The Soul of Christ's Suffering

Source: Reformation Scotland

Posted at Reformation Scotland:

Crucifixion is perhaps the most violent, humiliating and painful method of execution ever devised. The very word that we use for acute pain (excruciating) comes from crucifying. Yet we must never forget that the deepest sufferings were infinitely greater than the physical pain. As someone has put it, the soul of His sufferings was the sufferings of His soul. What do we mean by His soul sufferings? Samuel Rutherford puts it succinctly: the Saviour suffered in His soul “God’s wrath, which was a very hell to Christ”. He endured the felt wrath of God instead of the felt blessing that He never before lacked. Merely physical sufferings would not have satisfied divine justice.

This is a vital point. David Dickson gives several reasons for it:

1. The curse of the fall (breaking the covenant made with Adam) was death, both of body and soul. The redeemed had to be delivered from the death of both by the Redeemer enduring both for their redemption.
2. Sin infected the whole man, soul and body. No part or power of the soul is free from it. Justice therefore required that the Redeemer should feel the force of the curse both in body and soul in place of the persons redeemed.

Death to the soul consists in its separation from communion with God and this is what Christ endured. There are deep mysteries in this, Christ never ceased to be God of course even when He forsaken of God. Christ was deprived for a time of a clear vision of the blessedness of God, the quiet possession of the formerly felt peace, and the fruition of joy for a time. Thus He suffered an eclipse of light and consolation that otherwise shined from His God-head. In this sort of spiritual death He underwent some degrees of spiritual death. David Dickson outlines various degrees of soul suffering that Christ endured. This is an updated extract from his book Therapeutica sacra: showing briefly, the method of healing the diseases of the conscience, concerning regeneration ...

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