What Did Jesus Really Suffer?

This is another question you've posed recently, and I'm going to springboard off a line from my previous post. In my post I make mention of the "wrath" of God. The idea of God possessing anger or "wrath" is not popular in this day and age. Yet the Bible is pretty clear that God does indeed possess a sense of righteous anger.

The key to this, it seems to me, is to understand that his anger is perfectly righteous. That means it's never arbitrary, never capricious, never without perfect justice. But anger he is capable of, and angry he does become. The Bible speaks frequently of "fearing" God. In one sense, I think, that means to have a healthy regard for God's righteous anger.

Note: This is another block in the wall of Christian doctrine. The Christian faith makes little sense if God is without a sense of righteous anger, and is incapable of holy wrath. If the God one desires is a kind of "peace and love" permissive god, then what I am about to express will make no sense whatever.

In some ways, the movie "Passion of the Christ" did a disservice. It focused, I think, too heavily on the physical suffering of Jesus during his flogging and crucifixion. I don't think that Christ's agitation in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:37-38) was due entirely to the anticipation of the physical pain to be endured. Some, to be sure, but not entirely.

It is noteworthy, I feel, that during the entire flogging and crucifixion, the Bible never recounts Jesus crying out to God. He does not do that until the very moment prior to death, when he cries out, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Matthew 27:46, NIV)

My understanding of this is that at that moment, God placed the accumulated weight of mankind's sin on Jesus, and at that moment Jesus bore the full wrath and fury of God the Father; wrath that would have been ours were it not for Grace.

I have read that at that moment Jesus suffered separation from God his Father for the first time in all of eternity. An eternity of perfect love and communion shattered by Christ's bearing our sin so the righteous wrath of God could serve his perfect justice.

I have read that at that moment God sent Christ to hell. Imagine that ... God sending his eternal son to hell because of our sins. That is either incredibly foolish, or incredibly gracious.

That, to my understanding, is what Jesus suffered. That is the cup he asked be taken from him. That explains the cry, "Why have you forsaken me?" That is why we should be on our knees, grateful for his saving work on our behalf.

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I do not fully grasp the depth and breadth of this. But I did once for a split second. At a moment when I was wrestling with trying to understand the magnitude of it all, my mind "opened up" and I "saw" the depth and breadth. For only a moment, then it was gone. The memory lingers in my mind. God provided me with a moment of revelation to fuel my path to Christ; he has left me with a faint memory of what I experienced. Like your experiences, deep.thought, I can't explain this. But it was real. That I know.

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Thank you, Jesus.