Wrath in the NT: The Death of God (POTW Part 2)

Preliminary Note: If you have any questions or topics that you would like to see in this blog in the future, please e-mail me at foleymalcolm@gmail.com and let me know if you prefer to be held anonymous (by default, I'll quote the question by first name). I prefer for my thoughts to be a little less unilateral. The more interactive this can be, the better. 

Warning: This is not for the squeamish. The details of crucifixion are explained…not in excruciating* detail, but in detail nonetheless.

            The death of God is probably the most confusing, and yet foundational aspect of the Christian faith. In the words of Paul,

“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

I’m going to have to side with Paul. And the only way for Christ to have been resurrected was for Him to die. But Christ was also, by his own admission, the divine Son of God and the human Son of Man. We’ll deal with the theological implications of that later. For today, we’re going to get a deeper understanding of what the Passion really meant, especially the pain that our Lord went through. As I said a few days ago, we like to think of the New Testament God as nice, loving, and comfortable. We throw around the fact that Jesus died for our sins. But there is a reverence that should be present whenever we say that fact. Jesus Christ, the only sinless man to ever live, endured agonizing physical torture and the spiritual weight of the sin of all mankind so that you and I might be his brethren. But we’ll begin with the physical.

            When Luke describes Jesus praying at the Mount of Olives in the garden of Gethsemane in the 22^nd chapter of his gospel, he notes a detail that the other gospels don’t mention: “And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” Now one can view this figuratively and see the blood as representation of the spiritual agony that Jesus is enduring at the time. After all, he’s just prayed the “Not my will, but yours, be done” prayer, a prayer that is difficult for all of us. But a figurative interpretation isn’t necessary. Others believe that Jesus was actually sweating blood, which is an actual medical condition. Hematohidrosis is a condition where, due to intense stress, you literally excrete blood through your sweat glands. Jesus, in his knowledge of the intense pain that He would go through for you, was so stressed out that he bled. That’s intense. And only the beginning.

            The worst physical pains that Jesus went through, in my mind, were the scourging, the cross carrying, the crown of thorns, and the crucifixion itself. First, the scourging that Jesus endured tore his flesh. This scourging was a severe beating with a multi-lashed whip containing embedded pieces of bone and metal. On top of that, they put a crown made of thorns on his head. On top of THAT, he had to carry the 100 pound crossbeam for his own cross. On his back. Which was probably unrecognizable from the beatings that he endured. Then when they get to the cross, drive the nails through his feet and his hands/wrists, they offer him wine mixed with myrrh and he doesn’t take it. Some gloss over this detail because they don’t recognize why he was offered this drink. Just think: compounded onto the pain of the scourging, the crown of thorns, the mocking, and the cross carrying, he is now suspended in the air, forced to support himself by his suspended arms which are nailed into wood. The pain multiplies as the minutes go by. The wine and myrrh was, in essence, a pain medication. It would have dulled Jesus’ pain and probably quieted the screams of agony that other crucifixion victims would be uttering at a time like this. But Jesus was wayyyyy too hardcore for that. And he loved you way too much for that. He took the full brunt of the physical torture of crucifixion for you. Torn flesh. Splinters. Exhaustion. Excruciating pain. All for you.

            Surely this would satisfy the wrath of God. Nope. In the grand scheme of things, many people underwent this torture. Crucifixion wasn't especially uncommon in the Roman world. The spiritual agony of Jesus's death was exponentially worse. Jesus spent his entire life in closer communion with God than anyone. But in these moments on the cross, when he utters the Aramaic, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”, he has truly been forsaken. The sins of mankind that he took upon himself exposed him to the torture of hell: the torture of separation from God. After a life of devotion, these moments of abandonment were surely the most painful moments of Jesus’s life, or, for that matter, the most painful moments of any human life. He, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross and despised the shame and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2) And he did it because he loves you.

            And here’s the kicker: Isaiah 53:10. This chapter of Isaiah notes a number of details about Jesus’ future life and death, but this is the interesting part.

“Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief…out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.”

The KJV says that it pleased the LORD to bruise him. It was God’s will that Jesus suffer immeasurably so that you and the rest of His people might be saved. This is our God. A God who loves us so much that He would do this to his Son then bring him back to life so that you might be forgiven and given hope. A God who, in a sense, sent Himself to die as payment for sins against Himself, and then resurrects Himself. Theologically mind-boggling and also completely necessary, because according to the principle I noted in the last post, the only way to pay for an infinite offense is to pay an infinite penalty. The death of Jesus, the God-man, filled that void. Wow. Needless to say, our God is amazing and to say, “I can’t believe in a God like that,” may seem intellectually honest and a bit theologically pretentious, but it is ultimately irrelevant. This is the God that we’re presented with. Take it or leave it. As for me, I’ll take it and continue to seek His face.

*Excruciating – from the Latin “crux” meaning cross