‘It was our sorry case that caused the Word to come down, our transgression that called out his love for us, so that he made haste to help us and to appear among us. It is we who were the cause of his taking human form, and for our salvation that in his great love that he was both born and manifested a human body.’1See Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 4; CSMV ed., 29. See Thomas Weinandy, ‘Athanasius’s Incarnational Soteriology,’ in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 135-154.
Athanasius draws a direct line there from incarnation to suffering. To be born, to take on a full human life, body and soul, in this world — of sin, death and wrath — was already to enter the arena of pain.
Pain and suffering attended and afflicted him from the manger to the cross.
Not an Isolated Event
Jesus’ death, then, was not an isolated event but the outcome and apex of a lifetime’s suffering. He was born into it.
Like us, he was subject to innumerable calamities, challenges and needs, including ‘hunger, thirst, cold, and other infirmities of our nature.’2Calvin, Institutes, 2.13.1; Battles ed., 475.
‘Born in the likeness of men,’ he entered a life in which earthly humiliation, danger, difficulty and distress was integral to his experience from the outset. And yet his obedience proceeded willingly and freely through its course ‘in the form of a servant,’ offering humble service, until — in Paul’s phrase — it reached ‘the point of death, even death on a cross’ (Phil 2:6-8).3The following paragraphs are guided by Derek W. H. Thomas’ class on ‘The Sufferings of Jesus,’ available here https:www.monergism.com/school-theology-mp3-series. Also, see Mark Jones, Knowing Christ, 117-126.
The Prophets Saw It Coming
This was no sudden or arbitrary sequence, but the pattern the prophets had traced and foretold beforehand.
‘A worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people’ (Psa 22:6). ‘He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief … as one from whom men hide their face … we esteemed him not’ (Isa 53:3).
His astonishing descent from ‘equality with God’ to abject, agonising rejection and humility, however, received its proper reward and endpoint: absolute power, acclamation, dominion.
‘Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father’ (Phil 2:9-11).
Active or Passive?
The distinction between Christ’s active and passive obedience is of some use. It marks a real difference between what he deliberately chose and what was inflicted upon him.
Generally, active obedience refers to Christ’s fulfilment of God’s law; passive obedience refers to his passion and death.
Yet it can mislead if pressed too far. Christ’s whole experience of suffering and death was never passive in any straightforward sense.
It must be insisted that in his death Christ was supremely active — laying down his life freely, of his own accord, rather than having it merely taken from him.4John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied, 20-24.
What Kinds of Pain?
Jesus did not simply seem to suffer and die. He genuinely suffered and died. So what types of pain did he experience?5Basil of Caesarea’s list of Christ’s humiliations is worth attention: ‘Homily 20: Of Humility,’ in St. Basil, Ascetical Works, trans. by M. F. Toale, D.D. Written as Homilia 20, with the Greek text referenced at PG 31, cols. 525–531.
Social suffering. Mark’s passion narrative (Mark 15) depicts derision and mockery from both religious and governing authorities, compounded by Judas’ betrayal and the disciples’ desertion and denial.
That rejection is all the more poignant given that Jesus had called the Twelve precisely ‘that they might be with him’ (Mark 3:14) — a calling which shows he did not choose isolation or solitude. He loved companionship. He loved people, and was loved by them.
Yet he was rejected. Let down, misrepresented, disowned by family and friends alike. And above all, forsaken by his own Father on the cross.
Physical suffering. This climaxed in the passion itself: arrest with arms, trial, striking, spitting, mocking, beating, flogging, laceration, and finally crucifixion, concluding with a sword thrust into his side.
Debasing, shameful, brutal, severe, extreme and sustained. Trauma. Torture. Bodily torment.
Mental suffering. Christ’s suffering was not only physical but mental and spiritual, reaching into the depths of his inner life.
He suffered precisely in being tempted (Heb 2:18), and the strain of that finds its clearest expression in Gethsemane, where ‘in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence’ (Heb 5:7).
Here is no stoic, unmoved endurance, but a real and anguished wrestling of soul — the true cost, inwardly borne, of the obedience he rendered.
Deeper Than Gethsemane
Yet Gethsemane, anguished as it was, was not the deepest point of that suffering.
Echoing the Apostles’ Creed, the Thirty-Nine Articles press further still: ‘As Christ died for us, and was buried, so also is it believed that he went down into Hell.’6The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, 3; Van Dixhoorn ed., Creeds, 116.
Here the depths are greatest. Jesus was forsaken and abandoned by God. His descent into hell, as Calvin interpreted it, was an experience undergone on the cross itself — hell understood not as a subsequent location but as the reality of God set against him, cursed by him.7Calvin, Institutes, 2.16.8-12, especially section 2.16.10; Battles ed., 512-520. For broader discussion, see Rodney Howsare, ‘Christ’s Descent into Hell,’ in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 257-276. Also, Bray, God is Love, 592-93.
Made sin for us, he was reckoned a sinner, and treated as one. His cry of dereliction is both a question and a cry of pain, as though God were dealing with him as he would deal with a sinner — and the Father did not immediately answer him.
Human and angelic sin deserves nothing less than ceaseless pain, destruction, alienation, punishment and banishment. And this, for a time, is what he bore.
The Trinity Was Not Broken
One thing must be said clearly alongside all that, because it’s easily misread.
The Trinity was not thereby threatened, damaged or broken.
As many have argued it must be maintained, the cross did not rupture the eternal relations of Father and Son. Indeed, at no point was Jesus more loveable to the Father than at the point of the cross.
Each acted together, with the Spirit’s help, to accomplish their one unified decision.8For example, Rutledge, The Crucifixion, especially Part 1, 41–200. See also, Christopher R. J. Holmes, ‘The Atonement and the Holy Spirit,’ in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 77-94.
That’s worth holding onto if the language of forsakenness disturbs you. What happened at the cross was not a fracture within God. It was the execution of a single shared purpose, at unimaginable cost to the one who bore it.
—
- 1See Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 4; CSMV ed., 29. See Thomas Weinandy, ‘Athanasius’s Incarnational Soteriology,’ in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 135-154. ↩︎
- 2Calvin, Institutes, 2.13.1; Battles ed., 475. ↩︎
- 3The following paragraphs are guided by Derek W. H. Thomas’ class on ‘The Sufferings of Jesus,’ available here https:www.monergism.com/school-theology-mp3-series. Also, see Mark Jones, Knowing Christ, 117-126. ↩︎
- 4John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied, 20-24. ↩︎
- 5Basil of Caesarea’s list of Christ’s humiliations is worth attention: ‘Homily 20: Of Humility,’ in St. Basil, Ascetical Works, trans. by M. F. Toale, D.D. Written as Homilia 20, with the Greek text referenced at PG 31, cols. 525–531. ↩︎
- 6The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, 3; Van Dixhoorn ed., Creeds, 116. ↩︎
- 7Calvin, Institutes, 2.16.8-12, especially section 2.16.10; Battles ed., 512-520. For broader discussion, see Rodney Howsare, ‘Christ’s Descent into Hell,’ in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 257-276. Also, Bray, God is Love, 592-93. ↩︎
- 8For example, Rutledge, The Crucifixion, especially Part 1, 41–200. See also, Christopher R. J. Holmes, ‘The Atonement and the Holy Spirit,’ in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 77-94. ↩︎