What the Bible says about Agony of Christ
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Psalm 69:1-3 David was inspired to prophesy of more details of Jesus' agony at this separation from His Father. Note the words, "while I wait for my God." Even though their separation was only to last for a little more than three days (the actual period depending on the instant that the Father found it necessary to turn away from His beloved Son), and even though Jesus was only alive and conscious for less than a day of this time, any separation at all was almost unbearable for them both. This was certainly the prime case when, with the Lord, one day—His last human day—felt like a thousand years (II Peter 3:8), and to His Father, the three and a half days of separation felt like three and a half thousand years. It is likely that Jesus' human patience was never tried more than during these hours when He had to wait for His reunification with His Father. How wonderful it would be if we—Jesus' brothers and sisters—would have even a fraction of His desire to be with the Father constantly and to have the Father constantly with us! How profitable it would be if we would cease shutting Him out of most of our thoughts, our words, our deeds . . . our lives! David's prophetic verses picture the human Jesus as losing His footing and sinking in the filthy, putrid mud of the world's sins. We do not like to think of our perfect Lord in this low condition: weary with crying, throat dried out, eyesight failing Him. It must have taken every ounce of Jesus' strength to continue His human sojourn through to the very end. But He bore this agony, knowing that He must wait for the final acts of His human saga to play out before He could be reunited with His loving Father. Staff Jesus' Final Human Thoughts (Part Two) Related Topics: Agony of Christ | Drowning as Metaphor | Drowning Metaphor | Jesus Christ's Relationship with God the Father | Jesus Christ's Agony | Jesus Christ's Patience | Separation from God

Matthew 26:37-38 The depth of Jesus' sorrow exceeded that of any man, either before or since these final moments of His human freedom: Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which has been brought on me, which the Lord has inflicted in the day of His fierce anger. From above He has sent fire into my bones, and it overpowered them; He has spread a net for my feet and turned me back; He has made me desolate and faint all the day. (Lamentations 1:12-13) Note the words "all the day." Jesus, on this last day of His human life, would be afflicted with utter desolation and faintness. We cannot comprehend the level of incomparable sorrow and distress into which Jesus descended on His arrival at Gethsemane. Our modern ideas of depression do not even come near it. The words "even to death" in Matthew 26:38 strongly suggest that, had He sunk any lower, He would have died right then and there. But He was determined to stay alive because He knew that the time set for His death had not yet come and that, to fulfill all things, He had to bear the sins of the world for several hours more. We tend to equate agony with great bodily pain, but even though no one had physically laid a finger on Jesus at this point, His time of great agony had begun: "And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground" (Luke 22:44). But why did our Savior suddenly become so very sorrowful? What was in His mind that brought such agonizing sorrow upon Him? Was it because of the despite and rejection by every generation of mankind? Or that His closest friends were either betraying Him or forsaking Him? Was it because He feared the fast-approaching hours of physical torture? Or that He dreaded the blackness of death itself? These may have been factors, but the evidence renders it more likely that the major reasons were these: » The humanly unbearable weight and pain of the knowledge and burden of thousands of years of mankind's sins. » The horrifying fact that, as the sins of the world were being laid upon Him, He was actually becoming the sin of the world (II Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13). » The knowledge that His Father must now turn away from Him because of the sin that He—Jesus—bore and was now becoming. » The thought of the fast-approaching, total separation from His Father. On this last point, Isaiah 53:8 prophesies that Jesus would be "cut off from the land of the living." He was to be cut off from His human brothers and sisters who were imperfect, who enjoyed a temporary, physical life, but whose sins had caused His suffering and death. More importantly and painfully for Him, He was to be cut off from communication with His perfect, loving, and eternal Father: "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?' that is, 'My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?'" (Matthew 27:46) "Forsaken" comes from the Greek verb egkataleipo, indicating that Jesus, in the delirium that preceded His death, was crying out to His Father, "Why have You deserted Me? Why have You left Me behind in this place?" Staff Jesus' Final Human Thoughts (Part One) Related Topics: Agony of Christ | Cut off from God | Jesus Christ's Final Thoughts | Separation | Separation from God | Sin, Burden of | Sin, Christ becoming | Sorrow

Matthew 27:46 Could it be that this provides insight into the only thing He feared - the loss of contact and communication with His Father - and that He did not know what He would do then? We need to consider this deeply and appreciatively because this is the great gift made available to us by Christ's sacrifice. Fellowship with God, being at peace with Him, and having access to Him are admittance to the very fountain of living waters. We can safely say that, once our sins are covered by Christ's blood, access to God is the source of all spiritual strength and growth because the love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us (Romans 5:1-5). John W. Ritenbaugh The Offerings of Leviticus (Part Six): The Sin Offering Related Topics: Access to God | Agony of Christ | Christ's Sacrifice | Holy Spirit | Holy Spirit, Gift of | Jesus Christ's Agony | Jesus Christ's Crucifixion | Jesus Christ's Final Thoughts | Love of God | Relationship with God | Separation | Separation from God | Spiritual Strength | Strength, Spiritual

Matthew 27:46 Jesus quoted His own words, which He had inspired His servant David to put into writing a thousand years before this day, when He cried, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Psalm 22:1). By repeating it as He hung on the stake, He declared this prophecy to be fulfilled at that very moment; the absolute peak of the agony that He and His Father had planned and foreknew had arrived. Even in His delirium, the utterances of the Logos were solidly based upon His own Word! Staff Jesus' Final Human Thoughts (Part Two) Related Topics: Agony of Christ | Jesus Christ's Agony | Jesus Christ's Crucifixion | Jesus Christ's Final Thoughts | Logos | Prophecies of Jesus Christ | Prophetic Psalms | Psalms, Prophetic

 

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