Think Wink.

The comment on my last post on the Tabernacle was very interesting.  The commentor references one person attempting to discredit Christianity by saying that the cross was no big deal because Jesus was God and he knew that he won’t stay dead for very long so it was a very small price to pay.  I was asked the question how would I respond to that?  The commentor referred to Jesus’ humanity suffering on the cross.  I whole-heartedly support that answer and I would most-likely use that in the conversation.  But there is another answer that I would like to address.  Jesus in his divinity suffered as well.

John 15:9-10 says,

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”

The Father and the Son have an intimate love relationship.  Jesus perfectly experiences the Father’s love.  The Father perfectly experiences the Son’s love.  It is a perfect union.  The members of the Trinity are perfectly loving and relating to eacheach other.  This perfect union was broken on the cross.  There was a tear in the Trinity.  The Father had to pour out the wrath of God upon the Son.  The Son had to experience the severred relationship with the Father and Spirit.  To lose such a perfect love had to be unbearable.  To have to experience that aweful wrath had to be unspeakable.  Jesus in his humanity suffered because of the nails going through his hands and feet.  Jesus in his humanity suffered because of the anguish of the cross.  Jesus in his divinity suffered because that perfect relationship with the Father was severred and for the first time ever, Jesus did not have fellowship with the Father and the Spirit.  That anguish of bearing that was literally hell.  That would be my answer to the charge that Jesus really didn’t suffer.  Yes he knew what this would accomplish.  But that doesn’t mean that it did not hurt and he really did not feel pain as the second person of the Trinity.

Matthew vs Mark

Reflections from Hebrews 1-2

Aslan’s Ransom