During our study of Isaiah 53 this past Sunday, my Sunday School class entered into a discussion about why Christ had to suffer. One member explained that as a child, she understood that Christ had to die for our sins, even that blood sacrifice was the requirement of God for the payment of sin. But why did He have to suffer? Why could Christ not have experienced a quick death like beheading instead of beatings and the cross?
That question about suffering took me back almost a year to our study of the book of Job. During that study, I came to understand that suffering was not always punishment from God. The two thieves on the cross with Jesus suffered for their own sins and it was punishment for breaking the law. But Christ broke no law and like Job was innocent before God. Job suffered so that God might be revealed through His suffering, so that He might be humbled before God, and so that others would learn from Job’s suffering.
Could it be that Christ had to suffer for these very same reasons?
Christ Must Suffer:
The first thing we must confirm is the idea that Christ did have to suffer. If death was enough to satisfy the wrath and judgment of God, did Christ have to suffer? The resounding answer from Scripture is yes! Matthew tells us that Jesus tried to show His disciples the necessity not only of going to Jerusalem to die and be raised up, but also to suffer. From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. Matthew 16:21
Jesus himself makes it clear in Luke 24:26 that it was “necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory" because it was the word of the prophets. Acts 3:18 confirms that Christ had to suffer to fulfill the word of the prophets. "But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled.” Therefore, the necessity of Christ suffering is clear. The next question is naturally, “why?”
Why Must Christ Suffer:
The first response to that question is almost always, “so that he could identify with our suffering.” I understand the reasoning and that we have been taught that all of our lives. However, that answer implies that Christ would have been unable to identify with our suffering otherwise. That would imply an inability in the person of Christ, who is God. Yet, when God’s people cried out from Egypt, He heard their cries and identified with their suffering. Nothing was added to Christ’s nature, character or attributes by His suffering.
I know many of you rush to Hebrews 2:17-18 and suggest that this passage tells us that Christ suffered for the purpose of identifying with our suffering. Let us look closely at this passage.
Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
Now the passage clearly confirms a necessity here, but it is not the necessity of suffering. Hebrews says that Christ had to become like a man. Humanity is the central issue here. He had to become a man in order to be of service to God as a high priest. What was the role of the high priest? To make sacrifices on behalf of the people and to offer up prayers on their behalf. Christ, therefore, had to become a man so that He could serve as high priest and make propitiation for the sins of the people.
Now, the last sentence may give us pause. Simply put, this is a restatement of the first part of the passage in layman’s terms. “Because he became a man (suffered when tempted), he is able to help mankind (those who are being tempted).” Here we see an amazing connection. In this passage, our identity in Christ is through suffering and temptation. In that we find a helpful parallel, in that what is true about Christ’s suffering is also true about His temptation.
Christ Must Be Tempted:
Just as Christ had to suffer, we see in Scripture that he also had to be tempted. In fact, it is God himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit, who leads Jesus into the desert for the express purpose of being tempted. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Matthew 4:1 To be sure, God did not tempt Jesus, but led him into the wilderness and caused him to fast in order to prepare him for temptation. This is a reality reflected in Jesus’ model prayer in Matthew 6, “'And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.]'”
From this, we can clearly see that the temptation of Christ was a necessary part of the plan of God.
Why He Suffered when Tempted:
Now the question is two-fold. Why did Christ have to suffer and be tempted? Was it not enough for him to die without sin? Is the end result not the point, why all the hardship along the process? Again, I assert it was not for His benefit, but for ours. Not that he would be able to identify with us, but that we would be able to identify with Him.
There are various other passage we could look at and debate. Our context in Hebrews 2 is probably the most compelling.
But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. Hebrews 2:9-10
I really see three things that confirm our idea that Christ suffered and was tempted for the same reasons the Job suffered and was tempted. First, God is revealed in His suffering of death. Second, he demonstrated humility in his submission to the will of the Father. Finally, he was made a perfect example, bringing many sons to glory as the founder of their salvation, through suffering. Yes, “we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15) Sympathy for our weakness is the result of being tempted and not sinning, but that is exactly the opposite of his temptation or suffering making Him able to identify with us. In fact though our identification with him, he gives us an example of how temptation and suffering might be overcome.
There is one other reason for Christ suffering and temptation that we should address before moving to understand how it identifies us with Him. We see it in the context of Job in that though he was a righteous man and without fault before God, he was not without sin. Though Job has confessed his sin and trusted God for forgiveness, he was not without sin and did in fact have a sinful nature inherited from Adam. Even when the guilt of sin is forgiven, and judgment has been satisfied, and wrath has been appeased; the consequences of sin and the temptation of sin still remain. Though we are free form the bondage of sin, we are never free from its effects in this life. Ultimately, it is for our suffering that he suffered, because he took on himself all of the consequences of our sin; the legal, moral, physical, and emotional consequences. (John 1:29, 2 Cor. 5:21)
Our Identity with Christ
So, there are four chief ways we are identified with Christ through suffering and temptation instead of him identifying with us. Through our suffering and temptation God is revealed, we demonstrate our humility in our submission to the sovereignty of God, we provide an example for others to follow as we follow the example of Christ, and we exalt the suffering of Christ for the consequences of our sins.
Therefore, we should keep watching and praying that we not enter into temptation (Matt. 26:41). And we should rejoice that no temptation has overtaken us that is not common and that God is faithful in his provision of a way of escape in the person of Christ, that we might endure it (1 Cor. 10:13), because the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment 2 Peter 2:9).
We should also rejoice when we are considered worthy to suffer shame for His name sake (Acts 5:41). For, if we suffer with him we may also be identified with him in glorification as fellow heirs, and our present suffering will not be worthy of comparison to the glory that will be revealed to us (Romans 8:17-18) for to us it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him but to suffer. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. (2 Cor. 1:5)
Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good. (1 Peter 4:1-2, 19)
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