Among the Messianic Psalms (Bible Chapters that speak of Jesus centuries before His earthly Ministry) … none towers any higher than Psalm 22.

Yet its beginning is so blatantly abrupt!

Psalm 22:1 … “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?” The very Words Jesus used from the old rugged Cross in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34.

Best I can tell, Jesus voiced this Prayer just before He died. Four short Verses later, in Matthew’s Gospel … “Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.”

I submit to you that those Words of Agony, about His Father actually forsaking His Son, reveal the apex of Jesus’ Soul Sufferings for lost mankind.

For the first time in all eternity … God “left” His Only Begotten Son!

Oh, what a Price He paid to get us to Heaven!

Yes, Jesus suffered more than we may ever know … to gift us eternal life!

What a Saviour!

Without His Father for an inexplicable Space of Time!

Soul suffering indeed!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Oh, what a Saviour!

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I am calling our Lord’s Agony (Agonies might be a better term) His “SOUL SUFFERINGS.”

We know He suffered physically, both in His Life and in His Death. But I am trying to dig deeper.

Psalm 16:10, a Prime Example of what is called a “Messianic Psalm” or “Messianic Prophecy” … says of our Saviour, actually employing His Very Words (about 1,000 years prior to His Virgin Birth) … “For thou wilt not leave MY SOUL in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.”

Yes, Jesus talking to His Father … “For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.”

Wow!

Since we know that Jesus did NOT go to the literal flames of Hell, what does He mean here?

First of all, note His Word SOUL!

Possessive, He says MY SOUL!

Folks, on the Cross those six hours, that is when Jesus SOUL SUFFERED!

He paid the entire sin debt (our sin debt) on the Cross, otherwise He could not have announced “IT IS FINISHED.” (John 19:30)

Here is the meaning … and I am not alone in my interpretation … JESUS IN HIS SOUL (MIND, WILL, EMOTIONS, SPIRIT TOO) ENDURED WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE EQUIVALENT OF MY ETERNITY IN HELL, WHAT I WOULD HAVE FACED HAD I DIED LOST!

Compound that soul suffering “whosoever” times! He in His Soul paid the debt, the sin debt … for us all!

Jesus plunged Himself into the Ocean of God the Father’s Holy Wrath … appeasing the Righteous Nature of God … so I might be saved from that very Hell!

Oh, what unimaginable suffering, what soul suffering!

But as our Psalm 16 Text declares … He was not left in such a Hell of suffering!

Once sin had been atoned, Jesus’ Death/Burial was reversed!

God the Father, Whose Wrath has been satisfied, raised His Darling Son from the grave!

But we will likely never know what His SOUL suffered that Day at Calvary!

What a Saviour!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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Soul sufferings of Jesus?

Yes!

In Gethsemane, Jesus told His Disciples … “My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch.” Mark 14:34, this sure sounds like suffering to me, Anguish untold! He did NOT say “body!”

Add John 12:27 … “Now is my soul troubled,” where “tarasso” at least means “disturbed, disquieted, restless!”

And on the Cross itself, according to Isaiah, “It pleased the LORD (God the Father) to bruise him (Jesus); he hath put him to grief: when thou (God the Father) shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed ….” Isaiah 53:10 (parentheses added for clarity). Yes, any sin offering suffered!

In Isaiah 53:11 Jesus is said to be in “travail” of soul! a noun indicating “pain, misery, toil, grief!” Still the idea, the very fact of Jesus’ suffering in soul!

And one verse further, Isaiah 53:12, we learn that at Calvary Jesus “poured out” His soul unto death! Perhaps Isaiah links this Suffering with Jesus being “numbered with transgressors” and “bearing the sin of many” … to help explicate the grueling experience!

And of course, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Ezekiel 18:4 leaves no doubt.

Jesus bore our sin there on Golgotha’s Hill! He died my death there! Actually, He suffered my Hell there!

Has your “soul” been saved?

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Oh, what a Saviour!

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I have been wondering something. If we are going to seek to learn about the “soul sufferings” of Jesus on the Cross … must we not at least attempt to consider the sufferings of God the Father as well?

Did God suffer that Day?

Is God the Father capable of suffering? Well, no doubt He has feelings. We are made (created) in His Image and we sure do have them!

Did God the Father “hurt” when He “gave” His only begotten Son to die for our sins? (John 3:16 … “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”)

Did God the Father “wince” when He turned His Head from His precious Son as Jesus paid our sin debt? Matthew 27:46 describes Jesus asking from Calvary … “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Did God “hesitate” when He made Jesus to be SIN for us? Jesus Who knew no sin! (2 Corinthians 5:21 … “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”)

Did God the Father “dread” the torturous Death His Son would face on the old, rugged Tree? He knew it millennia ahead, apparently! (Revelation 13:8 … “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”)

While we are in “deep waters” here, I strongly suggest that in some way, the Godhead (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) did agonize as Redemption was provided for lost sinners like us!

Maybe in eternity future we can learn these things!

Salvation is a Gift … but the Price our Salvation cost Almighty God is incomprehensible!

Of that I am sure.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Our Salvation, a Trinitarian Effort!

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The more I ponder this aspect of our Lord’s agony on the Cross, the more I realize how ineffable our Subject really is! (“Ineffable” means, using Latin as its base, “not” plus “utterable!” Beyond words!)

But I sure am thankful that Matthew, under the Guidance of the Holy Spirit, tells us this much: Jesus’ Soul was “exceeding sorrowful” while at Gethsemane. Matthew 26:38 … “Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.”

The Greek expression “exceeding sorrowful” is the meaning of one single adjective. Spelled “perilupos,” it’s a blend of two different words. “Peri” means overflowing and “all around” you. “Lupos” is cognate to “lupe,” the noun for “pain, grief, affliction, mourning.”

Soul suffering … for He has not yet been nailed to the Cross or scourged by Pilate’s lictors … spiritual pain over some area of His upcoming Atoning Sacrifice for sin!

We might just have to say this … beyond his physical torture, and there was plenty of that … Jesus suffered mentally, emotionally, internally and yes SPIRITUALLY … to a greater degree than we will ever know. That is, until we get to Glory!

Then Mark adds this nugget: that Jesus was “sore amazed“ in the Garden of Gethsemane as well. (Mark 14:33) This is another “loaded” Greek expression. “Ekthambeo,” It means “astonished, stunned,” maybe even (according to some scholars) “rendered immoveable!”

Again I mention … before the Cross itself!

While I cannot understand it all … I can “stand amazed” in His Presence, as I behold and adore and worship Him by faith!

More than every I say … WHAT A SAVIOUR!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Thank Him for what He underwent, all because He loved the lost and came to save them.

That included me!

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