The cross did more than one thing. The first part, easy to understand, is not speaking to the figurative fire; the other part, the hard to understand part is.

Regarding how Christ could experience it, this is what I addressed in quoting from DA 534 and my related comments.



Yup, this is what I was thinking!

2 Corinthians 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

In the same way we are not righteous, but His righteousness is imputed to us, He wasn't a sinner, but the holy One, yet our sin was imputed to Him.

Christ suffered mental agony for the sins that were upon Him, not just because sin brings suffering to us, but because sin is a crime and is condemned by the law (and, of course, by the Lawgiver).

How does a crime being condemned by the law bring suffering upon someone?

Isn't it possible the sin is condemned because it is sin itself which is bad and causes suffering, as opposed to simply the condemnation of it bringing bad results? This way, it is sin, rather than the condemnation of it, that is the problem.

To put this another way. Say the law did not condemn sin. Then would it be OK? Would sinners be able to live eternally, in peaceful coexistence with God and their fellows?

Yes Tom!

What if a man lived by himself on a desert Island and never hurt anyone, but his thoughts were evil all the time and he didn't acknowledge God? Would he still deserve a punishment for sin?

How long would God have to burn him?

I think a good way to look at this is in Jesus' teachings about forgiveness. Remember the story of the forgiven debtor who didn't extend forgiveness to someone who owed him a little after he had been forgiven a great debt. Jesus said that he would be cast in prison and tortured until his debt was paid.

Isn't the prison the life of the unforgiving mind? Those refusing to forgive live a life of hell. They are the perpetual victims living and reliving the wrongs done to them. Replaying forever the late night show and allowing those who victimized them to control them for a lifetime.

I doubt very much Jesus was literally talking about torture chambers in heaven.

scott

I find it absolute amazing how people who believe in penal atonement find their theology everywhere.

Rosangela,

Look at the context of 2 Corinthians 5:

The context is Christ’s love compelling us to ministries of compassion! Christ love compels us to minister for others because He died for all of us, so that we no longer would live for ourselves, so we would no longer have a worldly point of view. Anyone who is truly “in Christ” is a new creation and because God didn’t count our sins against us and freely forgave us we have been given this message of God’s love and reconciliation to all men. We are His ambassadors and God is making an appeal through us to everyone we come in contact. Be reconciled to God because God, in Christ, one who never sinned, took on our sinful flesh so that we could be made into His righteousness.

You’re using this text to prove that Jesus somehow collected all the guilt and sin on himself so that we could be acquitted is totally making Paul say something he isn’t saying. In fact Jesus becoming sin for us is simply saying that Jesus incarnate into humanity for our benefit. He did it “for us” as apposed to doing it “to us” or doing it “in spite of us” or doing it “through us”. Words mean nothing outside of context and taking words out of context to prove something the author didn’t intend is not honest to the text. The Bible was not written as a spec book, technical manual, or a code book, but as a case book! The word “for” in this text is preposition which means “in behalf of” or “for the sake of” not “in the place of”. You are reading your theology into the text.

scott

Can one sinner, or all sinners combined, make an innocent person suffer the consequence of becoming incompatible with God? Can a person make another person suffer the figurative fire?

I can see how sinners can cause Jesus to suffer the physical consequences of sin. But I do not believe that physical suffering is significant compared to the other kinds of suffering Jesus went through. So that aspect does not fully explain how Jesus was victimized.

Arnold, I think the DA text I quoted speaks to this.



Christ so identified with us (as sinners) that He felt as if He were a sinner, and felt that which sinners feel.

Hi Arnold,

It was Jesus' love for the lost that caused His agony. He could handle it while in the security and fellowship of the Father, but alone it must have seemed overwhelming. Jesus was promised in the prophetic scriptures that the Father would catch Him if He fell, protect Him from His enemy, feed Him when He was hungry, give Him water when He was thirsty, but suddenly the Father didn't intervene. And Jesus knew He wouldn't.

Had our sin not made this world such a dangerous place Jesus would have had no worries, but because of Adam's choice Jesus suffered as one of us for our benefit. Why? Because we needed to know God loved us and that there was nothing that could separate us from His love. He did this hoping that we would lay down our defenses and allow Him His rightful place in our hearts. He did it to set us right with God (justify us back to the Father. We are justified by grace simply means that God's graciousness sets us back in a right relationship to the Father.

If Christ didn't love us so much I don't think He would have stayed on the cross! Imagine hardened murderers torturing and killing you. Now imagine your own children whom you nurtured and love with all your heart spitting in your face, pulling your beard out, and nailing you to a cross. Which would hurt more?

scott

Scott, how do you explain thoughts like "He couldn't see through the portals of the tomb?" also that He felt the displeasure of God against sin and so forth?

If that is the case, then the feeling of separation from God which He experienced was not a "natural consequence" of sin, since He had no sin.

It was, if I understand you correctly, a consequence of His holy empathy. If so, His separation from God was caused by His holiness. But that goes against the concept that compatibility with God is what makes holiness good, and incompatibility with God is what makes unholiness bad.

Another option is that He was suffering the wrath of God in the place of the sinner. In which case, the just reward of actual sin was being felt by Jesus.