No one can actually comprehend how His soul suffered on the cross. Often we only consider the suffering in His body and neglect the feeling of His soul. The week before the Passover, He said, "Now is My soul troubled" (John 12:27). This speaks of the cross. When He was at Gethsemane He said, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death" (Matt. 26:38). Without these words we could hardly imagine the agonies in His soul. Isaiah 53:10 through 12 says three times that He gave up His soul and poured out His soul unto death. Because He bore the curse and the shame of the cross, all who believe in Him no longer need to bear the curse and the shame.
His spirit also suffered greatly. The spirit is the part through which man fellowships with God. God's Son is holy and sinless, set apart from sinners. His spirit, in union with the Holy Spirit, never had a moment of obscurity or disturbance. He constantly enjoyed God's presence. "For I am not alone, but I and the Father who sent Me" (John 8:16). "And He who sent Me is with Me" (v. 29). Therefore, He was able to pray, "Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. And I knew that You always hear Me" (11:41-42). However, while He was on the cross—if ever there was a day He needed God's presence, it had to be that day (probably no other day exceeded that day)—He cried, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matt. 27:46). His spirit was actually separated from God. Now He felt alone, rejected, and separated. Still He was obedient, doing God's will; but now He was forsaken—not for Himself but for the sins of others.
The greatest effect of sin is on the spirit. Therefore, even such a holy One, the Son of God, because of bearing others' sins, actually became separated from God. It was a fact that in the unfathomable eternity "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30), and this remained true when He was on earth. Humanity could not separate Him from God. However, sin could, although it was the sin of others. He suffered the spirit's separation for us in order that our spirit could be reconciled to God.
When He saw the death of Lazarus, perhaps He thought about His own death, so He "was moved with indignation in His spirit" (John 11:33). When He announced that He would be betrayed and die on the cross, He was "troubled in His spirit" (13:21). Therefore, when He was on the hill of Golgotha receiving God's judgment, He cried, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" "I remember God, and I moan; / I complain, and my spirit faints" (Psa. 77:3). It was because His spirit was cut off from God's Spirit that He was devoid in His spirit of the strength of the Holy Spirit normally supplied to Him (Eph. 3:16). He therefore cried, "I am poured out like water,/And all my bones are out of joint./My heart is like wax;/It is melted within me./My strength is dried up like a shard;/And my tongue is stuck to my jaws;/You have put me in the dust of death" (Psa. 22:14-15).
On the one hand, God's Holy Spirit departed from Him; on the other hand, the evil spirit of Satan mocked Him. The words in Psalm 22:11-13 seem to point this out: "Do not be far from me./...For there is none to help me./Many bulls surround me,/The mighty bulls of Bashan encompass me, / They open their mouth at me,/Like a ravening and roaring lion."
His spirit, on the one hand, felt God's forsaking, and on the other hand, was resisting the evil spirit's sneering and mocking. Man's spirit, when separated from God, is self- exalted and becomes the operating ground of evil spirits (Eph. 2:2). However, man's spirit ought to be completely broken so that man can no longer resist God and be united with the enemy. The Lord Jesus became sin for us on the cross. The holy human nature within Him was completely broken due to God's judgment of the sinful nature of man. Christ was forsaken by God, suffering the most painful part of God's judgment in that the love, the kindly countenance, and the light of God were all hidden from Him, causing the Savior to undergo in darkness the wrath of God's punishment toward sin. To be forsaken by God is the result of sin.
Now our sinful nature, spirit, soul, and body have all been punished. The sinful nature of man was fully judged in the holy human nature of the Lord Jesus. The holy human nature has gained the victory in the Lord Jesus. The necessary punishments for the body, the soul, and the spirit of the sinner have all been executed upon the Lord Jesus. He is our representative. We become one with Him by faith, and He becomes one with us. His death is our death. His being judged is our being judged. In Him, our spirit, soul, and body have all been judged and punished. It is the same as if we had gone through this punishment ourselves. Therefore, "there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:1).
This is what He has accomplished for us. This is our position in the light of the law. "For he who has died is justified from sin." Our position is that we are dead in the Lord Jesus. Now we ought to have the work of the Holy Spirit to apply this fact to our experience. The cross is the place where the sinner—spirit, soul, and body—is judged. It is through His death and resurrection that God's Holy Spirit can impart God's nature into us. The cross bears the punishment of the sinner, the cross evaluates the worth of the sinner, the cross crucifies all sinners, and the cross releases the life of the Lord Jesus. Therefore, from now on, whoever is willing to receive the cross will be regenerated by the Holy Spirit and receive the life of the Lord Jesus.