The Suffering of Christ — John Musser

The Death and Physical Sufferings of Christ

And that's just what I'm going to be speaking on this morning, the death of Jesus. We're going to look into some of the physical agony and the sufferings of Christ. Most people don't realize how much suffering Jesus went through.

They don't realize just exactly what He endured for every one of us. You see, as you look in the New Testament, we have the Gospel accounts of Jesus, how He went to the cross, He went to Golgotha, He was scourged.

But you cannot find a complete picture of the sufferings of Jesus in the New Testament alone. You must go to the New Testament and the Old Testament and compare scriptures back and forth. And we have this photo album in the Word of God.

We see some pictures in the New Testament, but there are a lot of pictures in the Old Testament also of what Jesus went through for you and me. Will you turn with me to Isaiah chapter 53? Isaiah chapter 53.

Prophetic Pictures of Christ’s Suffering

Now before I read Isaiah chapter 53, verses 4 and 5, I'm going to read Isaiah chapter 50 and verse 6 and Isaiah 52, 14. We're going to see some scriptures of how Jesus suffered, how He went through such intense agony when He came to die for you and me.

The Bible says that Jesus Christ laid aside His reputation. He was the Son of God. The book of Revelation says that Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God, slain before the foundation of the world, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, planned that Jesus would one day take the form of a servant and be made in the likeness of men and become a sin offering for humanity because God knew that man was going to fall in the garden and that someone without sin would have to die for humanity.

And so Jesus Christ, who made all things, because the Bible says without Him not anything was made, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.

But all things were made by Him. And without Him was not anything made that was made. So Jesus made everything. And we find that according to Philippians chapter 2, 5 through 8, that Jesus, that we see Jehovah God incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth.

Philippians chapter 2, Let this mind be in you which is also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and He took upon Himself the form of a servant.

And He was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as of a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. And we see this picture in Isaiah chapter 6 of these angels worshiping the triune God.

And one day Jesus said, When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son. Galatians chapter 4 and verse 4. When that time had come and God's time clock, you could almost see Jesus standing before all the angels of heaven.

He takes away His robes of glory. He puts them down upon a throne in the heavenlies. And Jesus descends into this world through the power of the Spirit, down from the ivory palaces, down from the seraphic praise, down from the praise of the cherubim, and down into this world.

And by the power of God's Spirit, He entered into the womb of the Virgin Mary. And took upon Himself humanity. And became a man for every one of us. That He might go to the cross. He was born for that one purpose.

That He might be a sin offering. That He might give of His life a ransom for many. For you and me, every one of us. And so we see in Isaiah chapter 15, verse 6. Isaiah the prophet speaks. Now we have what is called prophetical utterance.

Prophetical utterance is something that is amazing. That is when these prophets, these preachers, are preaching hundreds of years before the actual death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But the Spirit of Christ is speaking through them.

Here we have prophetical utterance. Jesus is speaking before He ever became a man. And in verse 6, Jesus says, through the prophet, I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.

I hid not my face from shame and spitting. He says, I gave my back to those that smote me. He says, I gave my cheeks. They ripped my beard from my face. They plucked the hair out of my face. I hid not my face from shame and spitting.

Then in Isaiah 52, verse 14. Isaiah is speaking about Jesus. He was marred and how He was afflicted. And Isaiah talks about His countenance, about His face, and about His bodily form. And there in Isaiah chapter 52, verse 14, it says, As many as were astonished at Thee.

They were amazed. They were spellbound. As many as were astonished at Thee. His visage, His face, was so marred, more than any man. They could not even tell that He was a man. By looking at His face, they could not tell that He was a human being.

Because they so brutally misused Him. And His form, that is, body, more than the sons of men. They said He was a mess. They said that His appearance was horrible. And then we have in Isaiah 53, verses 4 and 5.

Isaiah 53, 4 and 5. Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. And with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to His own way. And the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

Now look in verse 7. He was oppressed. He was afflicted. Yet He opened not His mouth. He was brought as a lamb to the slaughtered. Jesus was slaughtered. He is brought just like a lamb to the slaughterhouse.

As a sheep before a shears is dumb, so He opened not His mouth. Five times we find the word our is used in verses 4 and 5. Jesus bore our sorrows. He bore our griefs. He bore our iniquities, our transgressions.

The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. And this is what is called the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ. That means that Jesus died for you and me. That Jesus Christ, He gave of Himself. We deserved hell.

We deserved that chastisement. We deserved those scourgings. We deserved that brutality. We deserved all of this evil speaking. But Jesus died for me. And when we look in the Word of God, we see that God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Jesus Christ died for all of the sins of humanity. All of the sins that were ever committed. But we know that a man must come to Him and obtain eternal salvation by calling upon the name of the Lord. So all of the sins and all of the iniquities of humanity from the time of Adam, I believe, onward, were born upon the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now that's hard for us to understand. But we see that He died for the world. He was our substitute. That means taking the place of another. Some of you have had substitute teachers where they will come in, they will substitute for your real teacher, for your teacher that's always there.

Jesus was our substitute. He took our place. He took our hell. He took our scourging. As we're going to look at this physical sufferings of Jesus Christ. Now I quoted John 3 .16. It said, For God so loved the world.

Now take that word so. There was not a word in all of the human vocabulary that could more express the immeasurable love of God than the word so. It has no boundaries. God said, For He so loved the world that He gave heaven's best.

He gave Jesus His only begotten Son. And as we look in the word of God, we see that Jesus and the Father, the Holy Spirit, they have been communing with one another through eternity. From everlasting to everlasting according to Proverbs chapter 8.

Jesus has been with the Father and the Spirit of God. From everlasting to everlasting, they've had this divine communion. And at this one time, the Father parted with the Son. Especially we know when His sins were laid upon His body when He went to the cross.

He said, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Now let's look at the closing hours of the life of Jesus. You see a small band of men walking down the streets of Jerusalem. Jesus commanded them, He told them to go.

The Last Supper and the Betrayal

And that they were going to have a supper together. And you could almost see them walking down the street. They don't know exactly what's taking place. Even their minds were darkened and alienated from the true workings of God.

And so there they are, they're walking down that road. And they go to a home, a house. Nothing unusual about this home. And they walk up the stairs. And there Jesus is waiting for them. Because He desired to have this supper with them.

And it was His last supper that He was going to have with them. Now for three years, Jesus had preached the gospel. For three and a half years approximately. He rose the dead. He healed the lepers. He was moving forth in divine power.

He was the God-man, God in the flesh. He was humanly divine and divinely human. He was God tabernacling in a human body. Jesus Christ of Nazareth. And He did all these miracles. He wrought all these great things.

And men were amazed and spellbound by His words and by the miracles. Because the Father was confirming His ministry with great signs and wonders from heaven. And so they go to this common looking house.

And they're in this upper room. And you can see sorrow depicted upon the face of Jesus as He looks around. This is where the physical sufferings begin to intensify. You can see them intensifying in the gospels.

And He looks around upon those disciples. And He says, one of you shall betray me this night. And they all begin to question Jesus. Will it be me? Peter said. John said. Side two. Human spirits and Satan.

Satan, Judas, and the Reality of False Profession

There is only one devil, Satan. There are many demon spirits. There are myriads of unclean spirits. But there is only one Satan. I see from the word of God that Satan in all of his fullness entered into Judas Iscariot.

He's a picture of the Antichrist that shall come forth in the last days. That Satan entered the body of Judas. Now there's something interesting. This night you must realize that God gave Satan and all of His angels permission to afflict His only begotten Son.

You remember when Jesus spoke to Pilate. Pilate said, don't you know that I have the power to release you? And Jesus said, you have no power. But this power is given to you of my Father which is in heaven.

God gave Satan and all of His angels power to afflict Jesus. And Satan was God's puppet to fulfill the prophecies of the Old Testament. To afflict His only begotten Son. And to move through hardened sinners.

But Judas, you can almost hear him walking down those steps that night. Because Jesus said, go do what you've got to do, Judas. Because Satan entered into him and Satan departed from that fellowship of believers there.

And Judas walked down those steps. You can almost see the darkness. I want to tell you something. Judas walked down the pathway to the very gate of hell that night. For three years he'd walked with Jesus.

For three years he'd seen the miracles. For three years he'd heard those words proceed from his mouth and speak like no other man spake before. He was probably there at the city of Nain when this widow was weeping over her child.

He was there in that coffin as the bearers were there to take him and bear him away. And Jesus said, stop this procession. And as the Son of God walked over there and spoke some words, that young man rose from the dead.

And they all feared. I know, I've seen, I believe in Scripture that Judas was there. When there are men with leprosy, where their arms were rotted off by leprosy. Their face, their nose, their hands. And Jesus would lay hands on them and speak the words.

And their arms would be restored whole. I want to tell you something. They must have marveled. That's why his fame spread abroad. That's why men, all men sought him. That's why when Jesus continued to do these great miracles, that he had to go into mountains and into the sea because myriads of people came to see his miracles and his wonders.

But Judas saw all those things. Judas listened to him. Judas talked with him. Judas asked him questions. He ate with Jesus again and again. He was in the Garden of Gethsemane, often with Jesus. Judas saw all of these things.

And Judas preached the gospel. And Judas even had power because Jesus sent the disciples out by two. And they had power to heal the sick. And they even had power to raise the dead. But I want to tell you something.

Judas was the son of perdition. He did not know Jesus. And that just goes to show you today how people can deceive one another, how the terrorists can be among the weak. As we talked last week about professing Christians in hell.

You can be so close to Jesus that you can use the Christian clichés. You can talk the talk. You can know the scriptures. You can go to church. You can warm the pews. But I want to tell you something. Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord.

And Judas did not have the holiness of God. Judas was there holding the bag. He liked the money. And he had a mental reception of Jesus in his mind. He believed that Jesus was Messiah. But he was not born again.

And to us that staggers our mind to think that a man like Judas could walk with him for so long and yet never be born again. But the thing that really boggles my mind is to see that all the disciples, they did not have one inclination that he was not saved.

We don't find any scriptures in the Bible that the disciples even thought or suspected Judas of being an unbeliever. Matthew, her church history teaches us that Matthew and Judas went together a number of times to preach the gospel.

You can almost see Matthew as he's heralding the gospel. The Messiah is here. Jesus has come. All ye that hear our words repent and believe the gospel. He is here among us. The Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, as John the Baptist said.

Here he is. He's among us. And then you can almost hear Judas as he stands in the streets. The Messiah is here. The Christ of God. As even John says, One has come who will take away the sin of the world.

He is among us. We are his followers. We're seeing his signs and his wonders. And you even know that God is born witness with his ministry with mighty signs and wonders. And here, O Israel, repent and believe.

And I can almost hear Matthew saying, That Judas, he's quite a preacher. I want to tell you something. Today, this world is infested with people with deceiving spirits. Teachers, false teachers, cultists.

That know not Jesus Christ. And Judas actually kissed Jesus, but he went to hell. And I wonder who's today? Who is among us today? Were you so close to Christ, yet you not have the reality of God in your life?

Oh, make him reality in your life today. And then he went out and he went to the Sanhedrin. And he said, I'll make a bargain with you for 30 pieces of silver. He said, I'll show you where Jesus is. Now listen.

They could not take him during the day because many believed that he was the Christ. And many believed that he was a great prophet. And so these religious leaders who envied Jesus and hated Jesus, they were afraid to take him during the day, lest they should be stoned, because the people truly were moved by the ministry of the God-man.

And so they had to have a secret plan. Somehow they had to get in and take him. And you know something? They took him through Judas. Here's an illustration. You know, the unbelievers, the skeptics, the infidels, and the atheists and the cultists, they cannot hurt the body of Christ, can they?

But when you've got someone with a little leaven and corruption in the body, that's when God's church can be hurt. When you've got someone in the inner circle that begins to gossip and slander and malign the work of Jesus Christ.

Gethsemane and the Agony of Prayer

And these men went to Judas, or Judas went to them. And Judas said, I'll show you where he's at. The Bible says that the disciples of Jesus and Christ often went to the Garden of Gethsemane. It's where they resorted so many times to get alone from the press.

So many people wanted to talk with Him and see Jesus and hear Him. And we hear and we read from the Word of God that the Garden of Gethsemane was a resting place for the disciples. And Judas said, I know where He's going to be tonight.

He said, give me a band of men, I'll take you there. And Jesus and His eleven disciples, they leave the upper room, they go out of the gate, and they go to Gethsemane. And you remember the story. Peter, James, and John, about a stone's cast off from the rest of the disciples.

They fell into temptation. But they were there, and they could not pray with Jesus. But we see another glimpse of the intensification of, intensifying, of sorrow and affliction and torment and agony and oppression.

Because we see Jesus praying the same prayer three times. And Jesus was under such soul travail. He was under such agony and such affliction. We do not know, maybe all the demons of hell were all about Him, blasting Him.

The tide of hell was beating against His breast that night. As Jesus was praying with such intensity that the blood broke out into the sweat. And we find in Hebrews that He cried, and He went before the Father, and that He cried before the Father, and He was heard that night.

But Jesus was in such physical anguish, that great sweat came from His body. You know, sometimes we don't think about that. We just say, well, He was praying a little prayer. I want to tell you something.

He was groaning in what's called travailing prayer, an agonizing prayer. And the doctors will tell you that He had to be under intense agony, mental agony, soul agony, to have this take place. And then, a band of soldiers came through the olive trees, with their lanterns and staves and torches.

And Judas, you remember the story, betrayed Jesus with a kiss. You know, there's something amazing that happened then. The Bible says that when Judas came, we're going to put all the gospel accounts together, that when these people came, Jesus spoke to that band of soldiers, and all those men from Jerusalem, and He said, Whom seek ye?

He said, Who are you looking for? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus said, I am He. And do you remember the word of God says that when Jesus said, I am He, that they all fell backwards to the ground?

There was such an omnipotent blast from the testimony of Jesus, I am He, I really believe, He was saying, I am that I am. I am the eternal one, I am Christ, I am the sent one. I really believe that that was taking place when He says, I am He.

And there's such a manifestation of God's power attending those words, that they all fell backwards. Now, humanly speaking, I would think I'd want to get out of there by then. If such a manifestation of power broke all those soldiers down.

But they got up. And they had power from Satan. And so they took Jesus, they took Him to the Sanhedrin. The disciples fled before Annas and Caiaphas. And they began to question Him. Are you the Christ?

The Trial, Mockery, and Scourging of Jesus

They said. One man would come up to Him and say, We saw Him heal on the Sabbath day. We saw His disciples, they were plucking corn in the fields. We saw other ones, they would come up and... But the Bible says that none of their testimonies would agree.

They were the sons of Eliah, they all lied. One man said, He said He would destroy the temple. And that in three days He would raise it again. They didn't know that He was speaking of His own body. And they went on and they got on and on.

And finally they got tired of all that questioning. And the high priest stood up and he said, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of the Blessed. And Jesus said, The next time that you see me, you are going to see me at the right hand of power coming in the clouds of glory.

And when Jesus said that, the high priest ran his clothes and he said, We don't need any more witnesses, we don't need to hear anything more. He has blasphemed God. And I want to tell you something. They began to do such wicked works against Jesus that night.

Those so-called religious men. Jesus was taken to a cross because they claimed that He blasphemed God. That was His charge. That He said that He was indeed the Son of the Blessed. That He was indeed the Son of God.

And that night they began to deride Him. And they began to scoff at Him. They began to spit upon Him. And they took a rag, the Bible says, and they put it around His eyes. And they twirled Jesus around in circles.

And then they said that some smote Him on the face. With their hands and with their palms. And then they cried out, Come on, Jesus, if you're a prophet, who smote thee? Who hit thee? And again and again and again the Bible says that they smote Him on the face.

They smote Him on the face. They smote Him on the face. And they took reeds and they took sticks and they smote Him. And then they twirled around again and they spit in His face. The Bible says that He gave His face to the smiters.

His back to the smiters. His cheeks to them that plucked off His hair. He hid not His face from shame and spitting. And His face begins to bruise. And then I don't know exactly when it happened, but one of those men, those men came up to Him and they began to rip out His beard from His face.

I gave my cheeks, He says, to those that plucked off the hairs. And I want to know, I want to tell you something. I had a mustache for a long time. And I remember when Jonathan and Matthew used to get a hold of that mustache.

I want to tell you something. I want to get that little hand off my mustache as fast as possible. But on a serious thought, can you imagine someone literally ripping the beard out of your face by the roots?

Jesus said His face, He gave His face to them that plucked off their hair. And then about a daylight they took Jesus to Pilate. After these hours of brutality, these hours of blasphemy, this hour of misuse, this spitting and all of these evil things that were taking place.

And we don't know what they did to Him, how long they assailed Him, how long they maligned Him, how long they misused Him, how long they bruised Him. We do not know. And they took Him to Pilate and He could find no fault in them.

And then you remember Pilate sent Him to Herod because He was of his jurisdiction. He was a Galilean. And then He was released to the soldiers. Now you know in your mind's eye, just imagine with me, think with me, of how these soldiers, how wicked so many of them are.

If some of you have been in the service, you know the cursing, the swearing, the drug abuse, the alcohol abuse, and the wicked things that take place. Jesus was delivered to the soldiers, into their hands.

And they did with Him what they willed. They battered Him, they put a robe upon Him, they took a reed in their hands, they battered His face, they smote Him, they spit upon Him. And listen, as we look at the Word of God, we know that we don't have any records of what they did of Jesus when the soldiers took Him.

Just a few records. But I believe that God wouldn't write some of the things that took place in His life that night. How much they did to Jesus. Only God, the Father, knows. And those wicked soldiers, to Jesus that night.

And then they took a robe, you remember that? And they took that reed, and they put a crown of thorns upon His head. And they said, Hail, Hail, King of the Jews! And they did right as they longed, and then finally He was brought before Pilate again, the second time.

From Condemnation to Calvary

And you know, this is how men will despise Jesus. That's why, even revival meetings like this, we get revived and excited by God. But I want to tell you something, revivals of them will continue, beloved in Christ.

You continue the things of Jesus, it's one thing to praise God in the church, and then deny Him before men. Because we find Jesus was riding in Jerusalem upon a colt. Men praised Him, they put their cloaks down on the ground, they took palm leaves, and they said, Hosanna, in the highest, our King is coming, Jesus is coming.

And three or four days later, they crucified Him. Three or four days later, they said, we won't have this man rule over us, we don't want Him. We don't want Him. When Pilate brought Barabbas, he thought maybe he would escape from releasing Jesus to punishment.

And yet, these men were so moved by the religious rulers, they were so moved by Satan, that they cried out in a chant, crucify Him, crucify Him, crucify Him. Mary and the disciples, there they listened to these words, they're probably crying out, No, no, take Barabbas.

And yet they chanted, and these religious rulers, they were moving through the crowds, and they were lifting up their voice, crucify Him, crucify Him. Even the people, maybe that Jesus healed. Maybe even one that Jesus rose from the dead.

And they were crying because Satan's power was manifested that day. And the minds of the men were blinded. And so then Pilate had him scourged. Now Paul talks about forty stripes save one. What Jesus went through, it was an indefinite amount of stripes.

And they had a club about this long, and from that club, long leather strands that proceeded out of the end of that club. And in those long leather strands were pieces of stone, and pieces of metal, sharpened.

And they were intended to wrap around the body of the victim, and literally flay the body. And so the strong Roman soldier would take them, and they would have like a little T-square maybe in the ground, and take some leather strands, and make that individual grab hold of that T-square, and then they would maybe tie those strands around their hands.

And then the strong Roman soldier would stand back with this club, and then that club would come down upon the back. And first of all there would be a swelling, and then there would be a bruise, and then there would be a laceration from just the heavy club itself.

But when that Roman soldier brought that thing down, all of those leather strands just wrapped around the body. And he would do it in a jerking motion. Then at the moment those strands reached their destiny, he would jerk it back just as fast as he could with all of his strength, and all of his power.

And they say, church history teaches us, that many times they never could go to the cross, because their insides literally fell to the earth. It would disembowel a man. And I want to tell you something.

Jesus, His back, His body, was nothing but Hamburg. Because the Bible says, He was slaughtered. As a lamb led to the slaughter. Jesus was slaughtered. For you and for me, every drop of blood that was shed, was shed for you and for me.

And again and again and again they did it. And then they took a rude 200 pound piece of wood after that scourging, and when His back was lacerated in open meat, they took a 200 pound piece of wood and smashed it upon His back.

You think of 200 pounds. At one time, I don't know, I was lifting weights. 200 pounds of wood. And they put it upon the back of Jesus. And in my mind's eye I've seen this so many times, because this message has changed my own life.

Again and again and again. You can almost see Jesus after that night of being beaten and battered and bruised and misused, and fatigued and tired. And you can almost see Him as they put that cross upon His back, as He staggers and reels back and forth.

And He moves back and forth. And finally the weight of that cross causes Him to fall to the earth. And you can almost see His face being smashed into the pavement. And the blood and the spit and the dirt are all mingled together.

Because His beard is ripped from His face. His face is battered. There's saliva in the blood. I want to tell you something. Some people say, Oh, don't give us this slaughterhouse religion. The Bible says He was slaughtered.

Isaiah said, His face was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men. Who hath believed our report? Whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground, yet with no form nor comeliness.

And when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from Him. He was despised and we esteemed Him not.

Surely it bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him.

And with His stripes we're healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to His own way. And the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed. He was afflicted. Yet He opened not His mouth.

He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before shears is done, so He opened not His mouth. Oh, my friends, I want to tell you something. Jesus was so exhausted. He was so physically worn that they compelled one man, Simon, to come and bear His cross.

And hand in hand they walked down the Calvary road to Golgotha, the place of the skull. Even Simon there, as he was walking with Jesus, his blood fell upon that man. And a trail of blood went from that place to Golgotha.

A trail of blood. I tell you, there's a trail of blood from Genesis to Revelation. But there was a trail of blood that led up to Calvary's hill to Golgotha, the place of the skull. And then that Roman soldier with a leather pouch upon his side...

Now, I don't know just exactly how they did it. Either they put the entire cross in the ground, or they took this one section of the cross and hoisted it up into the air. Hoisted Jesus up into the air.

But they took and found a hollow spot in the hands of Jesus, and they put the nails in His hands. And you can almost hear in your mind's ear the nails going through the hands of Jesus. It did nothing but heal and bless.

But I want to tell you something. It was a repulsive thought. They gathered the ankles of Jesus together, and they took a large spike and drove it through His feet. And do you think that He stood there?

Do you think that He just sat there? Jesus' body was nothing but muscle spasms and quivering jerks. And you could almost see Him jerking. Have you ever had something go through your hand? I want to tell you something.

It was a sorrowful sight. I so wonder when Mary looked at Him on the cross, her heart was pierced with a sword. Listen to the words of Jesus in Psalm 22. He's looking down upon His mutilated body. He's speaking.