Pain and Suffering On the Cross

[Paleouss]

Greetings brothers. My apologies to anyone that feels like this topic is the equivalent of kicking a dead horse. . I am seeking honest viewpoints though.

My inquiry is about the topic of the pain and suffering Christ took on, in our stead.

Questions
#1. Did Christ suffer on the Cross?
#2. If Christ suffered on the Cross, was it in our stead?

and this is the main question

#3. If Christ did suffer on the cross...was that suffering a result of (A) taking on our sin, i.e, the pain, suffering, and death that is a result of our sin; OR (B) was that pain, suffering, and death from God's wrath, i.e., punishment?

The distinction between (A) and (B) is to inquire into... from what source does Christ's 'suffering' come? Is that 'suffering' coming from the work of sin and Christ taking it on for us? Or is that suffering coming from 'wrath' and punishment.

Looking for reasoning and verses.

Peace to you brothers

 

[kyredneck]

from what source does Christ's 'suffering' come?

Genesis Chapter 3

14​	And Jehovah God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15​	and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Luke Chapter 17

25​	But first must he suffer many things and be rejected of this generation.

2 saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses seat:
13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye shut the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye enter not in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering in to enter.
14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows` houses, even while for a pretence ye make long prayers: therefore ye shall receive greater condemnation.
33 Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell?
34 Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: some of them shall ye kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city:
35 that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar.
36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. Mt 23

3 And the scribes and the Pharisees bring a woman taken in adultery; and having set her in the midst,
13 The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest witness of thyself; thy witness is not true.
22 The Jews therefore said, Will he kill himself, that he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come?
44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and standeth not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof. Jn 8

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said unto them, Ye offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Mt 3

70 Jesus answered them, Did not I choose you the twelve, and one of you is a devil?
71 Now he spake of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve. Jn 6

 

[37818]

...If Christ did suffer on the cross...

1 Peter 3:18, For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, . . .

 

[Paleouss]

Genesis Chapter 3

14​	And Jehovah God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15​	and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Luke Chapter 17

25​	But first must he suffer many things and be rejected of this generation.

2 saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses seat:
13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye shut the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye enter not in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering in to enter.
14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows` houses, even while for a pretence ye make long prayers: therefore ye shall receive greater condemnation.
33 Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell?
34 Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: some of them shall ye kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city:
35 that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar.
36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. Mt 23

3 And the scribes and the Pharisees bring a woman taken in adultery; and having set her in the midst,
13 The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest witness of thyself; thy witness is not true.
22 The Jews therefore said, Will he kill himself, that he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come?
44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and standeth not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof. Jn 8

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said unto them, Ye offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Mt 3

70 Jesus answered them, Did not I choose you the twelve, and one of you is a devil?
71 Now he spake of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve. Jn 6

Greetings kyredneck. Hope you week was a good one.

Since you only put verses. Im guessing that by the bolded, you are saying that the source of pain, suffering and death on the cross was from the devil, i.e., the "works of the devil" (1John 3:8).

Peace to you brother.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

Questions
#1. Did Christ suffer on the Cross?

Clearly so. He had nails in His hands and feet.

#2. If Christ suffered on the Cross, was it in our stead?

Again, clearly so. 'He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities.'

and this is the main question

#3. If Christ did suffer on the cross...was that suffering a result of (A) taking on our sin, i.e, the pain, suffering, and death that is a result of our sin;

What actually, does that mean? What was the purpose for it? What did He do with it when He took it on?

OR (B) was that pain, suffering, and death from God's wrath, i.e., punishment?

The Lord Jesus did nothing to merit God's wrath. What about satisfying the justice of God? 'All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, into our own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.' 'The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressions, by no means clearing the guilty' (Isaiah 53:6; Exodus 34:6-7).
Immediately the question arises, how can God be merciful and gracious, how can He forgive iniquity, transgression and sin without clearing the guilty? How can He clear the guilty if He abounds with truth—if He is a ‘just Judge’ (Psalm 7:11)? How can it be said that, ‘Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed’ unless God can simultaneously punish sin and forgive sinners? The answer is that ‘God……devises means, so that His banished ones are not expelled from Him’ (2 Samuel 14:14). Those means are Penal Substitution. “Learn ye, my friends, to look upon God as being as severe in His justice as if He were not loving, and yet as loving as if He were not severe. His love does not diminish His justice nor does His justice, in the least degree, make warfare upon His love. The two are sweetly linked together in the atonement of Christ” (C.H. Spurgeon).

 

[kyredneck]

Since you only put verses. Im guessing that by the bolded, you are saying that the source of pain, suffering and death on the cross was from the devil, i.e., the "works of the devil" (1John 3:8).

YES. Exactly. Ultimately, in the final analysis, it is a COSMIC conflict between Good and Evil, played out between God's children and the Devil's children in this time/material realm.

Since you only put verses.

YES. When that's all that is needed.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

Since you only put verses. I'm guessing that by the bolded, you are saying that the source of pain, suffering and death on the cross was from the devil, i.e., the "works of the devil" (1John 3:8).

Isaiah 53:10. 'Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief.'
Acts 4:27-28. 'For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel [What? No devil?] were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done.'

 

[Paleouss]

What actually, does that mean? What was the purpose for it? What did He do with it when He took it on?

Martin, thank you for your response and the provided verses. Hope you are having a blessed weekend.

I felt I needed to answer your question about what my provided option (A) would mean. Sin leads to death (Rom 6:23), sin is suffering and pain (Gen 3:1-19, Rom 2:9, Isa 1:1-9). Pain and suffering are in the world because of sin, and pain and suffering will be absent from the New Heaven and Earth (Rev 21:1-4) because there will be no sin in the new heaven and earth.

Therefore, if pain and suffering is a byproduct of sin. Just as death is a byproduct of sin. Then it would be reasonable to think that if Christ took on all sin, or all sin of only some, then Christ might be taking on the byproduct of that sin. If pain and suffering is a byproduct of sin... did Christ take on this byproduct?

To develop this further, some might say that the separation from God is the worst suffering any being can go through. So this pain and suffering I speak of isn't the physical pain of stubbing my toe. This option isn't the suggestion that Christ on the Cross is taking on the pain of stubbing my toe so that I might not have to. Is Christ taking on sin and the full affects of this sin (the full affects of alienation, death, pain, suffering) while on the cross?

Or is Christ only taking on the legal sense of sin as it is under the law? And the pain and suffering comes from the wrath of God? You answered penal substitution. Thank you.

Peace to you brother

 

[Paleouss]

His love does not diminish His justice nor does His justice, in the least degree, make warfare upon His love. The two are sweetly linked together in the atonement of Christ” (C.H. Spurgeon).

Martin. Just thought I would add my thoughts on the quote you used.

I agree with Spurgeon based on your snippet.

God decreed to bring reconciliation through justice. The decree of God to have mercy springs forth from the law, and justice properly grounds the reconciliation God intends. Mercy springs forth from the law, for without justice there can be no mercy. There can be no mercy to those that are not accused of trespass if one is 'just'. God decreed to show mankind that He was not only the “justifier” (Rom 3:26) but also “just” (Rom 3:26).

Any theology that has it's justice and mercy creating divine dissonance within the characteristics of God is off.

Peace to you brother

 

[kyredneck]

[What? No devil?]

You still make God out to be a liar:

God said:
:14 And Jehovah God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15 and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Gen 3

Martin Marprelate says:
Nah, didn't happen.

 

[kyredneck]

Interesting article from a group that holds to PST:

"Satan was integral in the betrayal, arrest, torture, and execution of Jesus. During Jesus’ final meal with his disciples, Satan entered into Judas to betray Jesus (Jn. 13:2, 27; Lk. 22:3). Revelation 12 tells us that Satan couldn’t wait to get his hands on Jesus, so that he could “devour” him (Rev. 12:4).

The question is simple: Why?

If Jesus’ death ultimately brought about the defeat of Satan (1 Jn. 3:8; Col. 2:14-15), why would Satan do this? As we’ve already seen, Satan is a remarkably intelligent being. Why would he follow through with his plot to kill Jesus, if this would lead to his eventual demise?

Different explanations
Theologians have offered at least three different reasons for why Satan crucified Jesus:

(1) Satan the SUBMISSIVE. Those in the Reformed tradition often argue that Satan crucified Jesus, because God is sovereign and made him do it (Acts 2:23). We have no problem with God overriding Satan’s freewill to do such a thing. Since God is sovereign, this could very well be the case.

(2) Satan the SADIST. Since Satan is a bloodthirsty murderer (Rev. 12:4; Jn. 8:44), perhaps he simply couldn’t help himself. While he knew that the crucifixion of Jesus would open up heaven for humanity, perhaps he simply couldn’t resist torturing and killing the Son of God.

(3) Satan the SEIZER. This perspective fits under the notion of Christus Victor (see “Defending Substitutionary Atonement”). Under this view, Satan thought he could hold Jesus in death, but he underestimated the power of his resurrection (Heb. 2:14).

All three of these theories are certainly plausible. But there is another theory that has more explanatory power than all others: Satan didn’t know what would happen if he crucified Jesus. This theory is espoused by my friend and mentor Dennis McCallum in his excellent book Satan and His Kingdom. We will look closely at this here.

Couldn’t Satan have read the prophecies about Jesus in the OT?
Certainly the prophecies about Jesus in the OT are abundant (see Jesus and Messianic Prophecy). Satan definitely knew of these prophecies. In fact, we see Satan citing Scripture from memory in his interactions with Jesus (Mt. 4; Lk. 4). Thus the question is not whether Satan was aware of these predictions. Instead, the question is whether he understood them. Did Satan expect Jesus to come as the Suffering Servant, or was he expecting a Conquering King like everyone else (Jn. 6:15)?

No one before Jesus believed that the Messiah was going to come to die before he came to rule the Earth. We find no extrabiblical commentators who believed that Isaiah 53 referred to the death and resurrection of the Messiah. NT scholar George Ladd writes, “Judaism before Christ never interpreted [Isaiah 53] as referring to the sufferings of the Messiah.”[1] NT scholar D.A. Carson concurs, “There does not seem to be an unambiguous pre-Christian source within Judaism that identifies the Suffering Servant of Isa. 53 with the anticipated Messiah.”[2] Even critic Bart Ehrman agrees, “We do not have a single Jewish text prior to the time of Jesus that interprets the passage messianically.”[3]

This shouldn’t surprise us. Even throughout Jesus’ life, the people around him did not understand the purpose of his mission on Earth....." Why Did Satan Crucify Jesus? | Evidence Unseen

 

[kyredneck]

[What? No devil?]

Oh, he's there:

Ephesians Chapter 2

2​	wherein ye once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience;

...or are you so extreme in your views that you think it was the Spirit of God working within those that murdered Christ?

 

[Martin Marprelate]

Oh, he's there:

Ephesians Chapter 2

2​	wherein ye once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience;

...or are you so extreme in your views that you think it was the Spirit of God working within those that murdered Christ?

Were it not for the exceedingly plain word of God that I quoted above (Isaiah 53:10; Acts 4:27-28), I still wouldn't agree with you.
But you are certainly right that Satan was working within those who passed by the cross (Mark 15:29-32) and in at least one of the criminals (Luke 23:39).
But if you really need to discuss this again, don't mess up this thread; start another.

 

[kyredneck]

Were it not for the exceedingly plain word of God that I quoted above (Isaiah 53:10; Acts 4:27-28)

Which begs the question(s):

Who sold Joseph into Egypt?:
20 And as for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Gen 50

Who moved David?:
And again the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them, saying, Go, number Israel and Judah. 2 Sam 24:1
And Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel. 1 Chron 21:1

Who enticed Ahab?:
20 And Jehovah said, Who shall entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one said on this manner; and another said on that manner.
21 And there came forth a spirit, and stood before Jehovah, and said, I will entice him.
22 And Jehovah said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt entice him, and shalt prevail also: go forth, and do so.
23 Now therefore, behold, Jehovah hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets; and Jehovah hath spoken evil concerning thee. 1 Ki 22

Who afflicted Job?:
11 But put forth thy hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will renounce thee to thy face.
12 And Jehovah said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thy hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of Jehovah. Job 1
5 But put forth thy hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce thee to thy face.
6 And Jehovah said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thy hand; only spare his life. Job 2

Who tempted Christ?:
1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil Mt 4 [Mark 1:12]

Who sifted Peter?:
31 Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat: Lu 22

Who buffeted Paul?:
7 And by reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted overmuch, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, that I should not be exalted overmuch. 2 Cor 12

Who killed Christ?:
10 be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even in him doth this man stand here before you whole.
26 The kings of the earth set themselves in array, And the rulers were gathered together, Against the Lord, and against his Anointed:
27 for of a truth in this city against thy holy Servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together,
28 to do whatsoever thy hand and thy council foreordained to come to pass. Acts 4

 

[kyredneck]

don't mess up this thread;

The question posed in the OP:

The distinction between (A) and (B) is to inquire into... from what source does Christ's 'suffering' come?

From the "exceedingly plain word of God":

Luke Chapter 17

25​	But first must he suffer many things and be rejected of this generation.