Because human nature must suffer judgment, God's Son, the man Jesus Christ, bore on the cross in His spirit, soul, and body the punishment mankind deserved.

Let us first consider the suffering in His body. Man sins through his body. The body causes man to sin and sense the pleasure of sin. Therefore, the part of man that needs to be punished is the body. Man sins through the body, and the body lures man to commit sin. Consequently, the body must be punished. Who can fully comprehend the suffering in the body of the Lord Jesus while He was on the cross? In the Old Testament, "the Psalms of the Messiah" (psalms concerning Christ) give a clear description of the agony in His body. "They pierce my hands and feet" (Psa. 22:16). The prophet described Him as One "whom they have pierced" (Zech 12:10). His hands, His feet, His forehead, His side, and His heart were all pierced by men, pierced by sinful human nature and for sinful human nature. At that time He had been sorely wounded. Because the weight of His body had been hanging on the cross without support, He had a high fever due to constricted blood circulation in the whole body. His mouth became very dry, and He cried, "My tongue is stuck to my jaws" (Psa. 22:15), and "In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink" (Psa. 69:21). The hands love to sin; therefore, they must be nailed. The mouth loves to sin; therefore, it must suffer. The feet love to sin; therefore, they must be pierced. The head loves to sin; therefore, it must wear the thorny crown. The punishment which the human body needed to suffer was fully carried out on His body. It was thus that He suffered physical pain until death ended all. Although He had the power to avoid these sufferings, He gave His body over willingly to suffer these indescribable pains and agonies. He did not shrink back for a moment until He knew that "all things had now been finished" (John 19:28). Only then did He give up His life.

Not only did His body suffer, but His soul also suffered. Our soul is the faculty of self-consciousness. When the Lord Jesus was on the cross, the people offered Him wine mixed with myrrh so that He would become unconscious and would not feel the pain, but He refused it. He did not want to lose His consciousness. Man's soul is quite keen to the pleasures of sin; now He must be fully conscious of the pains of sin. He chose to drink the cup given Him by God and would not drink the cup that would result in the loss of consciousness.

How shameful is the cross as an instrument of punishment! It was for the punishment of runaway slaves. A slave had no possessions, no civil rights, and no rights of ownership. Even his body belonged to his master; therefore, the cross, the most shameful punishment, was applied to runaway slaves. The Lord Jesus took His place as a slave and was nailed to the cross. Isaiah called Him a slave; Paul also said He was a slave. He came as a slave to save us, who throughout all our lives were slaves to sin and Satan. We were slaves of lust, temper, habits, and the world; we were sold to sin; but He died for our enslavement and bore all our shame.

The Bible tells us that the soldiers took His garments (John 19:23). When He was crucified, He was almost naked. This was the shame of the crucifixion. Sin takes away our garments of light and makes us naked. The Lord Jesus was stripped before Pilate and then again unclothed at Golgotha. How did His holy soul react to this? Did this not trample on the holiness of His humanity and make Him feel shameful? Who can comprehend how His soul felt in such an hour? While all men enjoyed the glory of sin, our Savior suffered the shame of sin. Truly, at that time God "covered him with shame," and "Your enemies have reproached,/O Jehovah, with which they have reproached the footsteps of Your anointed" (Psa. 89:45, 51). Nevertheless, He "endured the cross, despising the shame" (Heb. 12:2).