Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 7: "In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death. And he was heard for his godly fear." This verse, as a young Christian, puzzled me quite a lot. We have come to an understanding of the death of Christ which, to my mind, does not seem to answer a lot of questions — I am not satisfied with answers which are too superficial.
The problem that presents itself is this: Christ died for our sins, and after some six terrible hours hanging upon the cross he gave up his spirit. Yet whereas I appreciate what Christ did, I must say that the physical suffering was by no means exclusive to Christ. The Romans crucified thousands — at the rebellion of Spartacus, slaves were hung on the cross for two days or more. There is an awful lot of suffering in this world, and one cannot quite conclude that Jesus suffered any more than many have suffered in this fearful world.
This is why the physical side of the cross could not touch me too deeply. One could say it is not so much what he suffered but who it is that suffered. But then look at the verse again: "Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death." Is it that Jesus was afraid to die? That is what puzzled me as a young Christian. Anyone whose ambitions are in the area of military science is not frightened of death, and I could not honestly say that death carried any terrors for me. I could not imagine a soldier, given the command to charge the enemy, standing there with loud crying and tears. When the order is given, you load your gun, you go over the top, and you charge.
Consider how Christian martyrs have gladly gone to the lions, singing as they went. Consider Ignatius of Antioch, who said that if the lions did not attack him he would beckon them on that they might not hesitate to eat him. He smiled at death. Or consider the Greek philosopher Socrates, ordered to take poison: when others wept, he said, "Don't weep for me," and drank the hemlock quietly. How then do we explain these loud cries and tears from the one who himself told his disciples not to fear those who kill the body? It appears to be a puzzling cowardice — can it be that the Lord was not equal to his own servants, or to non-Christians?
I pondered this for years, and looked in vain for satisfactory answers in Bible colleges and theological faculties. Then, some two months ago, driving down in the United States, Helen was driving and I sat in the dark listening to a music tape about the last days of Jesus. As I meditated, the tears came to my eyes — I could not hold them back — because for the first time the death of Christ touched my heart in a way that in over twenty years of being a Christian it had failed to. What touched my heart was this: all along I had thought, as have so many devotional books, only about the physical elements of Christ's death. I had never grasped what he actually risked.
Let me begin the analysis from five angles. The first point is this: the wages of sin is death — but what kind of death? Is it physical death, or spiritual death, or both? This is the vital question. When God said to Adam, "In the day that you eat of this fruit you shall die," Adam ate and did not die physically — he lived another nine hundred years. Does God's word fail? No. It follows that what is meant must be spiritual death. Adam died spiritually on that day.
This is confirmed by Ephesians 2, where three times — in verses 1, 5, and 13 — Paul speaks of death but not physical death. He says, "You were dead in trespasses and sins." We were not dead; we were physically very much alive — jogging, boxing, doing all kinds of sports. Paul says: you were dead. Of course he is talking about spiritual death. So then, the wages of sin is primarily spiritual death, not physical death.
Here is the point of ambivalence that has confused us: we have imagined constantly that Jesus' physical death atoned for our spiritual death. How is it that a physical death atones for a spiritual death? Think carefully on this from 1 Peter 3:18: "For Christ also died for sins, once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit." Both "put to death" and "made alive" are aorist passive participles — the same grammatical form. He was put to death in the flesh, and he was made alive in the spirit. The same verb for "made alive" is used throughout the New Testament for resurrection, as in Romans 4:17 and John 5:21.
Now consider this carefully: how can he be raised in his spirit if he had not died in his spirit? If he had not died spiritually, there would be nothing to raise spiritually. He died not just physically but spiritually — and then was raised both physically and spiritually — because the wages of sin is not just physical death but spiritual death. A physical death cannot atone for a spiritual death unless the one dying also dies spiritually.
After he died, he did not go straight to be with the Father. John 20:17 records the Lord Jesus saying to Mary after his resurrection, "Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father." He had died and risen and yet had not yet ascended. What was he doing in the meantime? Scripture does not leave us in the dark. First Peter 3:19 tells us he went to preach to the spirits in prison — those who perished in the days of Noah. He went to where the disobedient dead were. He was not with the Father; he descended to Hades, the place of the departed dead, even as the ancient creeds of the church confess.
Compare the situation of a Christian who dies now: Philippians 1:23 says that when a Christian dies he goes immediately to be with Christ, which is "far better." The Christian does not go to Hades. Christ went to Hades. Why? Because he bore our spiritual death, our separation from God, and had to pass through it himself in order to raise us from it.
Jesus was not afraid of physical death — he told his own disciples in Matthew 10 not to be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot touch the soul, but to fear him who can kill both body and soul in hell. He was not now going to set an example of cowardice in the face of physical death. What he feared was spiritual death — the possibility of being cut off from God, of his eternal well-being being destroyed. He who was not afraid of physical death cried out with loud tears to him who was able to save him from death — from spiritual death, from eternal destruction. That is the beginning of the answer. That is what I realized sitting in the dark in that car, and that is what brought the tears to my eyes.
When I first grasped that Jesus risked his eternal well-being — not merely a physical death from which he knew he would rise in three days — something in me was shaken in a way that it had not been shaken in twenty years of being a Christian. Those who do not even believe they will rise again are not afraid to die physically. Communist soldiers charge machine guns though they believe they will never rise again. Socrates did not know he would be raised; he still took the poison without fear. How much less would someone who knows he will die for only three days be cowering in the face of physical death? No — what he risked was eternal, and it is that which explains the loud cries and tears of Hebrews 5:7.
# The Meaning of Jesus' Death (Part B) — Romans 9:3, Galatians 3:13: Christ Became a Curse, and "My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?"
Romans 9, verse 3, where Paul says: "For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen by race." This is a staggering word. He did not say he was prepared to die physically for his brethren — not at all. He said: if my eternal damnation would serve for the eternal salvation of my people, so may I. If it would help — that my people may live. Think well on this.
There are superficial commentators who, when they hear this, click their tongues and say: "Oh yes, he is prepared to go to hell." Don't be so superficial, don't be foolish. He is willing to stake his eternal well-being. He is willing to go to hell if his people could be saved. Now that is the spirit of Christ. Paul would never dare to say a thing like this if it were not that he saw it is exactly what Christ did. Paul tells us that is exactly what happened to Christ — he became a curse for us, he was accursed for us, he who knew no sin.
This is precisely what Paul teaches in Galatians 3:13: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree." This is a quotation of Deuteronomy 21:23. What does the curse mean? You only have to study its usage throughout the New Testament. The same word — katara, and its related form anathema — appears in 2 Peter 2:14, of those who perish eternally, for whom "the nether gloom of darkness has been reserved." In Matthew 11, the fig tree is cursed, never to bear fruit again — perpetually and utterly destroyed. In Matthew 25:41, at the last judgment, the cursed are those relegated to eternal fire.
The same word anathema is used by Paul in Galatians 1:8–9: "If we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preach, let him be accursed" — condemned to eternal damnation, because by preaching a false gospel one sends others to hell and deserves hell. And in 1 Corinthians 16:22 Paul says: "If any man love not the Lord Jesus, let him be anathema." If anyone does not love him who risked his eternal well-being for your salvation, you are not fit for the heavenly places. In the Old Testament, the kherem — the same concept — was used of people devoted to utter destruction without any hope of restoration. There is no question: the curse, everywhere in Scripture, has to do with eternal damnation and eternal judgment.
When Paul says in Romans 9:3 that he could wish to be "accursed and cut off," he is not talking about physical death but about his eternal well-being. Paul knew that that is the spirit of Christ — he who was willing not just to come into the world and suffer for a while, but to say to the Father: if my going to hell would save all mankind, so be it. That is what touches my heart. Not merely that you were willing to die on the cross — that touches me somewhat — but that you were willing to stake your eternal being for me. Oh my Jesus.
Now consider the cry from the cross. When the Lord Jesus hung upon the cross, he used the words of Psalm 22:1: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" If he were not forsaken, the words are meaningless — mere rhetoric, not worthy to be used in so solemn a situation. His actual Hebrew words: Eili, eili, lama sabachthani — My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Those words are deeply imprinted in my mind.
I made a study of the word "forsake" in the Bible and examined all the evidence. Why does God forsake anyone? To forsake a person is always connected to sin — there are too many references to list, but take Isaiah 49:14: Zion moans that the Lord has forsaken her because of her sin. God forsakes a person because of sin. To be forsaken is to be forgotten; to be rejected — Jeremiah 7:29. To be forsaken is to be the object of God's wrath, as in Isaiah 54:7–8. And Jesus bore the divine anger, because "he who knew no sin was made sin for us" — he became sin, and because of sin God forsook him.
His cry on the cross was thus an acknowledgment both of his innocence — "the righteous for the unrighteous," as Peter says — and of his actual forsakenness. He was forsaken. The psalmist used the same words because he too had experienced being forsaken; he pleaded his innocence even as he acknowledged the forsakenness. So much is said in those words. So deep. So powerful. Our puny little minds and our dull spiritual insight can barely conceive of what Jesus bore for us.
Now return to Hebrews 5:7: he prayed with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death. Did God save him from physical death? The answer is no — he died on the cross. He was not delivered from physical death when his enemies taunted him to come down from the cross. Yet the Scripture says he was heard. How was he heard? He was heard because he was made alive in the spirit — as 1 Peter 3:18 says, he was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit. He was saved from spiritual death, from eternal damnation, by the Father who raised him. That is how he was heard for his godly fear.
Only the Father could have saved him from spiritual death — and that is exactly what the Father did. Think on this. Whenever we think again of what Jesus endured for us, do not dwell only upon the blood that flowed from his hands and his side, or the pain he endured physically — that is the smallest part of it all. When he cried out, it was because his eternal welfare was in the balance. He risked his eternal being.
When you understand that — if you can even begin to grasp it — you will begin to be able to sing with Charles Wesley: "And can it be that thou, my God, didst die for me?" Let us be quiet before God in prayer.