JESUS’ DEATH HAS NEVER BEEN CONSIDERED an optional part of the story. It was the very purpose for which the Word was made flesh—that he might “suffer death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone” (Heb. 2:9). It was not an easy death. Intrinsic to the meaning of his death was his suffering for others.
Jesus absorbed the full force of human anger and drew it into the sphere of divine love. The sufferings of his whole life, particularly those of his last days, embraced the full range of human misery—physical and emotive, personal and interpersonal, inward and outward (Chrysostom, Hom. on Matt. 55; Catherine of Siena, Prayer: 170–9). In Judas’s betrayal, Peter’s denial, the Sanhedrin’s trial, the mockery of soldiers and insults by onlookers, the suffering he endured involved the full extent of human rejection, hatred, abuse, deception, and vindictiveness.
The Road to Golgotha
The Gospel narratives have been described as a Passion story with an introduction. The space Mark gives to the Passion is about three-fifths of the total, Matthew two-fifths, and Luke at least a third (Chrysostom, Hom. on Matt. 54–90; Augustine, Serm. on NT Lessons 46). John’s Gospel is divided into two approximately equal halves: the signs of God’s coming and the end of his coming (or Book of the Signs and Book of the Passion; Chrysostom, Hom. on John, Hom. 23, 24). The Passion story narrates the suffering death, passionem, pascho, of Christ (Acts 1:3).
One of the main reasons why the Gospels were written down at all was to provide some explanation of how it could possibly be that Jesus is both messianic Son and that he suffered and died. These colliding assertions created a dilemma of implausibility that required evidence and explanation (Calvin, Comm., Harmony 16:299–304; Guthrie, NTT: 21–37).
In retrospect, every event prior to Jesus’ death pointed inexorably toward his death as a date to be kept, a target to be reached, an hour that was coming (John 1:39; 2:4; 11:9; 16:4; Augustine, Tractates on John 94.1–2; John Knox, The Death of Christ). In considering whether to go to the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus remarked to his relatives: “I am not yet going up to this Feast, because for me the right time has not yet come” (John 7:6–8; Tertullian, Flesh of Christ, 7). His decision to go to Jerusalem was irreversibly laden with the prospect of death (Augustine, Tractates on John 28.5–7).
He Must Suffer
Jesus’ suffering was considered a necessary and intrinsic part of his messianic ministry. “The Son of man must suffer” and “be killed” (Mark 8:31). There was no alternative. Repeatedly Jesus had tried to draw his disciples closer to the truth of this paradox. The enigma was not just that the Messiah was coming, but that he must suffer and die (Cyril of Alex., Comm. on Luke, Hom. 50).
It is unlikely that this was a saying later attributed to Jesus by the remembering church. The hellenizing church did not characteristically use or easily find useful to their proclamation the “Son of Man” title—other titles were more easily adaptable to their purposes. There was no previous or prevailing analogy in Judaism of the merging of the Son of Man with the suffering Servant theme.
Jesus was mindful of the poignant Old Testament metaphors of vicarious atonement (Mark 10:45; 14:24; Isa. 53; Exod. 32:30–32). He was aware that these Scriptures were pointing toward him and being fulfilled in him.
Finally with the cross in view he would declare: “Father, the hour has come” (John 17:1). As he entered Jerusalem for his last tumultuous days, he stated that “it was for this very reason I came to this hour” (John 12:27; Chrysostom, Hom. on John 67.1). When Peter tried to defend him, Jesus said, “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” (John 18:11).
The Passion Story Narrates the Humbling of the Son Even to Death
Jesus’ Passion is the narrative of what he suffered on our behalf. This is distinguished from his action—what he did on our behalf.
The root of passion is suffering (pascho, “to suffer,” Latin passus, passionem). In its narrower definition, Jesus’ Passion focused intensively upon a single week of his life—his last struggle ending on a cross. The events of that week clarified his messianic identity and saving work (Lactantius, Div. Inst., FC 49:284–315; Augustine, Tractates on John 104.2).
In its broader definition, Jesus’ Passion included all the afflictions he suffered during his whole incarnate life—including his temptation, his being despised and rejected, reproached and plotted against (Matt. 12:24; John 7:1; 8:6; 9:16), and his suffering of physical pain, hunger, fatigue, and poverty (Augustine, Sermon 87.1; CG, FC 24:130–37, 160–71). That he must endure hostile opposition was symbolized from the outset in Matthew’s narrative of Herod’s massacre of innocents at Bethlehem. That he would have nowhere to lay his head was foreshadowed early by the flight of his family to Egypt (Matt. 2:13–18; Origen, Ag. Celsus 1.66; Peter Chrysologus, Sermons 150.9–11).
He suffered like others suffer, but his suffering was interpreted as differing from others’ in that through it the innocent Son bore “the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Others suffer through an ambiguous mixture of human guilt and innocence. He suffered innocently, without the slightest admixture of guilt (Origen, Comm. on John 6.204–6; Pearson, EC 1:316–32).
His Descent to Death
His entire earthly ministry was concisely summarized by Paul: he “humbled himself and became obedient unto death” (Phil. 2:8). The full extent of his humiliation was seen in his unjustified execution and innocent death. There human hatred did all the damage it could do to the Only Son of God (Leo I, Sermon 55.4; Newman, PPS 6:73–76).
The descent of the Son in his earthly ministry takes us from his birth to the travail of his life, and directly to his death and burial, and his descent into the abode of the dead. The descent into the nether world paradoxically combined his deepest abasement with his victory over sin and death. In a similar way, the incarnation had combined the glory of the divine condescension of the Son with the abasement of his lowly birth—in poverty, under the law, with no room in the inn.
Throughout his suffering he identified with sinners. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21; Eusebius, Proof of the Gospel 4.17). This is the vocation that he assumed and accepted at his baptism, the vocation that continued until he uttered, “It is finished” (John 19:30; Hilary, Trin., 10.11). The same lowliness that was to be finally manifested on the cross had been already anticipated in Jesus’ baptism, by which he chose to be “numbered with the transgressors” (Isa. 53:11).
Just before the Passover feast, knowing that his time had come and that he was soon to be betrayed, he “wrapped a towel around his waist;” “poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him” (John 13:4–5; Theophilus, Sermon on the Mystical Supper). By this means he showed his willingness to stoop and serve. He taught and enacted the way of lowly service. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet” (John 13:12–14; Augustine, Tractates on John 58.4–5).
Jesus’ Suffering Prophetically Foretold
Although his sacrificial death had been anticipated in prophecy, it required the actual event of dying before it would be adequately understood.
His triumphal entry into Zion was prophesied by Zechariah: “See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey;” who will “proclaim peace to the nations” (Zech. 9:9–10). Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was remembered as fulfilling this prophecy (Clement of Alex., Instr. 1.5.15).
Jesus predicted that “one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me” (Mark 14:18). This recollects Psalm 41:9. The “thirty pieces of silver” fulfilled Zechariah 11:12. Similarly: “They gave me vinegar for my thirst” (Ps. 69:21). “All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads” (Ps. 22:7). Isaiah had prophesied of one who would be “pierced for our transgressions,” “crushed for our iniquities” (Isa. 53:5). John explained the importance of these events for salvation history: “This happened so that the words Jesus had spoken indicating the kind of death he was going to die would be fulfilled” (John 18:32; Augustine, Tractates on John 114.5).
His Suffering Was Real, Voluntary, Innocent, and Purposeful
Four assumptions underlie Christ’s suffering: he suffered truly, voluntarily, innocently, and meaningfully by divine permission. To understand Jesus’ death, all four points must be held closely together.
His sufferings were real, not imagined. He was indeed “a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering” (Isa. 53:4). If this suffering and death had been a fantasy, there could be no satisfaction for sin. He actually suffered “a real suffering and death” (Russian Catech., COC 2:475; Council of Constantinople II, SCD 222). If he did not truly suffer, remarked Irenaeus, he has “misled us, by exhorting us to endure what He did not endure Himself” (Ag. Her., 3. 18.6, 7).
His suffering was voluntarily accepted by the Son on behalf of all humanity. “He said, ‘Here I am, I have come to do your will,’ And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb. 10:9–10; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 13.6). He was not externally compelled to be baptized with the baptism of sinners, to set his face steadfastly toward Jerusalem or go to Gethsemane, or drink the cup of suffering. Rather he received and drank that cup not because he liked to suffer—the very thought caused him to sweat profusely—but rather because it was an intrinsic part of the purpose of his mission to humanity (Chrysostom, Epis. to Heb. 18, 191; Catherine of Siena, Pray.: 17–18).
Without the premise of innocence he could not have served adequately as unblemished Lamb (Heb. 7:26; Rev. 15:1–8; Apringius of Beja, Tractate on the Apocalypse 19.6–9).
These sufferings occurred meaningfully, and by the Father’s permission. They were allowed to happen according to a hidden divine purpose and permission, not by fate, chance, or absurd accident; they have meaning in relation to the history of salvation. “This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23; Arator, On the Acts of the Apostles 1).
The Last Meal
Jesus celebrated his last meal with his disciples in intense expectation of the coming reign of God, aware that he would soon leave them. “I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God” (Mark 14:25). This meal took place near the time of the festival in which a Passover lamb was sacrificed in remembrance of the liberation of the people of Israel from Egypt (John of Damascus, OF 4.13). “Jesus gives himself, in the form of bread and wine, as one given over to death” (Bornkamm, JN: 161).
Mark 14:24 reports that Jesus said to his disciples at their last supper: “This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many.” Matthew 26:28 adds: “for the forgiveness of sins.” Paul’s version states: “‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:25–26; Cyril of Alex. Letters 17.12).
Facing Death
The events surrounding Jesus’ death were not done in a corner. They occurred under governmental authority, with the knowledge of the highest religious leaders, in a capital city, as the result of a formal trial ending in a torturous public death. These events became common knowledge in the Roman world (Scots Confession 9, BOConf 3.09; Hengel, Crucifixion: 2–21).
Powerful forces colluded in ending Jesus’ life. The priestly establishment sought Jesus’ life because he had challenged their authority. The scribes and Pharisees resisted Jesus because he opposed their rigid and pretentious interpretation of the law. The political establishment wanted tranquility, which they saw him upsetting. The Sanhedrin sought to end Jesus’ life because his popularity had made him dangerous to them and threatened their leadership roles.
John’s Gospel gives us a realistic glimpse into the cynical and hysterical political reasoning of his opponents: “Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.’” “So from that day on they plotted to take his life” (John 11:47–50, 53). Thus “Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the Jews. Instead he withdrew into a region near the desert, to a village called Ephraim” (John 11:54).
Long before his entry into Jerusalem, Jesus had recognized that there was a definite plot against his life (Matt. 12:50; 26:38; Mark 12:33; Luke 22:44). Jesus expected a sudden and violent end that would bring grief to his companions. This seems clear from his pointed reference to the messianic bridegroom, that “the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast” (Mark 2:20). Recalling Zechariah 13:7, he told his disciples at the Last Supper: “You will all fall away,’ Jesus told them, ‘for it is written: “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered”’” (Mark 14:27).
Jesus could see his death coming. “I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed!” (Luke 12:50; Tertullian, On Baptism 16; Of Bodily Patience 13). The events were concisely recounted. They moved relentlessly to an irreversible climax—from Gethsemane to trial to cross. There is profound human tension in the narrative of Gethsemane: “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour” (John 12:27–28).
The Garden Arrest
All synoptic Gospels report Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he prayed that his Father would “take this cup from me” (Mark 14:36; cf. Luke 22:42; Matt. 26:39).
“This cup” was a metaphor of punishment, of divine retribution for sin (V. Taylor, Mark: 54; Mark 14:26–42; Calvin, Inst. 2.16). Sweat poured from his face like “drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44; Bonaventure, Tree of Life, CWS: 141–42). Matthew reported Jesus’ poignant words at Gethsemane, reaching out for human companionship: “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me” (Matt. 26:38; Newman, Mix.: 324–40). Yet he was in effect deserted by his disciples who were overcome with sleep.
He was betrayed and gave himself up voluntarily (Gregory Nazianzus, On the Theophany). He “did not defend himself, but stood to submit to judgment” (Calvin, Inst. 2.16.5; Matt. 27:12–14). He was surrounded by soldiers and bound with chains. When the betrayer came with “men of blood” (Ps. 54:24) “by night with torches, lanterns and weapons to seek his life,” he “offered himself to them;” healing instantly the ear of the servant cut off by his disciple, “and he restrained the zeal of his defender who wanted to injure the attackers” (Bonaventure, Tree of Life, CWS: 142–43).
His Public Condemnation Under Pontius Pilate
Why do the creeds insist as an article of faith that he was tried under Pontius Pilate (“sub Pontio Pilato” Creed of 150 Fathers)? This locates the salvation event as a datable event of history. Christianity, like Judaism, is a historical religion. The redemption of the world is an event located in ordinary human history (Russian Catech.), specifically “under Pontius Pilate,” pointing to the historical concreteness of this event attested by eyewitnesses (Apostles’ Creed, SCD 2; Council of Constantinople 2, SCD 222; SCD 20, 86, 255). Christian salvation teaching differs radically from pagan deliverance myths in that its salvation event is the only one with a historical date (Mark 15:1–15; Ursinus, CHC: 217–19).
Nisan was the first month of the ancient Jewish year when the festival of Passover was celebrated. It was on the fourteenth day of Nisan that “Christ our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7; John 18:28), that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried” (1 Cor. 15:3). Jesus died as “lamb of God” (John 1:29, 36) on the day when the Passover lambs were sacrificed (Chrysostom, Hom. on John 83.3). As the birth of the Savior was an actual event that occurred on a particular day in history (Clement of Alex., Stromata 1.21) so was his death (Origen, Ag. Celsus) datable with reasonable accuracy (Eusebius, CH 1.9–2.7).
It is an act of confession that this event occurred “under Pontius Pilate.” The reason why is stated in the Reformed Confessions: “That we may know his death to be connected with his condemnation…. He died so that the penalty owed by us might be discharged, and he might exempt us from it. But since we all, because we are sinners, were offensive to the judgment of God, in order to stand in our stead, he desired to be arraigned before an earthly judge, and to be condemned by his mouth, so that we might be acquitted before the heavenly tribunal of God.” (Scots Confession 9, BOConf. 3.09; Calvin, Inst. 2.16). It was crucial that his death be public, not natural, and innocent at the hands of others (Athanasius, Incarn. of the Word 21–25).
It was Pilate who held civil jurisdiction over the execution of Jesus as a seditious zealot, yielding to pressure from the Sanhedrin, even if he may have thought that Jesus was innocent. Ironically, Pilate both bore “testimony to his innocence” and at the same time formally condemned him. Both acts were “by the same judge to make it plain that he suffered as our surety the judgment which we deserved” (Calvin, Catech. of the Church of Geneva, LCC 22:98; Inst. 2.16.5). To be “acquitted by the same lips that condemned him” (Calvin, Inst. 2.16.5; Matt. 27:23; John 18:38) brings to mind the vicarious metaphor of the Psalms that the servant of God repaid what he did not steal (Ps. 69:4; Tertullian, An Answer to the Jews 10).
In John’s account, when Pilate quipped, “You are a king,” Jesus answered: “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world,” and for the same reason he was crucified: “to testify to the truth” (John 18:37; Augustine, Tractates on John, 115.4)
Although the official charge was sedition, the central event of the trial was “Jesus’ own confession before the high priest that he is the Messiah, a confession made openly for the first time” (Bornkamm, JN: 163). Jesus was condemned on the charge of blasphemy by the Sanhedrin for his claim to be the heavenly Son of Man and for his offending statement that those who now were judging him would soon be subject to judgment from the Son of Man (Mark 14:62). Athanasius employed the simile of the adroit wrestler to show his readiness to meet the challenges in whatever form they come.
Jesus was clothed in a mocking robe of purple (John 19:1–4) and ridiculed as King of the Jews while being struck and spat upon. Victims were routinely tortured by whipping. It is likely that Jesus’ blood flowed freely from this scourging, hence he became too weak to carry his cross all the way to Golgotha (cf. Isa. 53:7). “As they led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus” (Luke 23:26). Simon, from Cyrenaica in North Africa (Libya), a passerby, likely a Passover pilgrim (his sons Alexander and Rufus may have been known to Mark and Paul, Mark 15:21; Rom. 16:13), was “compelled to carry his cross” (Matt. 27:32; Cyril of Alex., Fragment 306).
Why Crucifixion?
Jesus did not choose his manner of death. The death that was chosen by others was intended to disgrace him maximally, yet it preserved his body undivided and proved the ultimate trophy in the struggle against the power of death (Deut. 21:22–23; Athanasius, Incarn. of the Word 21–24).
Early Christian art has portrayed every misery of body and soul being encompassed: his wrists bound in chains; his face spat upon; the flesh of his back lashed and left bleeding from a Roman whip; his heart exhausted; his torso wrenched by the cross; his eyes beholding the grief of his mother; hearing the hateful rejection of the crowd that earlier had adored him. On his head was placed a crown of thorns (Catherine of Genoa, Spiritual Dialogue, CWS: 108).
He was put to death by a most horrible means (Gal. 3:13; Athanasius, Incarn. of the Word 24–25; Chrysostom, Hom. on Gal. 3.13). His whole body, “already a mass of wounds,” was “stretched and tortured on the cross” (Quenstedt, TDP: 66; Jacobs, SCF: 148; Prudentius, Poems 2: FC 2); his limbs almost torn apart by his own weight; his hands and feet nailed to wood; his lungs gasping for air. His side was gashed with a spear. One of the most excruciating forms of suffering in crucifixion was extreme thirst. When Jesus, parched with thirst, craved for relief, he was offered only strongly spiced wine mixed with gall which he refused (Matt. 27:34; Chromatius, Tractate on Matt. 19.1–7), as he was willing to be fully conscious until his death.
Death by crucifixion usually took two days. Its length and horror were precisely what commended it as a public political punishment. In Jesus’ case it was a matter of hours. The cause of death was blood loss, shock, exposure, and dehydration. Legs were sometimes broken with hammers to induce death if the process took too long—Jesus died before this was required. He suffered “the most extreme form of death in order that His martyrs would fear no kind of death” (Augustine, The Creed 3.9; EDQ 25).
There is in the Gospel narratives no sentimental idealization of the cross, as later developed. Their focus was upon its saving significance and worth (Ambrosiaster, Epis. to Gal. 3.13.1–2). Paul wrote defiantly: “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14). Luther stressed the personal importance of the cross for believers: “I believe that He bore His cross and passion for my sins and the sin of all believers and thereby has consecrated all sufferings and every cross and made them not only harmless, but salutary and highly meritorious” (Brief Explanation, WML 2:370).
He Took Our Curse upon Himself
“Is there something more in his being crucified than if he had died some other death?” asks the Heidelberg Catechism. Answer: “Yes, for by this I am assured that he took on himself the curse which lay upon me, because the death of the cross was cursed of God” (Q. 39). “He hung upon the tree to take our curse upon himself; and by this we are absolved from it” (Calvin, Catech. of the Church of Geneva; Gal. 3:10). Hanging on a tree was purposefully intended to expose the corpse to ultimate disgrace (Deut. 21:22–23).
“A form of death had to be chosen in which he might free us both by transferring our condemnation to himself and by taking our guilt upon himself. If he had been murdered by thieves or slain in an insurrection by a raging mob, in such a death there would have been no evidence of satisfaction,” but by his arraignment as a criminal we know that as one innocent he voluntarily “took the role of a guilty man” (Calvin, Inst. 2.16.5).
That he hung between thieves fulfilled the prophecy that “he was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isa. 53:12; Mark 15:28; Calvin, Comm. 8: 130). Even on the cross he continued his ministry of pardon and reconciliation (Gregory of Nazianzus, On Holy Easter, Orat. 45.24).
The Cross
The sign on the cross read: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (John 19:19). The religious authorities protested, but Pilate insisted. Pilate’s inscription was viewed by the church as an ironic declaration of Jesus’ true identity (Origen, Comm. on Matt.130).
“These three languages were conspicuous in that place beyond all others: the Hebrew because of the Jews who gloried in the law of God; the Greek, because of the wise people among the Gentiles; and the Latin, because of the Romans who at that very time were exercising sovereign power of many, in fact, over almost all countries” (Augustine, Tractates on John 117.4)
The classic exegetes stood amazed at the ironic depths of the layers of the narrative (Leo I, Sermon 55.1). Those who most radically symbolized the sin of the world through their very act of absurd rejection played bit parts in the story of the salvation of humanity.
The very rabble who were rejecting his testimony were at the same time paradoxically offering up the victim who would redeem. While they cried “Crucify,” he prayed “Forgive” (Augustine, Sermon 382.2). He who knew what was in the human heart prayed for his persecutors: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34; Pope, Compend. 2:162).
Christianity transformed the symbolic significance of crucifixion. Until the day of Jesus’ death, it had been a demeaning symbol of political repression. Its distinctive shape—“the four arms converge in the middle”—became a symbol of “the one who binds all things to himself and makes them one,” wrote Gregory of Nyssa. “Through him the things above are united with those below, and the things at one extremity with those at the other. In consequence it was right that we should not be brought to a knowledge of the Godhead by hearing alone; but that sight too should be our teacher” (ARI 32). The cross teaches those “rooted and established in love” “to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (Eph. 3:18). “Make this sign as you eat and drink, when you sit down, when you go to bed, when you get up again, while you are talking, while you are walking; in brief, at your every undertaking” (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 4.14).
“He came Himself to bear the curse laid upon us. How else could He have ‘become a curse,’ unless He received the death set for a curse? and that is the Cross,” Athanasius reasoned. “It is only on the cross that a man dies with his hands spread out” to encompass humanity (Athanasius, Incarn. of the Word 24)!
His Cry on the Cross
The pathos of his human suffering was poignantly expressed in his cry: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34; Matt. 27:46, quoting Ps. 22:1). He did not cease quoting Scripture even on the cross (Jerome, Comm. on Matt. 4.27.46). “At the height of his agony he did not cease to call God his God” (Wollebius, CTC 18). He did this “that they might see that to his last breath he honors God as his Father,” said Chrysostom. It is less a cry of abandonment or despair than of “bearing witness to the sacred text” (Chrysostom, Hom. on Matt. Hom. 88.1).
This memorable phrase was committed to memory by the Evangelists in its original Aramaic, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” They were speaking to gentile audiences. This is a clear indication that it belonged to the earliest tradition and had been often repeated in the earliest Christian preaching—otherwise it would not have been remembered by Greek speakers in Aramaic terms.
The paradox is that the dying by which he totally identified with sinful humanity left him totally isolated from those with whom he was identified. It was a lonely death, with jeers from the soldiers, rejection from the crowd, the priestly caste pretending righteousness, and the political order washing its hands. Even one of the criminals hanging near him “railed at him” (Luke 23:39). On the cross he was “forsaken” as if being the remnant of Israel. His mother was nearby, feeling his forsakenness. But was he forsaken by his heavenly Father, as the verse seems to imply? “For it was the height of his abandonment when they crucified him,” wrote Origen, yet “you will be able to understand the saying…when you compare the glory Christ had in the presence of the Father with the contempt he sustained on the cross, for his throne was ‘like the sun in the presence of God’” (Commentary on Matt. 135, quoting Ps.89:36–37).
His Sonship Uninterrupted Through Struggle and Temptation: My God
His apparent abandonment was essential to his learning of obedience. Maximos the Confessor wrote that it is only when God apparently abandons us that he saves us, as in Jesus’ death and in the testing of Job and Joseph. Abandonment “made Job a pillar of courage and Joseph a pillar of self-restraint” (Four Hundred Texts on Love, Philokal. 2:112).
But his cry from the cross did not imply a literal or ultimate abandonment of the Son by the Father. It is not “as if, when Jesus was fixed upon the wood of the cross, the Omnipotence of the Father’s Deity had gone away from Him; seeing that God’s and Man’s Nature were so completely joined in Him that the union could not be destroyed by punishment nor by death” (Leo I, Serm. 68.1). “It was not he who was forsaken either by the Father or by his own Godhead,” wrote Gregory Nazianzus. “But, as I said, he was in his own person representing us. For we were the forsaken and despised before” but now by his representative act saved (Orat. 30.5).
His cry on the cross did not come from “a despair contrary to faith.” Rather it shows that “this Mediator has experienced our weaknesses the better to comfort us in our miseries” (Calvin, Inst. 2.16.11–12).
The Psalm quoted (22:1) is a messianic reference. It helped the readers of Matthew and Mark—who were well acquainted with the messianic aspect of the Psalms—make the crucial connection: Jesus is the Expected One of Israel. The same Psalm 22 also includes reference to the messianic Son’s hands and feet being pierced: “They have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing” (Ps. 22:16–18).
In hearing his cry on the cross, no believer is in a position to object that his own hour of darkness is darker than the dark hour of God the incarnate Son. In whatever anguish, however vile, the believer thus can recall that he is crying out in companionship with One who also experienced utter human abandonment and who continued nonetheless to pray to the heavenly Father.
These are words of suffering and struggle, but “not the words of a desperate spirit; so also the voice of faith rings at the same time in this utterance, while he called God his God and perseveres in prayer” (Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 1. 8.1). The evidence for this is that even at the height of his agonies he did not cease to call the Father “my God.” His suffering was mitigated by his uninterupted sonship to the Father, affirming even then “my God” (Wollebius, CTC 18; Calvin, Inst. 2.16.12).
A Real Death—Without Death He is Not Fully Human
Jesus died in six hours. The spear in his side was a test to see if he was dead. The water mingling with Jesus’ blood was a “Sign to all attesting eyes, of the finished sacrifice” (Venantius Fortunatus, paraphrased by Richard Mant, HPEC: 131; on the miracle of blood and water from his side, see J.H. Newman, Mir.: 356–58).
His death, like the death of any human being, required and involved the dissolution of the natural union between his soul and body. It did not, however, imply the dissolution of the union between the divine nature and the human nature that were united in him (Tho. Aq., ST 3 Q50–51). “Thou, of life the Author, death didst undergo” (Venantius Fortunatus, HPEC: 156; SCD 16; see also SCD 3–42, 286, 344, 422).
Early critics of Christianity complained that Christ “ought never to have experienced death.” Gregory of Nyssa ingeniously observed a deeper logic of divine empathy, that “the birth makes the death necessary. He who had once decided to share our humanity had to experience all that belongs to our nature, how human life is encompassed within two limits, and if he had passed through one and not touched the other, he would only have half fulfilled his purpose, having failed to reach the other limit proper to our nature” (ARI 32).
Death as Victory
His death is portrayed in the Gospels as a struggle with the demonic powers, not simply with physical suffering or social rejection. Hence his death, as wretched as it was, was at the same time grasped as an incomparable victory, not simply over suffering, but through suffering over evil (Doc. Vat. II: 15–17). By means of his death the ruler of this world was being “driven out” (John 12:31) and “now stands condemned” (John 16:11).
Isaac Watts wrote in 1707 the words now sung by Christians around the world:
When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the cross of Christ, my God:
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to his blood.
See, from his head, his hands, his feet
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet?
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all
(HPEC: 136–37)
“It Is Finished”
His life had come to an end, but more so, the purpose and mission for which he had come had been completed and the prophetic expectations looking toward him had been fulfilled and accomplished (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 13.32; Ursinus, CHC: 220–22). “By the departing word “It is finished,” Christ indicates that all scripture is fulfilled. He says in effect: World and devil have done as much to Me as they were able to do, and I have suffered as much as was necessary for the salvation of men.” So “no one need argue that something still remains to be fulfilled” (Luther, Serm. on John 19:30).
His saving work was complete. The ransom for sin had been paid. The penalty for sin had been endured. The full fury of human hostility toward God had been spent. The divine-human conflict was at end. Redemption was sufficiently and perfectly accomplished (Augustine, Tractates on John 119).
No testimony to the finished work of Christ surpasses that of Gregory the Theologian: “Many indeed are the miracles of that time: God crucified; the sun darkened and again rekindled…the veil rent; the Blood and Water shed from His Side; the one as from a man, the other as above man; the rocks rent for the Rock’s sake; the dead raised for a pledge of the final Resurrection of all men; the Signs at the Sepulchre and after the Sepulchre, which none can worthily celebrate; and yet none of these equal to the Miracle of my salvation. A few drops of Blood recreate the whole world, and become to all men what churning (rennet) is to milk, drawing us together and compressing us into unity” (Gregory Nazianzus, Orat. 45.29; from the Greek rinnen, to run, to flow).
Darkness spread over the country at the hour of his death. “When the sun saw its master being dishonored, it shuddered and ceased to shine” (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 4.10). The curtain of the Temple that veils the Holy of Holies was torn asunder (Mark 15:38).
Steps away from the very place where Jesus died, the bishop Cyril of Jerusalem taught his catechumens in 351 AD: “This Golgotha, sacred above all such places, bears witness by its very look. The most holy Sepulchre bears witness, and the stone that lies there to this day. The sun now shining bears witness, that failed during the hour of his saving passion. (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 10.19).
The Letter to Hebrews compared his death to a sacrificial offering: “But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Heb. 10:12–13; Theodoret, Interp. of Heb. 10; SCD 938).
Over a millennium passed before Luther’s echo would be heard: “The Person is eternal and infinite, and even one little drop of His blood would have been enough to save the entire world” (Luther, Comm. on Isa. 53:5).
The Faithful Are Willing to be Buried With Him in His Death
It is not a minor point that the baptismal confession insists that Christ was buried (sepultus est; Gk. taphenta, Creed of 150 Fathers; Ancient Western Form of the Apostolic Creed, SCD 2–4).
The Heidelberg Catechism asks: “Why was he ‘buried’?” and answers plainly: “To confirm the fact that he was really dead” (Q 41).
The ancient Christian writers held to this precise distinction: the Lord’s body experienced genuine death and destruction (phthora) in the sense of death as separation of soul from body, but not corruption (diaphthora) in the lengthy or extensive decaying sense of the “dissolution of the body and its reduction to the elements of which it was composed” (John of Damascus, OF 3.28). This was required in order to fulfill prophecy.
It was fitting that Christ was buried in order that he might undergo full solidarity with the finite human condition, and offer us the hope of one day rising through and with him (Tho. Aq., ST 3 Q51; Pearson, EC 1:372–74). “He was buried that he might witness that our sins were buried” (Wollebius, CTC 18)! “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:3–4; Augustine, Tractates on John, 65.1).
Baptism means just this: dead to sin, buried with Christ, and raised with him to new life. “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin” (Rom. 6:4–7).
Did God Suffer and Die? The Question of the Death of God
Even in early centuries the foes of Christianity were saying: “If God cannot die and Christ is said to have died, Christ cannot be God because God cannot be understood to have died.” Novatian answered that “what is God in Christ did not die, but what is Man in Him did die” (Trin. 25). It was the incarnate Son and not the Father who suffered death upon the cross and became a true sacrifice (Clement of Rome, SCD 42; Council of Ephesus, SCD 122).
Leo explained: “As was fitting to heal our wounds, one and the same ‘mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus’ could die in one nature and not in the other. The true God, therefore, was born with the complete and perfect nature of a true man; he is complete in his nature and complete in ours” (Letter to Flavian, quoting 1 Tim. 2:5).
“For he still pleads even now as man for my salvation. He continues to wear the body which he assumed, until he makes me divine by the power of his incarnation; although he is no longer known after the flesh—the same as ours, except for sin” (Gregory of Nazianzus, Theol. Orat. 4.30.14).
The Son “died according to the assumption of our nature, and did not die according to the substance of eternal life…. He himself, by a kind of new operation, though dead, opened the tombs of the dead, and indeed his body lay in the tomb, yet He himself was free among the dead” (Ambrose, Incarn. of Our Lord 5.37).
It was only on the basis of the triune premise that classic Christian exegetes could find a sound approach consistent with the rest of Scripture’s witness: “Christ, while being two natures, suffered in His passible nature and in it was crucified, for it was in the flesh that He hung on the cross, and not in the divinity. Should they say, while inquiring of us: Did two natures die? We shall reply: No, indeed. Therefore, two natures were not crucified either, but the Christ was begotten, that is to say, the Divine Word was incarnate and begotten in the flesh, and He was crucified in the flesh, suffered in the flesh, and died in the flesh, while His divinity remained unaffected” (John of Damascus, OF 4.8).
Thus Luther was unwilling to disallow entirely the cautious use of the phrase “the death of God”—rightly understood in this sense: “For God in His own nature cannot die; but now, since God and man are united in one Person, the death of the man with whom God is one Thing or Person is justly called the death of God” (Luther, On the Councils and Churches, WLS 1:198; cf. WML 5:223). “For though suffering, dying, rising are attributes of the human nature alone, yet since Christ is the Son both of God and of Mary in one indivisible Person with two distinct natures, we correctly say of the entire Person: God is crucified for us, God shed His blood for us; God died for us and rose from the dead, not God apart from manhood but the God who has united Himself into one Person with human nature” (Luther, Serm. on Col. 1:18–20; Ursinus, CHC: 214–16).
Cross as Curse, Altar as Reversal
The wood of the tree became a rich metaphor encompassing both cross and altar: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Pet. 2:24).
The reversal is startling: the wood of the cross became the wood of the altar. Note the terrible irony: the cross was to this incomparable high priest his very altar. On this wood he was slain, and from it he was raised again (Heb. 11:19; Augustine, CG 16.32; Pope, Compend. 2:162). Hence “we have an altar” distinguishable from that of the Levitical priesthood (Heb. 13:10). “The cross was the altar on which He, consumed by the fire of the boundless love which burned in His heart, presented the living and holy sacrifice of His body and blood to the Father” (Luther, Eight Serm. on Psalm 110).
The cross is at the same time a curse suffered by Jesus and a redemption from the curse we experience when we try to save ourselves under the ever-extending demands of the law. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree’” (Gal. 3:13, quoting Deut. 21:23; cf. Rom. 8:3–4). Paul’s unusual way of putting this anomaly is: He who knew no sin was “made sin that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21; Ambrose, Sacrament of the Incarnation 6.60). “Hence faith apprehends an acquittal in the condemnation of Christ, a blessing in his curse” whose “blood served, not only as a satisfaction, but also as a laver to wash away our corruption” (Calvin, Inst., 2.16.6).
Hence we “fix our eyes on Jesus” who “for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). He took away the curse of the law, “nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Col. 2:14–15; Chrysostom, Baptismal Instructions 3.21).