Did Jesus suffer hell on the Cross?

[UnitedWithChrist]

The question is simple...did Jesus suffer hell on the Cross?

Sometimes annihilationists will claim that physical death was the only thing Jesus suffered on the Cross, therefore eternal punishment is only physical death. They will claim that the Bible does not use death in a metaphorical sense, so that it can be applied to spiritual deadness as well as physical deadness.

Often this is coupled with the belief that man is not a spirit-body composite, and that man only has a physical nature, not a spiritual nature.

I used to be an annihilationist, by the way, and have rejected this as a false teaching.

I believe that the cause of errors such as annihilationism is the failure to reason typologically. And, I believe this failure is largely the fault of dispensationalist hermeneutics which view typological reasoning with suspicion. They claim to employ literal interpretation of the Bible, which means that they largely avoid typological reasoning, even if it is clear that the Bible teaches in terms of types and shadows. They do not distinguish very well between different genres of literature within the Bible.

Well, I believe Jesus did suffer hell on the Cross. He bore, in essence, the full effect of the Curse on the Cross. Understanding this means that you need to look back to Genesis 1-3, and compare the Fall to the events on the Cross. Look for types and shadows that show up later in the crucifixion account.

As a simple example, notice that the Curse involved thistles and thorns and sweating on man's part. Notice that Jesus wore a crown of thorns, and sweated profusely during the Crucifixion. There are many such parallels..I will leave it to you to identify them.

I will base my reasoning on this short article by Colin Smith:

Six Dimension of Hell on the Cross

Colin Smith

Artists and poets have speculated over the centuries about hell (consider Dante’s “Inferno”), but the clearest revelation of hell is given at the cross. The Apostle’s Creed affirms that Christ descended into hell. While this has often been taken to refer to a journey Christ made after his death, the Reformers understood it to refer to what Christ experienced in the hours of darkness when he bore our sins and became our sacrifice.

Hell has six dimensions and Christ experienced all of them on the cross.

1. He was in conscious suffering.
Jesus experienced great physical suffering—the scourging, the nailing and the mocking—all at the hands of men. He felt in his body all the pain of torture and crucifixion. Hell is a place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Luke 13:28; Matthew 13:50), and Jesus entered into all of its pains and torments when he was suffering on the cross.

2. He was in blackest darkness.
“From the sixth hour [midday] until the ninth hour [3 in the afternoon], darkness came over all the land” (Matthew 27:45). The sudden darkness tells us that something entirely new was happening. Up to this point it had all been about physical suffering. Now Jesus was entering into the heart of his atoning work as our sin-bearer, drinking the cup of God’s wrath.

3. He was surrounded by demonic powers.
Scripture speaks of these dark forces when it tells us that “having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Colossians 2:15). A full picture of this conflict has not been given to us, but we can be sure that the demonic powers were present at Calvary, adding their taunts and venom to the human hatred that was poured out on Christ.

4. He was bearing sin.
1 Peter 2:24 says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.” God made him who had no sin to be sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). In the darkness, the Lord laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). To be our sin-bearer, Christ received in himself the hell that our sins deserve. Klass Schilder says God was “directly sending the torments of hell against the Christ.” This is the deepest mystery in the darkness of the cross.

5. He was under judgment.
Jesus endured hell on the cross because hell is the punishment for sin. All that hell is, he experienced right there during these hours of darkness in which he bore our sin and endured our punishment. The wrath of God was poured out on him, and he became the propitiation for our sins (Romans 3:25, 1 John 2:2).

6. He was separated from the knowledge of God’s love of God.
This abandoning of Christ meant that the love the Son had enjoyed with his Father for all eternity was now beyond his reach. It also meant that the terrors of the Father’s judgment were poured out on the Savior. 2 Thessalonians 1:9 says that “those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus…will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.”

That is hell.

Hell is conscious suffering in blackest darkness, surrounded by demonic powers. It is bearing the guilt of your sin and coming under the righteous judgment of God. But the hell of hell for the sinner will be to know that there is a God of love and that he or she could have known this is love, but that now it is beyond their reach.

When people talk about hell, the discussion is often about whether or not it is real. Hell is as real as the cross. Jesus entered all of hell’s dimensions on the cross, and he endured them so that you would never know what hell is like.

If someone should say, “There is no hell,” I ask, “Then what was the cross about? Why did Christ have to suffer? Why the darkness? Why the forsakenness? These things happened because there is there is Divine wrath, there is judgment and there is hell. All of this was poured out on Jesus, and he absorbed it in himself to save us from it. But as Richard Sibbes says, “Whatsoever was done to Christ…shall be done to all that are out[side] of him.” [ii]

That is as plain a statement as you can get, and it is faithful to the Scriptures. It is why every person must come to Jesus Christ and be in him, because we cannot be saved without him.


https://unlockingthebible.org/2015/04/six-dimensions-of-hell-on-the-cross/

By the way, what prompts me in this regard is the firm, dogmatic claim by someone on the site that God did not abandon Christ, even temporarily, on the Cross. I believe he did. He didn't abandon him ultimately, but in paying the penalty for the sin of the elect, God abandoned Christ on the Cross for a period of time. His resurrection proves that he did not abandoned him permanently, but there was an abandonment on the Cross as he suffered the abandonment that belonged to the sheep that God redeems from the earth for the possession of his son.

 

[notuptome]

Probably many do not even believe in hell. I mean a real place with fire and brimstone that is a place of torments. The lake of fire is the final destination for the lost. Death and hell are cast into the lake of fire and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and forever.

For the cause of Christ
Roger

 

[bojack]

Yes, when Jesus associated with us in our sin He took our sin .. Jesus the man tasted death, rejection and separation from the Father for every man .. Jesus , God in the flesh was sinless and defeated death and hell for us .. The Lamb of God .. He wasn't there for any pic-nic .. He was aware .. What-a-man this Jesus of Nazarath .. What-a-God this Jesus of Nazarath ..

 

[Roughsoul1991]

The question is simple...did Jesus suffer hell on the Cross?

Sometimes annihilationists will claim that physical death was the only thing Jesus suffered on the Cross, therefore eternal punishment is only physical death. They will claim that the Bible does not use death in a metaphorical sense, so that it can be applied to spiritual deadness as well as physical deadness.

Often this is coupled with the belief that man is not a spirit-body composite, and that man only has a physical nature, not a spiritual nature.

I used to be an annihilationist, by the way, and have rejected this as a false teaching.

I believe that the cause of errors such as annihilationism is the failure to reason typologically. And, I believe this failure is largely the fault of dispensationalist hermeneutics which view typological reasoning with suspicion. They claim to employ literal interpretation of the Bible, which means that they largely avoid typological reasoning, even if it is clear that the Bible teaches in terms of types and shadows. They do not distinguish very well between different genres of literature within the Bible.

Well, I believe Jesus did suffer hell on the Cross. He bore, in essence, the full effect of the Curse on the Cross. Understanding this means that you need to look back to Genesis 1-3, and compare the Fall to the events on the Cross. Look for types and shadows that show up later in the crucifixion account.

As a simple example, notice that the Curse involved thistles and thorns and sweating on man's part. Notice that Jesus wore a crown of thorns, and sweated profusely during the Crucifixion. There are many such parallels..I will leave it to you to identify them.

I will base my reasoning on this short article by Colin Smith:

Six Dimension of Hell on the Cross

Colin Smith

Artists and poets have speculated over the centuries about hell (consider Dante’s “Inferno”), but the clearest revelation of hell is given at the cross. The Apostle’s Creed affirms that Christ descended into hell. While this has often been taken to refer to a journey Christ made after his death, the Reformers understood it to refer to what Christ experienced in the hours of darkness when he bore our sins and became our sacrifice.

Hell has six dimensions and Christ experienced all of them on the cross.

1. He was in conscious suffering.
Jesus experienced great physical suffering—the scourging, the nailing and the mocking—all at the hands of men. He felt in his body all the pain of torture and crucifixion. Hell is a place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Luke 13:28; Matthew 13:50), and Jesus entered into all of its pains and torments when he was suffering on the cross.

2. He was in blackest darkness.
“From the sixth hour [midday] until the ninth hour [3 in the afternoon], darkness came over all the land” (Matthew 27:45). The sudden darkness tells us that something entirely new was happening. Up to this point it had all been about physical suffering. Now Jesus was entering into the heart of his atoning work as our sin-bearer, drinking the cup of God’s wrath.

3. He was surrounded by demonic powers.
Scripture speaks of these dark forces when it tells us that “having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Colossians 2:15). A full picture of this conflict has not been given to us, but we can be sure that the demonic powers were present at Calvary, adding their taunts and venom to the human hatred that was poured out on Christ.

4. He was bearing sin.
1 Peter 2:24 says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.” God made him who had no sin to be sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). In the darkness, the Lord laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). To be our sin-bearer, Christ received in himself the hell that our sins deserve. Klass Schilder says God was “directly sending the torments of hell against the Christ.” This is the deepest mystery in the darkness of the cross.

5. He was under judgment.
Jesus endured hell on the cross because hell is the punishment for sin. All that hell is, he experienced right there during these hours of darkness in which he bore our sin and endured our punishment. The wrath of God was poured out on him, and he became the propitiation for our sins (Romans 3:25, 1 John 2:2).

6. He was separated from the knowledge of God’s love of God.
This abandoning of Christ meant that the love the Son had enjoyed with his Father for all eternity was now beyond his reach. It also meant that the terrors of the Father’s judgment were poured out on the Savior. 2 Thessalonians 1:9 says that “those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus…will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.”

That is hell.

Hell is conscious suffering in blackest darkness, surrounded by demonic powers. It is bearing the guilt of your sin and coming under the righteous judgment of God. But the hell of hell for the sinner will be to know that there is a God of love and that he or she could have known this is love, but that now it is beyond their reach.

When people talk about hell, the discussion is often about whether or not it is real. Hell is as real as the cross. Jesus entered all of hell’s dimensions on the cross, and he endured them so that you would never know what hell is like.

If someone should say, “There is no hell,” I ask, “Then what was the cross about? Why did Christ have to suffer? Why the darkness? Why the forsakenness? These things happened because there is there is Divine wrath, there is judgment and there is hell. All of this was poured out on Jesus, and he absorbed it in himself to save us from it. But as Richard Sibbes says, “Whatsoever was done to Christ…shall be done to all that are out[side] of him.” [ii]

That is as plain a statement as you can get, and it is faithful to the Scriptures. It is why every person must come to Jesus Christ and be in him, because we cannot be saved without him.


https://unlockingthebible.org/2015/04/six-dimensions-of-hell-on-the-cross/

By the way, what prompts me in this regard is the firm, dogmatic claim by someone on the site that God did not abandon Christ, even temporarily, on the Cross. I believe he did. He didn't abandon him ultimately, but in paying the penalty for the sin of the elect, God abandoned Christ on the Cross for a period of time. His resurrection proves that he did not abandoned him permanently, but there was an abandonment on the Cross as he suffered the abandonment that belonged to the sheep that God redeems from the earth for the possession of his son.

Luke 23:46 New International Version (NIV)
46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”[a] When he had said this, he breathed his last.

Jesus God in the flesh who bore the sin of the world proclaimed on the cross before death It is finished. The debt had been paid. Simple. His Spirit committed to the hands of the Father.

Finished as in complete. Scripture does say in 1 Peter and Acts that he visited Hades or realm of the dead. Which is many names for Hell with different meanings. Jesus went to proclaim a message.

1 Peter 3:18-20 New International Version (NIV)
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. 19 being made alive,[a] he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— 20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water,

A soul tormented in Hell doesn't have that kind of authority. But of course scripture has a few words for Hell. Gehenna, Tartarus, Hades, Lake of Fire, and second death, Sheol.

Acts 2:31 New International Version (NIV)
31 Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay.

Realm of the dead in Greek is translated Hades.

Basically if you go off scripture alone without assumptions then we only can conclude that Jesus did visit Hades or the prison those disobedient. This raises other questions because scripture only speaks on the disobedient in the days of Noah. Was these thr offspring of the Nephilim and being help in Tartarus? Or is this the same current Hades? Or did just defeat Hades and visited Tartarus? Assuming again though.

Basically scripture isn't as clear as some say on this subject. But I do believe it is clear that Christ didn't suffer in Hell.

Either way it doesn't matter. Christ paid our debt. And than you Jesus for that.

 

[UnitedWithChrist]

Luke 23:46 New International Version (NIV)
46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”[a] When he had said this, he breathed his last.

Jesus God in the flesh who bore the sin of the world proclaimed on the cross before death It is finished. The debt had been paid. Simple. His Spirit committed to the hands of the Father.

Finished as in complete. Scripture does say in 1 Peter and Acts that he visited Hades or realm of the dead. Which is many names for Hell with different meanings. Jesus went to proclaim a message.

1 Peter 3:18-20 New International Version (NIV)
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. 19 being made alive,[a] he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— 20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water,

A soul tormented in Hell doesn't have that kind of authority. But of course scripture has a few words for Hell. Gehenna, Tartarus, Hades, Lake of Fire, and second death, Sheol.

Acts 2:31 New International Version (NIV)
31 Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay.

Realm of the dead in Greek is translated Hades.

Basically if you go off scripture alone without assumptions then we only can conclude that Jesus did visit Hades or the prison those disobedient. This raises other questions because scripture only speaks on the disobedient in the days of Noah. Was these thr offspring of the Nephilim and being help in Tartarus? Or is this the same current Hades? Or did just defeat Hades and visited Tartarus? Assuming again though.

Basically scripture isn't as clear as some say on this subject. But I do believe it is clear that Christ didn't suffer in Hell.

Either way it doesn't matter. Christ paid our debt. And than you Jesus for that.

I am not claiming Jesus suffered eternal punishment, but in essence, he suffered the Curse on the Cross, prior to his death.

I associate hell with the Curse.

There is a close connection between the Curse and what happened on the Cross. And, part of the Curse is being cast out of the presence of God, as Adam and Eve, and unclean individuals in the Israelite camp, and the unclean people who are cast out of the New Jerusalem.

I am reasoning typologically in my assertions.

 

[Roughsoul1991]

I am not claiming Jesus suffered eternal punishment, but in essence, he suffered the Curse on the Cross, prior to his death.

I associate hell with the Curse.

There is a close connection between the Curse and what happened on the Cross. And, part of the Curse is being cast out of the presence of God, as Adam and Eve, and unclean individuals in the Israelite camp, and the unclean people who are cast out of the New Jerusalem.

I am reasoning typologically in my assertions.

Oh okay. I just have heard the question before put did Jesus suffer in Hell.

 

[Roughsoul1991]

I am not claiming Jesus suffered eternal punishment, but in essence, he suffered the Curse on the Cross, prior to his death.

I associate hell with the Curse.

There is a close connection between the Curse and what happened on the Cross. And, part of the Curse is being cast out of the presence of God, as Adam and Eve, and unclean individuals in the Israelite camp, and the unclean people who are cast out of the New Jerusalem.

I am reasoning typologically in my assertions.

Curse is being cast out of the presence of God,

Are you pulling this belief from Jesus's statement where he cries out Father why have you forsaken me?

 

[John146]

I am not claiming Jesus suffered eternal punishment, but in essence, he suffered the Curse on the Cross, prior to his death.

I associate hell with the Curse.

There is a close connection between the Curse and what happened on the Cross. And, part of the Curse is being cast out of the presence of God, as Adam and Eve, and unclean individuals in the Israelite camp, and the unclean people who are cast out of the New Jerusalem.

I am reasoning typologically in my assertions.

I’m not sure if Jesus suffered in fire and torment on the cross, but what’s interesting is He did say what the rich man said as he was in hell and that is, I thirst.

 

[UnitedWithChrist]

Are you pulling this belief from Jesus's statement where he cries out Father why have you forsaken me?

That's only a partial proof.

That relates specifically to the separation of all unbelievers from God, though.

 

[UnitedWithChrist]

Oh okay. I just have heard the question before put did Jesus suffer in Hell.

I don't believe Jesus went literally to Hades between his death and the resurrection.

Wayne Grudem has addressed that issue.

Any atonement that was made, was made on the Cross..

Because, he said before he died, it is finished.

The phrase used relates to payment of a debt and means something like "paid in full".

 

[Roughsoul1991]

I don't believe Jesus went literally to Hades between his death and the resurrection.

Wayne Grudem has addressed that issue.

Any atonement that was made, was made on the Cross..

Because, he said before he died, it is finished.

The phrase used relates to payment of a debt and means something like "paid in full".

How do you interpret 1 Peter 3:18-20? Not for atonement but to proclaim a message.

The forsaken me passage was Jesus quoting a OT prophecy. If you read the prophecy then you will understand what he was saying.

 

[biker]

Finished as in complete. Scripture does say in 1 Peter and Acts that he visited Hades or realm of the dead. Which is many names for Hell with different meanings. Jesus went to proclaim a message.

I always wondered how scared those Fallen Sons of God were when their Maker walked among them in Hell proclaiming His Triumph and Victory. I can see Jesus walking around while dragging Satan by the ear like a little boy in trouble as He went corridor to corridor explaining to these losers what His Death, Burial, and Resurrection meant to their hold upon humanity.

As a Believer in God myself, each day when I get out of bed and my feet hit the floor, I hope all of Hell is thinking "OH NO, that Warrior of God is up again, run for your lives because his mission is to STEAL someone from us today!"

 

[MessageOfTheCross]

Did Jesus Die Spiritually On The Cross - Part I

QUESTION:

DID OUR LORD DIE SPIRITUALLY ON THE CROSS AS WELL AS PHYSICALLY?

ANSWER:

No!
The essence of this question is, “Did Jesus become a sinner on the Cross and thereby experience spiritual death, as some teach?”
Or was He rather a Sin Offering?
We teach and believe that Jesus was a Sin Offering. We also teach that He was Holy and Pure, just as the Old Testament Offerings foreshadowed. Isaiah said: “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief: when You shall make His Soul an Offering for sin, He shall see His Seed, He shall prolong His Days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His Hand” (Isa. 53:10).

NOTES FROM THE EXPOSITOR’S STUDY BIBLE ON VERSE TEN

“‘Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him,’ refers to the sufferings of Christ, which proceeded from the ‘determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God’ (Acts 2:23), and which, being permitted by Him, were in some way His doing. It ‘pleased Him’ moreover that they should be undergone, for the Father saw with satisfaction the Son’s self-sacrifice, and He witnessed with joy man’s Redemption and Deliverance affected thereby.
“‘He has put Him to grief,’ actually says ‘He has put Him to sicknesses’ or ‘He has made Him sick.’ This spoke of the time He was on the Cross bearing our sins and ‘sicknesses’ (Mat. 8:16-17; I Pet. 2:24). And yet, while all sin and sickness were atoned at the Cross, the total effects of such will not be completely dissipated until the coming Resurrection (Rom. 8:23).
“‘When You shall make His Soul an Offering for sin,’ is powerful indeed! The word ‘Offering’ in the Hebrew is ‘Asham,’ and means ‘a Trespass Offering,’ an ‘Offering for sin.’
“Offerings for sin, or ‘guilt offerings,’ were distinct from ‘Sin Offerings.’ The object of the former was ‘satisfaction’; of the latter, ‘expiation.’ The Servant of Jehovah was, however, to be both. He was both the ‘Sin Offering’ and the ‘Guilt Offering.’
“This completely destroys the idea that Jesus died spiritually on the Cross, meaning that He became a sinner on the Cross, and died and went to Hell as all sinners, and was born again in Hell after three days and nights of suffering, etc. None of that is in the Word of God. While Jesus definitely was a ‘Sin Offering,’ He was not a sinner, and did not become a sinner on the Cross. To have done so would have destroyed His Perfection of Sacrifice, which was demanded by God. In other words, the Sacrifice had to be perfect, and He was Perfect in every respect.
“‘He shall see His Seed,’ refers to all His ‘true followers,’ which include all who have ever been Born-Again.
“‘He shall prolong His Days,’ refers to His Resurrection.
“‘And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His Hand,’ refers to the great victory that He would win at Calvary, which would ultimately restore everything that Adam lost.”

IT IS FINISHED

Jesus did not go to the burning side of Hell for three days to redeem mankind from the terrible ravages of sin. Rather, He preached to the spirits which were in prison in Hell and, as well, He went to Paradise to deliver every person who had gone there for the past 4,000 years.

The Scripture says:

“By which also He went (between the time of His Death and Resurrection) and preached (announced something) unto the spirits in prison (does not refer to humans, but rather to fallen Angels; humans in the Bible are never referred to in this particular manner; these were probably the fallen Angels who tried to corrupt the human race by co-habiting with women [II Pet. 2:4; Jude, Vss. 6-7]; these fallen Angels are still locked up in this underworld prison)” (I Pet. 3:19).

And then Jesus went into Paradise. The Scripture says:

“Wherefore He said (Ps. 68:18), When He ascended up on high (the Ascension), He led captivity captive (liberated the souls in Paradise; before the Cross, despite being Believers, they were still held captive by Satan because the blood of bulls and goats could not take away the sin debt; but when Jesus died on the Cross, the sin debt was paid, and now He makes all of these His Captives), and gave Gifts unto men. (These ‘Gifts’ include all the Attributes of Christ, all made possible by the Cross.)
“(Now that He ascended (mission completed), what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? (Immediately before His Ascension to Glory, which would be done in total triumph, He first went down into Paradise to deliver all the believing souls in that region, which He did!)
“He Who descended is the same also Who ascended (this is a portrayal of Jesus as Deliverer and Mediator) up far above all Heavens (presents His present location, never again having to descend into the nether world), that He might fill all things. (He has always been the Creator, but now He is also the Saviour.)” (Eph. 4:8-10).

 

[MessageOfTheCross]

THE LAST WORDS

Even though the Bible does not tell us exactly which words were the last spoken by Christ on the Cross before He died; however, it is believed that it was in this order: “It is Finished, Father, into Your Hands I commend My Spirit” (Lk. 23:46; Jn. 19:30).
What was finished?
The Work Christ came to do. As of that moment, man’s Salvation was complete. Nothing else was needed. Nothing else could be done that could add to His Finished Work at Calvary. It must be remembered, that while the Resurrection was of extreme significance, as should be obvious, still, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and the Exaltation of Christ were a result of the Cross. In fact, had one sin been left unatoned, due to the fact that the wages of sin is death, Christ could not have risen from the dead (Rom. 6:23). The fact of His Resurrection portrays the glaring truth that all was completed at Calvary. Actually, nothing else could be done that could add to His Finished Work. So these three words, “It is finished,” stand as a permanent rebuke to the doctrine that Jesus had to go to Hell and die spiritually to redeem man.

DIED AS A LOST SINNER ON THE CROSS?

This false doctrine of Jesus dying spiritually, also teaches that the sinless Son of God became unregenerate and died as a lost sinner at Calvary and that He had to be born again and justified from sin. The pitiful thing about this whole line of thinking is that He, they claim, was somehow born again in, of all places, Hell!
Now if perchance this were true, it would have been necessary for someone to die for the Lord Jesus Christ to redeem Him from His unregenerate state and provide for His Justification. Of course, we know this is all utter foolishness, because Jesus did not become unregenerate, and He did not die a lost sinner.

THE BLOOD?

Some time ago one of the leading proponents of this heresy, and heresy it is, stated, “When His Blood was poured out, it did not atone. It simply did away with the handwriting of the Ordinances that were against us.”
He went on to say that Jesus redeemed man, not on the Cross but in Hell. Hopefully, the proponents of this doctrine do not realize what they are doing, for they are actually denying the Blood Atonement of Jesus Christ, and that is a very serious thing! It seems they do not understand that they have negated the power of Jesus’ Blood to cleanse from sin, by their teaching that Jesus became an unholy sacrifice on the Cross. This is heresy, and it is dangerous.

HERESY

This heresy appears to teach that Jesus identified with the sinner on the Cross, while it ignores the fact that Jesus became a substitute for sinners — confusing the identification of Jesus with the human race at His Birth with His Substitution for sinners on the Cross.
If Jesus had become literal sin and had become lost and unregenerate while He hung on the Cross of Calvary, then He would have been an unacceptable sacrificial offering to God for the sins of others. Whereas if He indeed remained Pure and Holy as the Scriptures assert, then God could accept Him as a Substitute on behalf of sinners. It was only in this way that He could fulfill the Old Testament Type where the animal for the Sin Offering had to be spotless and “without blemish” (Lev. 4:2-3). If you remember, the Sin Offering was regarded as most holy even after its death.

Concerning our Lord, Peter also said:

“For even hereunto were you called (called to act Christlike, irrespective): because Christ also suffered for us (Peter reminds these slaves that Christ also suffered unjustly, for He the Just One died on behalf of unjust ones), leaving us an example, that we should follow His Steps (we are to reproduce Christ in our lives, which we can only do by the Help, Guidance, Leading, and Power of the Holy Spirit [Jn. 16:7-16]):
“Who did no sin (Christ was the only sinless human being Who ever lived), neither was guile found in His Mouth (He never sinned by speaking hypocritically or falsely, not even one time):
“Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again (He did not respond in kind); when He suffered, He threatened not (when He suffered unjustly, He did not call down wrath from Heaven, which He definitely could have done); but committed Himself to Him Who Judges Righteously (He committed His defense to God, which we as well should do):
“Who His Own Self bear our sins in His Own Body on the tree (gave Himself in Sacrifice on the Cross, taking the full penalty for our sins, which was physical death; it was not Christ’s suffering that redeemed us, although that definitely was a part of what happened, but rather the price He paid by the giving of Himself), that we, being dead to sins, should live unto Righteousness (we are ‘dead to sins’ by virtue of us being ‘in Christ’ when He died on the Cross, which is done by our exhibiting Faith in Christ [Rom. 6:3-5]; and we were raised with Him in ‘newness of life,’ which guarantees us a perfect, spotless Righteousness): by Whose stripes you were healed. (This refers to the healing of our souls, and the healing of our physical body as well. The Atonement included everything man lost in the Fall, but we only have the Firstfruits now, with the balance coming at the Resurrection [Rom. 8:23].)” (I Pet. 2:21-24).

 

[MessageOfTheCross]

THE JUST!

Peter also said:

“For Christ also has once suffered for sins (the suffering of Christ on the Cross was but for one purpose, and that was ‘for sins’; while we as Believers might suffer for sins as well, such is never in the realm of Atonement; the price has been fully paid, which means there is nothing left owing), the just for the unjust (Christ was the Perfect Sacrifice, the One Who was born without original sin, and Who lived a Perfect Life, never failing even in one point; He Alone was the ‘Just’), that He might bring us to God (refers to the way being opened for sinful man to come into the very Presence of God), being put to death in the flesh (refers to the fact that Jesus died physically in order to serve as a Sacrifice, which means He didn’t die spiritually, as some claim!), but quickened by the Spirit (raised from the dead by the Holy Spirit [Rom. 8:11])” (I Pet. 3:18).

The Scripture in this Passage plainly says that Jesus, while suffering for our sins was “just.” So if He was just, while He was on the Cross suffering for our sins, how could He at the same time be unjust? The unjust as given here in this Passage, could not redeem the unjust. Such thinking is ludicrous to say the least! But, if Jesus became a sinner on the Cross as the Word of Faith people claim, how could He at the same time be “just”?

WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?

Someone may ask the question, “What difference does all of this make?” The answer is, “It makes all the difference in the world,” because according to the Word of God our eternal Salvation rests upon what we personally believe concerning the Blood Atonement of Jesus Christ. It is here, at the Cross that a person’s Salvation either stands or falls. The doctrine of Jesus dying spiritually on the Cross and going to Hell, and Him having to be “born again” as a sinner, is heresy of the most serious kind — its seriousness stemming from the fact that if a person believes this perverted doctrine, he will find that in the end he has been robbed of the truth of the Blood Atonement.
The Bible is emphatic on this matter: one sinner cannot redeem another sinner. Only one who is guiltless could ever act as a substitute and suffer the punishment for the guilty party, thereby saving the guilty party. Even Jesus, although the Son of God could not have done this if He had become guilty Himself, as this particular doctrine contends. The central thrust of the entire Old Testament Sacrificial System is that Jesus was the guiltless Substitute, Who, like the Old Testament Type, remained Pure and Holy both on the Cross and after His Death.
There is nothing more important than the Atonement. If we are wrong about that, then we are wrong about our Salvation.
Using the physical body as an example, if we have a hangnail, that’s one thing; however, if we have a problem with our heart that’s something else altogether. The hangnail won’t kill you, the heart will! The Atonement is the heart of the Gospel, so to speak, and millions are in Hell today, and millions are on their way to Hell, to put it bluntly, simply because they believed a false way of Salvation. Nothing is worse than that!

THE JESUS DIED SPIRITUALLY DOCTRINE

According to the proponents of this heresy, and heresy it is, Jesus became sin on the Cross when He yielded Himself to Satan. He swallowed up the evil nature of Satan, thus becoming one in nature with the adversary, taking upon Himself the diabolical nature of Satan. At that time He became a lost man, they say, crying, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mat. 27:46; Ps. 22:1). These teachers, therefore, conclude that Jesus at that time died spiritually, i.e., became a lost sinner.
He was then taken to the pit of Hell, they say, and we speak of the burning side of Hell, where He was chained with the fetters of sin, wickedness, disease, and all other evils of Satan. The Devil stood before the darkness, crying, “We have conquered the Son of God.” There followed, they continue, a gala celebration down in the Pit. Satan believed he had finally triumphed over God.
Jesus consequently suffered agonies beyond description in the Pit for three days as all the hosts of Hell were upon Him. But then suddenly, they say, Jesus was justified. From His Throne in Heaven, Almighty God arose and put His Hands to His Mouth and screamed, “It is Finished; it is enough.” Jesus was now, they say, “born again” and made spiritually alive once more.
Hell itself then was shaken, they say. Jesus shook off His Chains of sin, sickness, and evil. He walked over to the Devil, grabbed him, and threw him to the ground. As the Devil cowered and trembled on the floor of the Pit, Jesus put His Foot on top of him and took the keys of death, Hell, and the grave from Satan.
At this time, according to these teachers, the Holy Spirit kicked open the gates of Hell and raised Jesus from death. He then ascended to the Father and announced, “I have paid the price. The prison is now opened.” He was now a born again man who had defeated Satan. Jesus was the firstborn from the spiritually dead. Thus, it was at the time Jesus was made alive down in the Pit that the Believer was also made alive. The Church, they continue, had its origin in the pit of Hell when Jesus was begotten from the dead as the “firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29).
At first glance, this doctrine appears to be a glorious cause for rejoicing; however, if you think about it for a moment, you quickly realize that you have never read anything of this nature on the pages of your Bible. Why? Because it’s not in the Bible! It is fictitious from beginning to end.

THE TRUTH

The truth is, “He blotted out the handwriting of Ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His Cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Col. 2:14-15). The words, “Nailing it to His Cross . . . triumphing over them in it” means that Jesus’ great victory was won on the Cross, and on the Cross exclusively.

JSM

 

[MessageOfTheCross]

Did Jesus Die Spiritually On The Cross - Part II

JUSTIFIED!

Paul said about Christ:

"And without controversy great is the mystery of Godliness (refers to the Truth of the Cross previously hidden, but now fully revealed): God was manifest in the flesh (refers to the Incarnation of Christ), justified in the Spirit (vindicated, endorsed, proved, and pronounced by the Holy Spirit), seen of Angels (refers to the fact that Angels witnessed every capacity of His Birth, Life, Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension), Preached unto the Gentiles (would have been better translated, "Preached unto the Nations"; His Atonement was for the entirety of mankind, which Message is to be proclaimed to the entirety of the world), believed on in the world (accepted by many), received up into Glory. (His Mission was accomplished, finished, and accepted in totality by God.)" (I Tim. 3:16).

The teachers of the "Jesus died spiritually doctrine" conclude from the phrase, "justified in the Spirit" that Jesus Himself had to be justified, and had to be made sin, and possess an evil, satanic nature. Thus, they say, He had to be made righteous once more, justified, and born again. But, according to the Greek, even as we have already stated, "to justify" as it is used here is "to declare righteous" or "to show to be righteous." Jesus was "evinced to be righteous as to His Spiritual Nature."

The Bible, in this Passage, is not saying that Jesus was being made righteous, but that His Righteousness was being announced. Jesus never ceased to be righteous; He never ceased to be just. But as a Man, the Man Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit, in essence, is saying that Christ is just as righteous now as He was before the Incarnation.

Therefore, without any Scriptural support whatsoever, these teachers declare, "suddenly God justified Jesus in the Pit and He was born again."

There is no Scriptural basis whatsoever for the doctrine that says that God arbitrarily waved His Hand over Christ and said, "be Thou cleansed," and suddenly Jesus was justified (made righteous), born again, and restored to Sonship with the Father.

THE GODHEAD

Was Jesus abandoned by God at Calvary, as these teachers claim?

No!

Jesus was God's Own Sacrifice, chosen by Him (Isa., Chpt. 53; Jn. 1:29; 3:16) and never out of Divine Favor for one moment. He was called "an Offering and a Sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savor" (Eph. 5:2). This is in perfect harmony with the Old Testament teaching that the Sin Offering was "most holy" to God (Lev., Chpt. 6).

First of all, it is impossible to separate the Godhead - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. "For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. 2:9). If Jesus had died spiritually, then at the Cross" - by Him being lost - He would have divided the Godhead, or at least had made the entire Godhead sinful and in need of the new birth. The idea of dividing up the Godhead for three days by sending the Son of God to Hell as a lost sinner, totally abandoned by God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, is totally ridiculous. This spurious teaching even goes so far as to say that God was no longer the Father of Jesus while He was in Hell.

 

[MessageOfTheCross]

THE WORDS OF JESUS ON THE CROSS

When Jesus uttered the words on the Cross, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Jesus was quoting from a Prophetic Passage, Psalms 22:1. He also said, "I thirst" (Jn. 19:28). An utterance based upon another Old Testament Prophecy, Psalms 69:21. When He uttered these words, "My God, My God," the religious leaders and the people of His day misinterpreted them saying, "This man calls for Elijah" (Mat. 27:47).

With these words Jesus consciously identified Himself as the One of Whom the Old Testament Prophecy spoke. Someone has even supposed that Jesus recited all of Psalm 22 as well as other Prophecies concerning Him while He hung on the Cross for several hours. We do know, of course, that not everything Jesus did was recorded. Only a small portion was, in fact, recorded (Jn. 21:25).

Was Jesus forsaken by God?

No, He was not.

God had temporally "turned a deaf ear," in that, instead of delivering His Son from death, which He did do on several occasions, the Father delivered Him up unto death when He became a Sin Offering for others; but this was not abandonment. Jesus Himself said, "Behold, the hour comes, yes, is now come, that you shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me" (Jn. 16:32). He could say this because "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself" (II Cor. 5:19).

PHYSICAL DEATH

The Bible states again and again that Jesus offered up His Body as a Sacrifice for our sins, that He was put to death in the flesh. In other words, Jesus died physically but not spiritually. Nowhere in the Word of God does it tell us that Jesus died in His Spirit. However, it does say . . .

• "Christ . . . His Own Self bear our sins in His Own Body on the tree" (I Pet. 2:21-24).
• "Christ . . . was put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit" (I Pet. 3:18).
• "Christ has suffered for us in the flesh" (I Pet. 4:1).
• "He reconciled us in the Body of His Flesh through death" (Col. 1:21-22).
• "We are Sanctified through the Offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Heb. 10:10).
• "He abolished in His Flesh the enmity, even the Law of Commandments" (Eph. 2:15).

So, while Scriptures repeatedly stress that Jesus offered up His Body and His Flesh as a Sacrifice for sin, not once do they say He died in His Spirit.

God could not die spiritually. Why would the Son of God need a body of flesh? He took on flesh so that He could die physically on behalf of sinners as had the Old Testament Type.

The erroneous teaching, it seems, is that the shedding of Jesus' Blood was insignificant. The following are some of the ridiculous theories of this doctrine.

FALSE ASSERTIONS OF THIS UNSCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE

• When His Blood was poured out, it did not atone.
• Jesus bled only a few drops, and when people sing about the Blood of Jesus, they do not know what they are talking about.

To comment on this would be a waste of time. The efficacy of the Atonement did not depend on how much blood was shed on the Cross, or how much time was involved in the process of dying. The Atonement's validity depended on the fact that the Son of God shed His spotless Blood and died on our behalf. This false teaching claims that . . .

 

[MessageOfTheCross]

FALSE TEACHING

• Jesus was "born again" in the pit of Hell as the first man to be regenerated under the New Covenant. The proponents of this doctrine apparently are referring to the Verse that says, "God . . . has raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the Second Psalm, "You are My Son, this day have I begotten You"" (Acts 13:33).
  
  
• He was the first begotten from spiritual death, citing, "Jesus Christ, Who is the faithful Witness, and the first begotten of the dead" (Rev. 1:5).
  
  
• Jesus started the Church in Hell when He was "born again" in the Pit, citing, "Jesus became the Firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29).
  
  
• He was righteous while on Earth, but while on the Cross He became unrighteous, and went to Hell, and then in the Pit was made righteous once more. That seems strange when the Bible says that He is unchangeable (Mal. 3:6; Heb. 13:8).
  
  The first thing we must make clear is that two different English terms were used by the King James translators to translate the same Greek word. "Firstborn and Firstbegotten" both translate "prototokos." "Firstbegotten" (Heb. 1:6; Rev. 1:5) is "firstborn." "Begotten" (Acts 13:33), a different Greek word altogether, refers to the physical Resurrection of Jesus and completely rules out the fanciful notion that Jesus was born again in Hell.
  
  In the preceding Verses (Acts 13:16-32) Paul spoke of Christ's physical Death and the burial of His Body in a sepulcher. Verses 30 through 33 speak of His physical Resurrection from the dead. The Resurrection of Jesus in the Bible always has reference to the Resurrection of His Body and not of His Spirit, since His Spirit did not die (Lk. 24:36-46; I Cor. 15:20-23).
  
  The term "firstborn" in Scripture is used not only to refer to the physical birth of the first child in a family, but also to speak of position and inheritance rights. So, the term refers not merely to birth, but also to birthright as well as to position or status. The firstborn always held a special position in God's Sight, possessing special rights and privileges. In this same sense, Jesus Christ is called the "firstborn" (Rom. 8:29; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:6).
  
  In Romans 8:29, it refers to Jesus as being the Father of the Salvation Plan.
  
  In Colossians 1:15, it refers to Jesus being the Creator of all things.
  
  In Hebrews 1:6, it refers to Jesus being born of the Virgin Mary.
  
  In Colossians 1:18, it refers to Jesus being the first to be raised from the dead as it regards the Resurrection, never to die again. In other words, Jesus is the Father of Creation, the Father of Salvation, and the Father of the Resurrection. That is what the word "firstborn," means. In fact, the Greek Scholars tell us, that the word "firstborn" is as near in English that can be obtained from the Greek word "prototokos," but doesn't quite give it the full meaning.
  
  FROM THE CROSS TO THE RESURRECTION
  
  After His Death on Calvary, Jesus did go down into Paradise, which, in effect, was a part of Hell, even as our Lord outlined it in Luke, Chapter 16, where the righteous souls - such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and other Old Testament Saints - were kept, and one might say, against their will. Actually, they were captives of Satan, even though he could not harm them, with our Lord saying that they were comforted (Lk. 16:25).
  
  All of this means that when the Old Testament Saints died, they could not be taken to Heaven, but were rather taken down into Paradise, sometimes referred to as "Abraham's bosom" (Lk. 16:23). There was a reason that they could not be taken to Heaven at that time.
  
  Jesus had not yet gone to the Cross, and Paul plainly stated, "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins" (Heb. 10:4). While these Old Testament Saints most definitely were Saved, their Salvation to be sure, was predicated totally and solely upon the Redemption that would be afforded upon Christ going to the Cross. In other words, everything hinged on the Cross. It was there that every sin was atoned, which included all the Old Testament Saints.
  
  The animal blood being insufficient to remove the sin debt, this means that the terrible realization of such, was forever with the Old Testament Saints. Concerning this, Paul also said:
  
  "The Holy Spirit this signifying (the Holy Spirit was both the Divine Author of the Levitical system of worship, and its Interpreter), that the way into the Holiest of all was not yet made manifest (proclaims the fact [and by the Holy Spirit, at that] that access to God was blocked while the Law was enforced, except in the most limited way), while as the First Tabernacle was yet standing (show the limitations of the Levitical system):
  
  "Which was a figure for the time then present (refers to the Tabernacle being a representation of Heavenly realities), in which were offered both Gifts and Sacrifices, that could not make him who did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience (portrays the weakness of the First Covenant, in that it was based on animal blood, which was insufficient; in other words, the conscience of the Jew was still heavy with realization that sin had only been covered, not taken away; only the Cross could take away sin [Jn. 1:29]);
  
  "Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal Ordinances (refers to the entirety of the Levitical system, which could only present Types and Shadows), imposed on them until the time of Reformation. (The Cross, to which all of this pointed, would address all of this once and for all.)
  
  "But Christ being come (the little word but is the pivot upon which all the arguments swing) an High Priest (presented by the Apostle to show how marvelously the one Offering of our Lord Jesus Christ transcends all the Types and Shadows of the old) of good things to come (should have been translated, of the good things realized), by a greater and more perfect Tabernacle (presents Christ Himself as the more Perfect Tabernacle), not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building (Christ is not a flimsy structure like the Tabernacle of old);
  
  "Neither by the blood of goats and calves (proclaims by the fact of the continued need of more Sacrifices that it was not properly effected), but by His Own Blood (presents the price paid) He entered in once into the Holy Place (presents Christ doing what no other Priest had ever done; He offered a Sacrifice that was complete, which means it would never have to be repeated; thereby, the Heavenly Tabernacle was opened to Him; and if opened to Him, it was opened to us as well), having obtained Eternal Redemption for us. (This proclaims what was accomplished by the giving of Himself on the Cross)" (Heb. 9:8-12).
  
  As we have stated, Jesus did go down into Paradise, which was a part of Hell, where the righteous souls were, but there was no record that He ever went into the burning Pit. This is the place to which Jesus was referring when He said to the dying thief, "Today shall you be with Me in Paradise" (Lk. 23:43). He was speaking of that place in the heart of the Earth where He would go. The other thief would go to the punishment side of Hell where the rich man was.

 

[MessageOfTheCross]

• HE LED CAPTIVITY CAPTIVE
  
  After Jesus died on the Cross, He went down into Paradise to "lead captivity captive" (Eph. 4:8). This strange term means that all of the Old Testament Saints were actually captives of Satan, in effect, kept in this place against their will, in fact, awaiting the coming of Christ. And let it be understood, when Jesus went down into this place, He did not go there as a defeated worm, as some claim, but He went as a victorious conqueror, which, in fact, He was. That is what the Scripture means when it says that Christ descended first into Hell, the lower parts of the Earth (Ps. 16:10; Acts 2:27; Eph. 4:8-10). He captured these righteous souls from Satan, and there was nothing the Evil One could do about it, leading them captive to Heaven when He ascended on high. This fulfilled Psalms 68:18.
  
  Prior to this, as stated, all righteous souls went into Hades or Sheol when they died, along with the souls of the wicked who went to another compartment of that place. These two compartments had a great gulf between them (Lk. 16:19-31), in effect, separating the two. Since the Cross, every Believer upon death immediately goes to Heaven to await the Resurrection of the body (II Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:21-24; Heb. 12:23; Rev. 6:9-11).
  
  When the wicked die, they continue to go into this torment compartment of Hades or Sheol until the end of the Millennium. Then death and Hell will deliver up the wicked souls, who will be reunited with their bodies and resurrected to be sentenced to the Lake of Fire, which will take place at the Great White Throne Judgment (Rev. 20:11-15).
  
  In this context a person could say that Jesus went to Hell, but it in no way means that He went down into the burning flames of the Pit as a sinner. Nor was He molested by Satan, triumphed over by the powers of darkness, and then suddenly justified by God and born again as the "Firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). This is an erroneous teaching that does not understand the Scriptural sense of the Atonement and the vicarious Sacrifice paid by Christ at Calvary’s Cross as a Sin Offering.
  
  As well, of Jesus during the three days and nights He was in the heart of the Earth, the Scripture says:
  
  "By which also He went (between the time of His Death and Resurrection) and preached (announced something) unto the spirits in prison (does not refer to humans, but rather to fallen Angels; humans in the Bible are never referred to in this particular manner; these were probably the fallen Angels who tried to corrupt the human race by cohabiting with women [II Pet. 2:4; Jude, Vss. 6-7]; these fallen Angels are still locked up in this underworld prison);
  
  "Which sometime (in times past) were disobedient (this was shortly before the Flood), when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah (refers to this eruption of fallen Angels with women taking place at the time of Noah; this was probably a hundred or so years before the Flood), while the Ark was a preparing (these fallen Angels were committing this particular sin while the Ark was being made ready, however long it took; the Scripture doesn't say!), wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. (This doesn't refer to being Saved from sin. They were saved from drowning in the Flood by being in the Ark)" (I Pet. 3:19-20).
  
  
  
  What Jesus said to these fallen Angels we aren't told, but the following must be said.
  
  FROM THE CROSS TO THE RESURRECTION
  
  The Word of God relates only two things to us, even as we have enumerated, which Christ did during His three days and nights in the heart of the Earth, between His Death on Calvary and His Resurrection. They are:
  
  
• He preached to these fallen Angels who were locked up and, in fact, are still locked up at this time in the heart of the Earth. They will, at the Great White Throne Judgment, be placed into the Lake of Fire with their master Satan, where they will remain forever and forever (Rev. 20:10-15).
  
  The word "preached" as Peter used it here, is not the same Greek word used as we normally think of preaching. It actually means that Jesus made an announcement to these Angels, but it doesn't say what that announcement was. Quite possibly, the Cross now being a fact where every sin was atoned and Redemption afforded for all who will believe, He related to them the stern fact that they had failed and failed miserably.
  
  
• He went into the place called Paradise, where He "led captivity captive," meaning that He delivered every righteous soul in that place, taking them with Him to Heaven. The compartment called Paradise is now empty.
  
  Those two things alone are all that the Scripture says as it regards what Jesus did between the Cross and His Resurrection. The Scripture says absolutely nothing about Jesus going into the burning side of the Pit, where He suffered as a sinner for three days and nights, etc. All of that is a fabrication.
  
  No, Jesus did not die spiritually on the Cross. He did not go to the burning side of Hell. He was not placed under Satan's domain. He was not subject to the Evil One. He was, in fact, the Perfect Sacrifice as our Substitute, given up as a "Sin Offering." He died physically, not spiritually.
  
  ARE THOSE WHO SUBSCRIBE TO THE JESUS DIED SPIRITUALLY DOCTRINE, SAVED?
  
  Some are, and some aren't!
  
  If it is to be noticed, those who are in this particular
  
  doctrine claim that it's not their business to try to get people Saved, but rather to lead them to a deeper experience with God, which, in effect, will tell them how to get rich, etc. So, precious few people are Saved under these particular Ministries, whoever they might be.
  
  The reason should be obvious, what they are preaching is error and, in fact, a person cannot be Saved by believing that error. So they don't even try to get people to come to Christ.
  
  The truth is, many of the people in this doctrine, gave their hearts to Christ, and were truly Saved, before believing this particular fabrication. In fact, most people in the Word of Faith teaching have little or no understanding at all of the "Jesus died spiritually doctrine." As stated, they have already given their hearts and lives to Christ under other types of ministry. If the cover be pulled off this teaching, most have embraced its concepts, thinking that it is their avenue to riches. To be sure, there are riches involved, but it's only for a few of the preachers and not for the people at all.
  
  Regrettably, the "Jesus died spiritually doctrine" repudiates the Cross, referring to it as "past miseries," and "the worst defeat in human history." Many, if not most, of their Churches refuse to even sing songs about the Blood, about the Cross, about the great Sacrifice of Christ, concluding and claiming that such are "defeatist."
  
  All of that is strange when Paul said, "I, Brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the Testimony of God.
  
  "For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him Crucified" (I Cor. 2:1-2).
  
  If the Cross of Christ was the primary Message of the Apostle Paul, it had better be our primary Message as well!

JSM

 

[garee]

The question is simple...did Jesus suffer hell on the Cross?

Sometimes annihilationists will claim that physical death was the only thing Jesus suffered on the Cross, therefore eternal punishment is only physical death. They will claim that the Bible does not use death in a metaphorical sense, so that it can be applied to spiritual deadness as well as physical deadness.

Often this is coupled with the belief that man is not a spirit-body composite, and that man only has a physical nature, not a spiritual nature.

I used to be an annihilationist, by the way, and have rejected this as a false teaching.

I believe that the cause of errors such as annihilationism is the failure to reason typologically. And, I believe this failure is largely the fault of dispensationalist hermeneutics which view typological reasoning with suspicion. They claim to employ literal interpretation of the Bible, which means that they largely avoid typological reasoning, even if it is clear that the Bible teaches in terms of types and shadows. They do not distinguish very well between different genres of literature within the Bible.

Well, I believe Jesus did suffer hell on the Cross. He bore, in essence, the full effect of the Curse on the Cross. Understanding this means that you need to look back to Genesis 1-3, and compare the Fall to the events on the Cross. Look for types and shadows that show up later in the crucifixion account.

As a simple example, notice that the Curse involved thistles and thorns and sweating on man's part. Notice that Jesus wore a crown of thorns, and sweated profusely during the Crucifixion. There are many such parallels..I will leave it to you to identify them.

I will base my reasoning on this short article by Colin Smith:

Six Dimension of Hell on the Cross

Colin Smith

Artists and poets have speculated over the centuries about hell (consider Dante’s “Inferno”), but the clearest revelation of hell is given at the cross. The Apostle’s Creed affirms that Christ descended into hell. While this has often been taken to refer to a journey Christ made after his death, the Reformers understood it to refer to what Christ experienced in the hours of darkness when he bore our sins and became our sacrifice.

Hell has six dimensions and Christ experienced all of them on the cross.

1. He was in conscious suffering.
Jesus experienced great physical suffering—the scourging, the nailing and the mocking—all at the hands of men. He felt in his body all the pain of torture and crucifixion. Hell is a place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Luke 13:28; Matthew 13:50), and Jesus entered into all of its pains and torments when he was suffering on the cross.

2. He was in blackest darkness.
“From the sixth hour [midday] until the ninth hour [3 in the afternoon], darkness came over all the land” (Matthew 27:45). The sudden darkness tells us that something entirely new was happening. Up to this point it had all been about physical suffering. Now Jesus was entering into the heart of his atoning work as our sin-bearer, drinking the cup of God’s wrath.

3. He was surrounded by demonic powers.
Scripture speaks of these dark forces when it tells us that “having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Colossians 2:15). A full picture of this conflict has not been given to us, but we can be sure that the demonic powers were present at Calvary, adding their taunts and venom to the human hatred that was poured out on Christ.

4. He was bearing sin.
1 Peter 2:24 says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.” God made him who had no sin to be sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). In the darkness, the Lord laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). To be our sin-bearer, Christ received in himself the hell that our sins deserve. Klass Schilder says God was “directly sending the torments of hell against the Christ.” This is the deepest mystery in the darkness of the cross.

5. He was under judgment.
Jesus endured hell on the cross because hell is the punishment for sin. All that hell is, he experienced right there during these hours of darkness in which he bore our sin and endured our punishment. The wrath of God was poured out on him, and he became the propitiation for our sins (Romans 3:25, 1 John 2:2).

6. He was separated from the knowledge of God’s love of God.
This abandoning of Christ meant that the love the Son had enjoyed with his Father for all eternity was now beyond his reach. It also meant that the terrors of the Father’s judgment were poured out on the Savior. 2 Thessalonians 1:9 says that “those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus…will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.”

That is hell.

Hell is conscious suffering in blackest darkness, surrounded by demonic powers. It is bearing the guilt of your sin and coming under the righteous judgment of God. But the hell of hell for the sinner will be to know that there is a God of love and that he or she could have known this is love, but that now it is beyond their reach.

When people talk about hell, the discussion is often about whether or not it is real. Hell is as real as the cross. Jesus entered all of hell’s dimensions on the cross, and he endured them so that you would never know what hell is like.

If someone should say, “There is no hell,” I ask, “Then what was the cross about? Why did Christ have to suffer? Why the darkness? Why the forsakenness? These things happened because there is there is Divine wrath, there is judgment and there is hell. All of this was poured out on Jesus, and he absorbed it in himself to save us from it. But as Richard Sibbes says, “Whatsoever was done to Christ…shall be done to all that are out[side] of him.” [ii]

That is as plain a statement as you can get, and it is faithful to the Scriptures. It is why every person must come to Jesus Christ and be in him, because we cannot be saved without him.


https://unlockingthebible.org/2015/04/six-dimensions-of-hell-on-the-cross/

By the way, what prompts me in this regard is the firm, dogmatic claim by someone on the site that God did not abandon Christ, even temporarily, on the Cross. I believe he did. He didn't abandon him ultimately, but in paying the penalty for the sin of the elect, God abandoned Christ on the Cross for a period of time. His resurrection proves that he did not abandoned him permanently, but there was an abandonment on the Cross as he suffered the abandonment that belonged to the sheep that God redeems from the earth for the possession of his son.

The cross is one part of the demonstration used to represent the metaphor "three day in the heart of the earth" or "belly of the whale" literally called hell as a living suffering.( Die once) God does not accept dead sacrifices. The dead animals that were used to represent life. Its blood separate from the spirit must be poured at the foot of the altar to show its return to the lifeless spiritless dust it was taken from. The temporal corrupted spirit subject to the letter of the law death returns to the father of all spirit life. No suffering beyond death.

The garden portion of that three days in the heart of the earth parable gives what I think a clearer picture that shows the flesh and blood profits for nothing but it is rather the unseen work of the father pouring out His spirit on the flesh of Jesus as that which can profit. To do what the letter of the law could not.