By His wounds...

But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

Isaiah 53:5 ESV

During His time on earth, Jesus suffered greatly for the sins of others. Though He was perfect, He took the weight and the punishment for our sins upon Himself. Pain is a result of sin, and while we all experience it in different ways in our lives, He is the only one whose pain was solely the fault of others. 1 Peter 2:21-24 tells us,

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed.

Think about that last sentence, “By His wounds you have been healed.” If you’ve read the Bible, you know He was rejected by His people, mocked and criticized, and felt the pain of grief and sorrow. But have you ever really looked closely at what endured at the end, before He died?

In John 18:4, we read that Jesus knew “all that would happen to Him”. In Matthew 26:38, Jesus said to His disciples, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.” Jesus knew all that was going to happen to Him, and though it brought Him great sorrow, He still chose to go through it for us. Luke, who is believed to have been a physician, wrote, “And being in agony He prayed more earnestly; and His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). Hematidrosis is a rare medical condition brought on by extreme anguish. The tiny blood vessels surrounding the sweat glands constrict and then dilate, causing them to rupture and blood to flow into the sweat glands. This then causes blood to be pushed to the skin’s surface, mixed with sweat. It also causes the skin to become swollen, tender, and fragile. Already, before He was betrayed with a kiss and arrested, Jesus was in agony. His emotional pain was so great that it caused Him to sweat drops of blood! He knew He was going to be betrayed by one of His disciples, and the rest of His disciples would abandon Him. Matthew 26:56 tells us that “all the disciples left Him and fled”. He also knew that Peter would deny even knowing Him. It’s no wonder that He was “sorrowful, even to death”.

Even before He was brought before the high priest, His skin would have hurt; He was already in emotional and physical pain. He was then humiliated; His robes were torn, He was spit on, slapped, and struck by the chief priests and council. The very men who were set apart in service to God sought His death. They brought Him before Pontius Pilate and demanded He be crucified. Although both Herod and Pontius Pilate found no guilt in Him, they did not save Him. Rather, John 19:1 says that “Pilate took Jesus and flogged Him.”

The gospel accounts all use one short sentence to tell us that Jesus was flogged, which makes it easy to read that line and move on. But imagine, for a moment, what flogging entails. While the people in that time period would know what flogging is, most of us today cannot truly understand what that means. Flogging, in itself, can cause death. While some sources suggest it would have been done with a three-pronged whip, and others say nine-tailed, there is a common consensus that there would be lead or metal tips on the ends.

Deuteronomy 25 tells us that Jewish law would have a guilty man lie down and be given up to forty stripes, the number determined by the severity of the crime. While we may not know how many times He was whipped, we can be certain that the metal tips would have torn into His flesh and ripped away both skin and muscle with every hit. His body would likely have gone into shock, causing nausea, dizziness, confusion, sweating, and more. His already sensitive and swollen skin would have been excruciatingly painful, and His blood loss heavy.

But it didn’t end there, in fact, He had a lot more to go through. “And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head and arrayed Him in a purple robe. They came up to Him saying, ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ and struck Him with their hands” (John 19:2-3). The lacerations from the crown of thorns would have caused even more blood loss and pain, further weakening the body of our Savior. Again, the pain and bleeding were made worse by their hands, and His emotional pain increased by the humiliation and sadness for what His people were doing. Instead of praising and worshipping Him as their God and Savior, they rejected, mocked, and hated Him. And still, He did not revile or threaten them but entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly. My selfish and finite mind cannot even begin to comprehend what He had already suffered for us, but still, the worst was yet to come.

Mark 15:19 tells us that the battalion of soldiers struck His head with a reed, spat on Him, and mockingly paid homage to Him. When the soldiers were done, they removed the robe they had put on Him and put His clothes back on. John 19:16-17 says, "So they took Jesus, and He went out, bearing His own cross to the place called 'The Place of a Skull'." If we look back to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we read that along the way "they seized one Simon of Cyrene" and they "laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus" (Luke 23:26). John emphasizes that Jesus carried His cross to show that He was willingly going to His death, while Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us about Simon being forced to carry it part of the way, most likely, to show that Jesus was physically weakened to the point where He couldn't carry it the whole way. Despite all they put Him through, they continued in His torment by having Him carry a large, heavy wooden beam to His own crucifixion. Jesus was crucified at Golgotha, unjustly punished as if He were a common criminal, along with two actual criminals.

What is crucifixion? What actually happened when a person was crucified? These are questions the Jews in that time would have known how to answer, but crucifixion isn’t something that most of us nowadays would fully comprehend. We might know the basics of what it is, but as we study the gospel accounts of Christ’s life, it’s clear that there is much about that time period and what Christ Jesus endured that most of us would not easily understand.

Crucifixion, by definition, is the execution of a person by nailing or binding them to a cross. Death could take anywhere from hours to days to happen, and there are a few possible direct causes. Some would die from blood loss or organ failure, while others would ultimately be suffocated to death. The Romans would have nailed Jesus’ hands to the cross with large, tapered, iron spikes. It’s more likely, though, that the spikes were placed through the wrists, damaging and possibly severing major nerves. This would cause continuous shooting nerve pain. His entire weight would have pulled on these wounds, stretching them, and the pain from it would have been excruciating.

The Bible uses the word χείρ or χεῖρά (https://biblehub.com/interlinear/john/20-27.htm) when speaking of Jesus hands being nailed to the cross, and when Jesus tells Thomas to see the holes in His hands. While χείρ is technically "hand," its usage in Ancient Greek frequently extends to the entire arm. Google says, “While tradition often places the nails in the palms, some scholars suggest the nails may have been driven through the wrists or the area between the wrist and hand to support the body's weight. The Greek word used for "hand" can encompass the hand and wrist area.” Whether it really was His hands or His wrists, the pain in either case would have been horrific, and the wounds would have stretched from the weight of His body pulling on them.

Imagine for a moment, bearing all your weight on spikes nailed into your wrists and feet. No matter how you try to adjust your weight, there would be no reprieve from the agony. In many cases, the weight and position of the body would have dislocated the shoulders, sometimes stretching the shoulder by up to six inches. The slumped position would cause the chest cavity to protrude, making exhaling extremely difficult. This would cause an increase in carbon dioxide, putting the body into acidosis and leading to the failure of the central nervous system. The buildup of fluid around the heart and lungs could cause heart failure, collapse the lungs, and cause dehydration and eventually suffocation. If death wasn’t fast enough for the executioner's liking, they often broke or shattered the person’s legs. This was actually done to the two thieves who were crucified beside Christ.

The mocking of our Savior continued. “And when they had crucified Him, they divided His garments among them by casting lots” (Matthew 27:35). He hung naked, “But the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at Him, saying, ‘He saved others; let Him save Himself, if He is the Christ of God, the Chosen One!’ The soldiers also mocked Him, coming up and offering Him sour wine” (Luke 23:35-36). The sour wine, mixed with gall or myrrh, would create a narcotic effect that would dull the intense pain of the crucifixion. It’s possible the drink's intended purpose was to keep the person alive and conscious longer instead of bringing true relief.

The Bible tells us that Jesus refused the wine the first time it was offered, meaning He fully felt the complete extent of the pain from what was done to Him. He only accepted the offering of the sour wine at the end. “When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished’, and He bowed His head and gave up His spirit” (John 19:30).

We know that these are not the only words Jesus spoke on the cross. Matthew 27:46 tells us about some of Jesus’ last words when it says, “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?’” Jesus was quoting Psalm 22:1 when He said this, but He also revealed what His greatest suffering was, for our sake.

The dictionary defines forsaken as ‘abandoned or deserted’, which tells us that God abandoned His only Son, Jesus. Our Christ, our Savior, was completely cut off from the divine presence, love, and help of our Heavenly Father. The deep spiritual anguish Christ experienced is something none of us can even begin to fathom. The final punishment for our sin was complete separation from God, something none of us could ever endure. Yet, Jesus Christ, knowing what the punishment for our sin is, willingly took it upon Himself, so that we, as God’s children, will never have to be separated from the love of God. He endured separation from God and bore the weight of God’s wrath against our sin so that we could be forgiven and never be forsaken by God.

Sometimes our emotions can be overwhelming; there are times when we might feel forsaken. While we might be suffering and feel spiritually empty, God never literally abandons us. Our faith is not blind but rather is built on the promises God gives us in His word. As believers and children of God, we can be confident that we will never experience the agony, despair, and desolation of being forsaken by God.        

Through Christ’s sacrifice, we find forgiveness and restoration of our relationship with God. “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). He suffered, He bore the weight of our sin, He died and conquered death, willingly, all so that we might be forgiven. He took our curse upon Himself and gives us the promise that nothing can “separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).

While we all experience pain, suffering, and sorrow, no one’s suffering can compare with what our Savior endured throughout His time on earth, but especially at the end on the cross. He was beaten, humiliated, and abandoned by His disciples. They mockingly called Him “King of the Jews”, not knowing who He truly was. He was unjustly condemned to death and crucified, but still, in His great love, said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

When the pain in this life feels unbearable, we can find comfort in knowing all that Jesus suffered for us. Yes, we will experience pain and sorrow, but it will never compare with the pain Christ Jesus endured in our place.

Look, once again, to what it says in 1 Peter 2:21-24:

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed.

Do you realize what that means? In perfection He lived, suffered and died, not only setting us an example of how we ought to live, but paying the price for our sins. I admit, I had a hard time just reading about the physical pain and torture He endured in my place, but my finite mind cannot even begin to comprehend what He endured when He was forsaken by God. He was wounded, body, mind, and soul, for us, so that we might never be forsaken by God. Because of Christ we have a restored and right relationship with God our Father. We can be called children of God because by His wounds we have been healed.