon another pole, so that those who look to and trustfully yield in Him may receive life (Num. 21:4-9; Jn. 3:14,15).

The soul-struggle, and the cost of sin, are revealed by two telling comments of Jesus from the cross. The first is the cry of agony, "My God, My God, Why have you forsaken Me?". More than just a quote from the 22nd psalm, it was Jesus’ experience at that moment, as the wrath of God was poured out upon Him and He experienced the horror of total abandonment by the Father. Soon after, however, He cried out, "It is finished!" (Jn. 19:30) The word uttered was actually the word written upon contracts and bills which had been fulfilled, "Paid in full!" So, while the mockery of His enemies continued (Matt. 27:39-44), and His physical body was struggling to survive, and He was experiencing all the horrors and torture of that form of execution, He was also taking upon Himself the sin of the world, and the full wrath of the Father was poured out upon Him to the very end, so that He could say, "There, it is done. Paid in full."

This spiritual battle was also reflected in the natural world by the darkness which came upon the land from noon until 3:00 p.m., followed by the earthquake upon His death (Matt. 27:45-54). Just as the natural world was affected by Adam’s sin, subjected to futility and death (Rom. 8:19-22), so through the death of Christ it was being redeemed. The victory was also evidenced by the way in which Jesus died. He did not die of crucifixion. He gave up His spirit. He Himself had told the disciples that no one could take His life from Him (Jn. 10:17,18). He had the power to give it up at will, but no one could take it from Him. Thus, we see that He cried out, "Father, into your hands I commit My Spirit!", and He breathed out His life (Lk. 23:46; Jn. 19:30). The events surrounding His death, and the manner in which He died, were strange enough that the attending guards became frightened and exclaimed, "Surely this was the Son of God" (Matt. 27:54).