“So also, Christ…was appointed by Him (God His Father) who said to Him, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”; as He says also in another place, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.” In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud CRIES AND TEARS, to Him (God His Father) who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of HIS REVERENCE (hupakoē: to observe or conform to an authority) Although He was a son, HE LEARNED OBEDIENCE through WHAT HE SUFFERED. And BEING MADE PERFECT, He became the source of eternal salvation TO ALL who obey Him…” (Hebrews 5:5-9)
Jesus came to earth as a man, He suffered as a man would suffer, He felt the excruciating (intensely or unbearably) pain as a man would feel pain! He did not stop being very God, but His suffering had to be real so He took it on as any man would
The Suffering of Christ
We’ll start in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before His crucifixion. Underneath a black sky, Jesus prepared for His WORST NIGHTMARE—feeling the wrath of God for the first time in all eternity. Again and again, He BEGGED GOD for another way. In a sense, He was asking the Father to find a clause in the atonement contract because He knew the horrible pain and suffering He would endure. “…being in anguish, He prayed MORE FERVENTLY, and His sweat was like DROPS OF BLOOD, falling to the ground.” (Luke 22:44)
How is this even possible? How can a human sweat blood? He bled, because of a rare physiological phenomenon that can happen when someone is in SO MUCH STRESS and ANGUISH their capillaries burst and they literally SWEAT BLOOD. It’s called HEMATIDROSIS. Jesus was about to be crushed on the cross, where the life-giving blood of the Lamb of God would flow from His hands, feet, and side. We see a foreshadowing of this in the blood He sweated out from His pores in the Garden of Gethsemane. After three hours of sweating blood in prayer—as He repeatedly asked God to remove the cup of unfathomable suffering He was about to drink—He also repeatedly declared to the Father: “Yet not my will, but YOUR WILL be done.” (Luke 22:42)
This all occurred because, “God SO LOVED the world that HE GAVE His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have ETERNAL LIFE. For God did not send His Son into the world TO CONDEMN the world, but TO SAVE THE WORLD through Him.” (John 3:16-17) We just need to pray “Father forgive me, I give my life to you…”
Your Personal Pastor -Bill Stockham