I am still in Psalm 22, the Bible Chapter that most clearly describes a man being crucified.

Where Jesus in Verse 6 succinctly says, “But I am a worm, and no man.”

Now does that sound like physical agony to you? I suggest not. (Though in no way am I minimizing Jesus’ bodily pain on the Cross. That alone was excruciating, no doubt.)

I am just trying to point us even “deeper” into the shameful Calvary Ordeal that Day long ago.

Again … “I am a worm,” laments Jesus.

Soul suffering, thinks Brother Bagwell!

Why a worm?

Maybe this verse can help us. Where Jesus, talking or teaching about Hell describes it as a place … “Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” Mark 9:44

Could Jesus be implying that “on the Cross” He (in His soul) suffered the agony of Hell for us?

Hell is, as we know, a place of “separation” from God … and Jesus will soon cry loudly … “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46

I am certainly in “over my head” as we contemplate Calvary, what our dear Lord endured there.

But I am sure He suffered more deeply than we’ve normally understood. Even more than the nails and lashes and thorns!

Yes, in His Spirit, His Soul!

Our Lord, calling Himself a “worm” … experiencing “even the death of the Cross” … making the sin payment for lost humanity … giving His All, Body and Soul and Spirit!

What a Saviour!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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More data is available than I ever thought concerning Jesus’ Sufferings on Calvary. I mean in His Soul, in His Spirit!

Last Lesson we focused on Psalm 22, that Mount Everest of Bible Prophecy. But I cannot get it off my mind.

Verse 2 especially … “O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.” And this complex Sentence is immediately preceded by Jesus speaking of “the words of His roaring!”

Yes, we do have a record of Jesus speaking (coherently) from the Cross. The Four Genuine (Canonical) Gospels give us a composite of seven Cries from Calvary!

But not one of these can qualify as “roaring words” or our Lord’s “crying day and night,” presumably during both the daylight hours on Calvary as well as the hours of darkness!

How can these holy “noises” be explained? Or is that even humanly possible?

Surely, they represent His (as I have called them) “Soul Sufferings!” His Agony beyond the physical pain. (Which is certainly NOT to be minimized, marginalized.)

The sin debt (our accumulated iniquities) He bore on the Cross! That unprecedently “Separation” from His Father!

Oh, let’s just ponder the Anguish here indicated, and love our dear Saviour all the more!

No Help, just Words of Roaring! (Verse 1 at the end.)

Crying in the daylight, not silent in the darkness! (Verse 2 now.)

There certainly is no record of Him crying like that when He was scourged!

Or even when nailed to the Wood of the Cross!

But when He atoned for our sin, suffered God’s Wrath on our behalf … then He roared and cried and ______________, no telling what else!

Let us bow. We stand on Holy Ground.

Oh, what a Saviour!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

We worship Thee, our wonderful Lord Jesus Christ!

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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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