The Sacrifice

And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" that is to say, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"

-Matthew 27: 46

It was not when men spat in Jesus' face and beat Him with their fists and slapped Him which caused Him to cry out. It was not the Roman scourging which ripped His flesh from His back which caused Him to cry out.

It was not the thorn wreath smashed into His scalp. Nor the grating of the rough wooden cross on his shoulder as He bore it up the hill. It was not the parched, agonizing strain to the top of Golgotha or the spikes mercilessly pounded into His hands and feet. It was not the shock of the cross' vertical support slamming to rest in place, jarring and likely separating His shoulders. It was not the constant searing pain as He pressed his feet on the spike which supported His weight in order to stretch His ribcage to take in air.

There was nothing that men or any other created being could do to make the Son of God cry out.

His distraught cry came at that forlorn time of separation from the Father--the only separation the Father and the Son had known from all eternity. This was the event which had been contemplated with sheer dismay in the Garden the night before. This was that duration of the crucifixion in which the Lamb of God suffered the Father's just and holy anger for the sins of those He came to redeem.

He became the propitiation for our sins, and He paid our sin-debt in full. It was a costly price to pay, as Matthew 27: 46 shows.

Hallelujah. What a Savior.

The Agony Before the Atonement

The words of Mark 14:33-36 provide a glimpse of how difficult our redemption was to accomplish. The passage reveals a struggle which is incomprehensible, and which underscores the fact that in atoning for our sins, Jesus Christ bore for us the very wrath and punishment from God which we deserved to have fall on us.

Heretical attempts to redefine Christ's death on the cross as merely a "moral example" ring hollow when confronted with the intensity of the Lord's battle in the Garden of Gethsemane. The struggle depicted in the parallel passages of Mark 14:33-36, Matthew 26:37-39, and Luke 22:42-44 indicate a challenge of such magnitude as can only be explained by the fact that full payment for the sins of believers was made by Jesus at the cross. He did not simply present an example of justice; He absolutely satisfied justice for us. He did not just provide an example of suffering; He suffered in our place the very judgement that we deserved.

Mark 14:33 says that in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus "began to be sore amazed and very heavy;" (the NKJV renders it "...troubled and deeply distressed."). In Mark 14:34, Jesus describes His state as "exceedingly sorrowful unto death: ...". What is it, one must ask, that could grieve the Son of God to the point of death? What could so agonize Him that His anguish would produce blood in His sweat (Luke 22:44)? It was not the physical pain and torture He would endure, as excruciating as that was. It was not the scorn of those who put Him to death, or of those who mocked Him while He suffered. Nor was it the sorrow of loved ones who would see Him die.

Nothing less than the prospect of the Father's holy wrath, which Jesus would vicariously and voluntarily suffer in full measure for elect sinners, could elicit the level of profound bereavement He experienced in the Garden. Only the anticipation of enduring the wrath of God the Father, as Jesus did on our behalf, could bring such distress to God the Son in the Garden. Those who attempt to promote any myth that the atonement was something other than Christ suffering the punishment due believers for our sins are at a loss to explain what else could so distress the Son of Man that He would pray, "Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee, take away this cup from Me; nevertheless not what I will, but what Thou wilt." (Mark 14:36).

If one's sensibilities are offended that our sins could only be forgiven by being fully paid for by our innocent Substitute, then one doesn't comprehend the gravity of sin or the magnitude of our forgiveness from God, Who is holy and absolutely just.

The agony of Gethsemane forecasts the depths of the atonement at Calvary. And it puctuates in advance Peter's assertion in Acts 4:12, after Christ's death and resurrection, that "...there is none other Name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."