Did Jesus suffer more than others physically?
People say that Jesus suffered the most of all the people for us, and that he did it for us and how honorable and amazing that is. They talk about it during communion; they talk about it to tell a sinner to show what Jesus did for them. They say that Jesus was treated unfairly by the people he loved, and he still forgave them. They make it sound like it’s a heroic thing that he did. To tell you the truth, for many years, it was hard for me to accept that.
I am saying this with the outmost respect for God, for Jesus, for what he did for us.
But I just want to show you my thinking before, and some of you may think this way as well, and by that, we degrade what Jesus did for us. I recently received a very strong revelation about what Jesus actually did on the cross and I want to share this with you guys.
What bothered me about when people say that Jesus suffered the most is that Jesus suffered for basically for two days. He was tortured the night before the crucifixion, people spat at him, beat him, they put the crown of thorns on him, it seems this happened through the night, and then in the morning, he walked up the Golgotha, and then he was crucified. By the evening, he died.
It was torture, all of this, I don’t deny it, but there are people that they were tortured for weeks and months, people like spies and Cossacks and ideologists. Some were tortured for literally years.
What about hunger? You know, it takes months to die of hunger, and some people actually live in hunger for years. You’ve seen, pictures of children in Africa and in other countries. What about cancer? The physical aspect was never really satisfactory to me.
And again, I’m not trying to be disrespectful. I’m just painting a picture of what I thought and what some people may think.
Inner Healing – role play to forgive.
Recently, I was at a conference. It’s an inner healing conference and is called “One Spirit Conference”. Inner healing ministry is basically working through unforgiveness, pain, hurt, offence, abuse and other things in your past, and then forgiving, renouncing soul ties, and casting our demons.
One of the speakers said that some people suffer with unforgiveness and cannot forgive because the person that they should forgive never asked for forgiveness. And that’s a very valid thing. And that person that cause them pain could have died already, or just never bothered, there may be many reasons for this.
And to help the person that’s trying to forgive and overcome this, there is this approach. And it’s one of many approaches, I’m sure. The two people sit across each other, the person that needs to forgive and the person that’s helping. And the person that’s helping just says, imagine that I am the father that raped you when you were a child. And he tells this girl to tell him what she would tell her father.
And she started telling him how she felt and all that he did and all this pain that she had to carry in herself and all that. And then he asks her for forgiveness, from the name of the father.
And then the speaker said that he could feel the shame, the grossness, the nastiness of what that this father did to his child, to his daughter. Imagine such a father coming to Christ later. Imagine the thoughts, the horror, the pressure, the shame. And the speaker said that he would feel what the father was feeling.
And it hit me.
Jesus felt this!
What happens when killers, prostitutes, rapists, thieves, witches, repent and come to Jesus Christ?
I’ve heard a story of a man, who fought in the Afghanistan war, in the Special Forces. An example of somebody trying to clean up their life, to get healing their soul.
He told a story about how he went to the army, was thrown into these Elite Special Forces, and just had to go and kill people. As a side note, what he learned later is that there was somebody on his team that would kill him if he doesn’t kill whoever was on the list. Crazy how that works. Eventually he became so callous, so bitter, so angry, that he started to enjoy killing people.
Then, some years later, this former killer repented, came to Jesus Christ, but he was still carrying all this rage, bitterness, pain, regret. Just imagine the shame of enjoying killing a person! I cannot.
What about what about all kinds of other perverse things? Child molesters, pedophiles?
What about a girl that suffered rejection since first memories, and then became a lesbian? And later repented and came to Jesus.
What about a single mom? She didn’t know better, and she turned to prostitution to support her family.
All these things sound so weird, so strange, and scary. and nasty, dirty, disturbing. To a good Christian ear… But imagine the feelings of such people. The shame, the nightmares!
Imagine a child and her mother or her grandmother was the village witch. And she inherited all the books and all the knowledge and all the curses and all the demonic powers that come with it.
Then this girl grew up and became the village’s witch. People would come to her for healing. (We know it’s not real healing, it’s all demonic and brings more harm than good). But imagine she has been a witch for 60 years, and then she repented and came to Christ at one of those crusades. We hear such stories. An
How does she reconcile the shame of what she did to people for decades, the amount of delusion and deception on innocent people. The curses, the death.
How do such people get emotional healing, how can they live with what they had done?
These people, they would never have any forgiveness, relief, freedom from their past if it wasn’t for what Christ did on the cross.
And the Bible says that he, Jesus Chris, carried it all! So we don’t have to.
All of the shame, all of the destructive and disturbing past — Jesus just took it all on himself.
Jesus carried it all!
Jesus was in Gethsemane, and he knew that this is what’s coming. He knew that all that sin is coming on him.
The Bible says:
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21
Jesus became sin for us!
Just imagine that. And it’s not one lifetime of sin, not just one lifetime of torture, one lifetime of crazy shame. That’s already so hard to bear.
Jesus took billions of these lifetimes on himself.
So yes, it’s not so much about the physical suffering. It’s not about the beatings and all that, about being crucified, hanging on the cross. It was difficult, I understand, but there is much more to it.
The worst thing for Jesus was this. At the apex of pain and desperation, Jesus yells out:
“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46b
In all of this, God the Father left Jesus because he became sin for us. That is the worst part!
Then, as I understand it, Jesus dies and goes to hell (1 Peter 3:18-20, Ephesians 4:8-10, Acts 2:27).
Jesus is dragged into hell and then is lifted to Heaven.
I remember this one man, A. L. Gill, was telling this how he imagined it, when I was translating a series of his teaching for ISOM School in Los Angeles, CA.
Jesus dies, Satan is happy, demons are all rejoicing, they’re all celebrating, because they conquered the Son of God, and he died. Then they drag him into hell. They drag him into the pit. And Jesus falls and falls and falls in to the abyss, and then he hits the bottom of it.
Demons are still celebrating, they’re all happy (happy in their satanic way).
And then Father God just reaches in to hell with his mighty hand (however it works), to every demon’s surprise and to the devil’s horror, God pulls Jesus out of hell: pure, blameless, holy, and Jesus just leaves all of our sins, all of our sorrow, all of our shame, guilt, condemnation, there in hell, and none of that has any power over us anymore!
And then Jesus gets seated on the right hand of God!
Because of what happened then, 2000ish years ago, we have this freedom. Jesus buried all our dirt and shame in hell.
Our sinful nature is torn off us like dirty clothes.
Colossians 2:11 says, In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands..
We know what circumcision is, right? But here its not talking about that kind of circumcision. The circumcision we know was just a sign for Israelites that they are part of the chosen nation. Here apostle Paul is talking about a different circumcision.
..by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ (one Russian translation says that Jesus tore off the dirty clothes of sin off us)
That’s what Jesus did. He tore the dirty clothes of sin off us, which includes all the shame, regret, guilt, and so on.
Colossians 2:12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
By his death, by what he did on the cross, he “circumcised” us by taking our old sinful and guilty flesh, and then we basically die in Jesus with Jesus, and then we are raised to this new life.
If you read apostle Paul’s letter to Romans, he explains this in much detail, us dying to sin in Christ, and the rest. I won’t go into detail in this podcast.
Old Testament relief from shame and condemnation.
People in Old Testament would get relief from the shame by bringing a lamb to the temple. But they were they weren’t bringing a lamb every three hours or every day. They were doing it a few times a year. And once for the whole Israel.
Imagine, in September, you sin. In September, you did something bad, and now you have to wait till December or until May. Until the next trip to the temple. Until the next sacrifice. That is hard.
Jesus made it so that we can just be forgiven and free, instantly.
Just genuinely repent and transfer the weight of the sin to Jesus. That’s it.
Jesus suffered physically because he needed to die.
So we value Jesus’ physical suffering. But I mentioned in the beginning that I think some people, possibly, suffered more than Jesus did physically. I’m not going to argue that part. That’s what I thought. Logically, it makes sense that that some people suffered more.
But it doesn’t matter now. That’s not the main thing Jesus did.
Physically Jesus needed to die, you know? And when Devil grabs hold of somebody that needs to die, this is how he does it. He doesn’t make it, you know?
The person doesn’t just fall asleep in peace and that’s it. That’s God’s way of transferring us to heaven. When somebody goes to sleep and peacefully passes on to heaven. When Satan does it, he does everything he can imagine, using the opportunity to make it as hard as he can.
But again, physical suffering was not the most important thing that Jesus did. The most important thing that Jesus did is he took all of everybody’s sin and shame and horror and all the guilt, and it all just landed on Jesus.
He became sin for us so we could be free.
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness..
We all know John 3:16, but the two verses before, John 3:14-15, And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,..
If you remember, Israelites were punished by venomous snakes in the wilderness for speaking against God and Moses (Numbers 21:4-9). And as a relief Moses put up a post and hung a statue of snake on it, a bronze serpent. Whoever looked at that snake, wouldn’t die, would be healed, the venom didn’t have any effect on him. That is what John is refering to here.
Let’s finish reading:
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:14-15
So now we just look at him. That’s what “beholding” Jesus is. You just look up: this is Jesus, this is what he did. And that is our salvation. Its faith. We believe that that’s what he did. That is where our new nature comes from, our forgiveness, our peace, our renewal of mind and soul.
The transfer of shame and guilt.
To summarize, what Jesus went through on the cross is not just about pain and physical shame (shame, because scholars say he was crucified naked), but its about the weight of billions of people’s sin and the shame and disgust, which people don’t have to carry anymore. Jesus took it all.
Today you and I can say, God, I carry something bad in my soul. It could be something little. It could be that you stole a toy from your little brother when you were eight, but you feel the shame and regret even now, being 45 years old. It could be something big, like deceiving thousands of people by some financial pyramid scheme and robbing them of their hard-earned dollars. Whatever it is, it weighs on our souls.
But now you know you’re a Christian, you know you follow Jesus, you did repent. So you don’t have to feel the weight of that sin, deliberate or not, because you can ask God to forgive you, you can ask people to forgive you, and if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
That’s all we have to do, because of what Jesus did, because he took it all to hell and buried it there.
And it’s not just the little things, it’s everything, even the biggest stuff.
Story of a bishop’s daughter, her journey away and back.
I’ve heard a story of a lady, a bishop’s daughter. At first, she was a good Christian. She sang in their worship group and all twelve children were serving in church and all that. But then, I don’t remember exactly all the details, but then for some reason she started drifting away and one day she came to church dressed very provocatively, very showy, all that. And her dad told her that if you come dressed like this, you’re not my daughter. This was in front of other pastors and leaders of their church.
His shame for doing that was taken away by Jesus. And her shame was taken by Jesus.
I started crying and couldn’t hold back, because Jesus revealed an aspect of himself to me.
I just truly realized what Jesus did for the first time in my life, even though I’m a Christian for 40 something years. Its just, when Jesus touches you, when Jesus changes your life, when Jesus just shows you one more aspect of something that he did, it just beautiful.
I want to read one more verse. John 14:21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
This verse has been a pillar of my life for a long time. I’ve been asking Jesus, reveal yourself to me.
The verse says those who accept or have (depending on translation) my commandments and obey or keep them, are the ones who love me.
When I read the Bible, any time I see a commandment, anytime I see that Jesus says to do something, I would underline that, and I would say, okay, Jesus, I have the commandments, and I keep and obey them. I would do this because I wanted Jesus to reveal himself to me, which would be proof that God the Father and Jesus love me and that Jesus sees that I keep his commandments. You see what I mean?
So the fact that Jesus revealed himself to me, proves to me that I know the commandments, that I keep them, that my father God loves me, and that Jesus loves me.
Do you see why it was so important for me to know that Jesus reveals himself to me?
No way did I plan to cry on this podcast but I’m not going to cut any of this because I want you to see how beautiful it all is. That Jesus loves us, that Father God loves us, and that Jesus reveals himself to us little by little.
The fact that you are listening to this video shows that Jesus is revealing himself to you as well, little by little. So may God bless you.
Prayer, but not the final one for this episode.
I want to pray with you.
God, you see the people who are watching this video or reading this transcription. You carried their shame. You carried their loss. You carried their pain, their offense, the horrific things they did, or the little things they did. You carried it all. Jesus carried it all, so we can just give it to him, we can can say, I’m sorry Jesus. I look to you.
You hung on the cross so I could be saved, so I could be saved from the Kingdom of Darkness and be moved to Kingdom of Light, and also so I could be saved from the pain, from hurt, from offence, so I could just live free.
What does life in freedom look like?
And why do we want to live free? Because we can work at our jobs and be happy. We can love our wife or husband. We can love our children. We can enjoy people’s company. We can love people. We can experience love on many levels, love people, love food, love a dog, and just be happy as we live this life. There is freedom we can experience.
We can you can enjoy reading a book. We can enjoy flowers and walks and boat rides and fishing and just doing things with our hands, because we’re free.
You see, because I am free, because there is no guilt, I can live a marvelous life. But when I was addicted to pornography, to movies, to other things, I couldn’t be free.
I would repent, then for a few days, I would be under this pressure, this gloom, this cloud of guilt. I couldn’t breathe free. I couldn’t walk straight. There was a pressure on me, I felt like I had to serve out my sentence of guilt for a few days, and only then I could walk upright again. But that is a lie. We don’t have to go through these cycles anymore.
We don’t have to think that what does it matter that I repent today, since I will sin tomorrow again. We don’t have to think this way, because we are free in Jesus.
We died in Jesus to sin, to sinful nature. Read Romans, Colossians, and you will discover that.
Sin doesn’t have any real claim over us.
Jesus made a public spectacle of powers and authorities; He triumphed over them. What does this mean?
I wasn’t planning to do this but let me read some more from Colossians chapter 2.
There is this amazing thing that I’ve always overlooked, as I simply didn’t understand what it means.
In verse 14, it says, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he (Jesus) set aside, nailing it to the cross. (Colossians 2:14)
The legal demands and all this, what does it all mean?
And then an interesting verse further, 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. (Colossians 2:15)
This last verse was particularly confusing to me. Jesus put the rulers and authorities to open shame. That part bothered me a little.
You may have heard that in the old days, when a king would conquer another country or a city, he would take the conquered ruler and put shackles on him, some kings would even cut their noses off, cut off their thumbs, or make these conquered kings eat crumbs under the table. You get the picture.
These conquerors would walk in triumph into their home city, dragging these conquered kings naked on a chain, to show their own people how strong their protection is, and people would respect their own ruler, and didn’t complain about taxes so much. So I would try to imagine how shameful and terrible it would be to be the conquered king in such a parade..
I understand that was the custom of the day; you must instill fear into your enemies and gain respect with your subjects. Yes.
But Jesus? That Jesus would put authorities and rulers to open shame and triumphing over them. The same image I described above would come to my mind, and I would think, Jesus, that is a person, for whom you died.. why would you hurt them in such a spectacle?
But that is not at all what that verse is trying to say!
These rulers and authorities, these are not people.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12)
So, it’s these demonic forces. It’s the servants of satan and satan himself. That’s who was triumphed over and shamed.
And how are they shamed?
What devil says.
They used to lie to us. They took the law, and they said, “Look, here’s the law. Here’s what you’re supposed to do to earn God’s salvation, to earn his grace, his favor, to in good standing with him, but you broke it. You stole, you slept with somebody’s wife, you’ve watched pornography, you lied, you cursed and swore, you used God’s name in vain. So you canot be in God’s kingdom. You can’t be in God’s favor. You can’t have God’s grace. So shut up and stay out. God doesn’t need you.”
The non-imaginary, though absent, girlfriend.
Let me show you something.
There is a group of friends, say five people. And one of them went on a trip, came back and says that he met the best girl in the world, she is perfect. He says he talks with her on the phone all the time, constantly brags about her, doesn’t stop talking about her.
Half a year passes. Everybody’s asking, where is she? Does she even exist? You made her up! Why doesn’t she come visit!
And if that goes on for three years? They may call him a liar!
So their questions, arguments, accusation of him, that this girl doesn’t exist, have value to people that never saw the girl.
And then she shows up. She was, let’s say, on an expedition to Africa for three years or whatever. The relationship was over videoconferencing all this time, that is all she could do.
But! When she shows up, all the arguments lose sense, they become absurd, because she’s right there, and she is his girlfriend!
If the friends keep saying that she doesn’t exist is now stupid, its even shameful! It would be plain dumb to tell their friend or anyone else who saw the girl that she doesn’t exist. No! She’s right there! She just walked in. You see what I mean?
Absurdity of satan’s accusations and guilt.
The arguments of these authorities and rulers, these demons, these servants of satan with their accusatory thoughts, all of that – disarmed.
Bible says, he disarmed the rules and authorities, took the bullets out, emptied the revolver drums. They are shooting blanks. They may make a sound, but its all empty.
Jesus put them to open shame by triumphing over them. That’s the kind of shame, the kind of triumph, because they can’t accuse us.
If I sinned, I repent, I ask God for forgiveness, Jesus died and carried the sin and shame of it on the cross into hell and left it there. He took the consequence of marring my soul and nailed it to the cross. All I must do is give it to him. All I must do is to look at him and just say, “Jesus, you died for me, you took it all, I’m sorry, forgive me,” and God is faithful and just and He will forgive us our sins and will clean us of all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
Look to Jesus.
Jesus was raised on the cross so we could look at him as Israel looked at the serpent in the Old Testament and be healed, be free of the venom of sin, just like they were.
Do you see the beauty?
Do you see what Jesus did for us?
Isn’t this amazing? And the result is just beautiful!
Thank you for listening. I hope this brings freedom to you.
May God bless you and I ask God to give you a greater understanding of what Jesus did for you directly, so that you can be free and so you can live a full life, while helping others.
God bless you. I love you.