Theologian Jonathan Edwards said that in the Garden of Gethsemane, God gave Jesus a glimpse of the cross so that we could see Jesus go to the cross voluntarily—knowing full well what he was about to experience—so that we might understand even more clearly the depth of his love for us. Jesus had to undergo the full horrors of the wrath of God to deliver us (Romans 3:28, 5:8).
Even after enduring a brutal beating and flogging and being paraded through the streets before jeering crowds and forced to carry his own crossbeam, Jesus still had to face his death by crucifixion. One scholar, Truman Davis, explained the act of crucifixion like this: It was designed to keep the victim alive, in as much pain as possible, for as long as possible, without letting them slip into shock. It “involved dizziness, cramp, thirst, sleeplessness, hunger, traumatic fever, humiliation and shame, piercing wounds, ripped tendons.”
The way a crucifixion victim was kept conscious was by putting him through cycles of pain. When one element of the torture would threaten to make a person pass out, crucifixion would make him switch to something else that would keep him conscious. Here’s how it worked:
- You hung down, suspended by your arms (your feet were nailed so they couldn’t support you), held to the crossbeam by nails through your wrists. Your shoulders and elbows would soon pop out of joint.
- The blood vessels around the stomach became swollen and gorged with surcharged blood.
- Because of the hanging position, your lungs would become compressed. As long as you let yourself simply hang, you couldn’t breathe, and you’d start to suffocate. So in order to take a breath, you’d hoist yourself up by your arms, which pulled on the nails in your hands.
- From the hanging position you could draw air into your lungs—but not exhale it. So, at the point where you felt like you couldn’t hold your breath any longer, you’d pull yourself up again to take another breath, and down again you’d go.
- For hours—or sometimes days—the victim would alternate between searing pain and the panicked feeling of suffocation. Each time he pulled himself up or let himself slide down, his back would be further torn open by the splintered center-beam of the cross.
- Eventually, the victim would either give up or lack the power to pull himself up and die by suffocation.
Jesus knew this was coming. This was what he was pointing to when he held up the bread and the cup and said, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28 ESV). This brutality was the cup of God’s wrath against our sins.
People might say, “Well, that is all really striking, but what did his suffering have to do with my sin?”
A Muslim friend of mine once told me, “Why would God need someone to die to forgive my sin? If you sin against me, I wouldn’t ask you to kill someone who meant something to you. Allah must be more merciful than the Christian God, because he doesn’t require this kind of sacrifice.”
Many of us might find this argument compelling. But that only proves we have a superficial understanding of forgiveness. If you’ve ever really had to forgive someone of true injustice, you know it is deeply costly. Injustice creates a debt, and someone must pay it. Either you repay in kind, meting out justice to those who deserve it, or you choose to absorb the pain of injustice. In choosing to forgive, it feels like you are killing part of yourself.
For example, if you borrow my car, take it out, and wreck it (and you don’t have a way to pay for the damage), then I have two choices: I could take you to court and force you to set up some sort of payment plan. Or, I could forgive you and not make you pay me back. If I do that, I’m agreeing to bear the cost of your wrong.
True forgiveness is always costly. At the cross, God absorbed the sting of our sin and took the wrath, the devastation, caused by us.
Jesus “cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split” (Matthew 27:50-51).
This curtain was four inches thick and woven of 72 blue, red, and purple cords, and it sealed off the people from the presence of God. It was called the paroket, which literally means “shut off,” because that’s what the veil did. It shut off the presence of God from everyone, on threat of death.
Suddenly, as Jesus dies, this curtain is split in two, showing that through the torn body of Jesus, the presence of God was now open to all.
There was a price to pay for our sin, and he paid it. He was humiliated in our place. Accused in our place. Condemned in our place. Defiled in our place. Beaten, abandoned, and killed in our place. Jesus in our place. This is why he had to die.
Lifted up was he to die, “It is finished!” was his cry. Now in heaven exalted high; Hallelujah, what a Savior!
