The Passion of the Christ is the most realistically portrayed movie of the brutality that Jesus suffered that I have ever seen. It was filmed about 20 years ago and depicted what Jesus endured in order to redeem us from sin. To watch the scene of his whipping by the Roman soldiers made me flinch at its reality. But, man can never portray accurately the depth of His suffering. What we see in that movie would not have been sufficient to atone for our sins. This should tell us more accurately just how much God hates sin and what His Holiness requires to redeem us. He is beyond us in that we can never reach perfection on anything He does. If we could match Him in anything then he would cease to be God. So, the movie doesn’t do justice in depicting for us the degree of suffering which would atone for sin against a perfectly Holy God. The true depth of suffering God required for our redemption cannot be portrayed by man because then the depiction of the necessary suffering would have matched God’s required suffering that would satisfy Him….our Holy God. At that point He would cease to be God.
For God’s Holiness to be satisfied, the suffering shown in the movie would have to go far beyond what man can produce in an effort to depict it. And, this movie made me cry at its brutality. It was painful to watch. But, Isaiah tells us in Isaiah 52: 14-15 of the fact that people could not recognize Jesus as a human being because he was so severely beaten. Those who knew him could not recognize Him. The Passion of the Christ was frightening in its brutality but it did not approach what really happened. God’s holiness demanded even more than that. We have a difficult time getting a proper conception of just how HOLY God is. In fact, I don’t think man can ever fully grasp the degree of His Holiness. If we could, as stated before, He would cease to be God if we could fully conceptualize Him.
If one were to ask a large group of people if they thought that God is a GOOD God, everyone in the building would raise their hand. They would be right. God is a GOOD God but He is far more than that. God is a HOLY God. “GOOD” is a concept that is included in the concept of HOLINESS. Holiness is Good but it is far, far beyond that and God is HOLY. This is not something that He just decided that He would be. He is HOLY by his nature not by His decision. Being Holy, He, by his nature, cannot allow even one miniscule particle of sin in His presence. It must ALL be atoned for before a person can come into His presence. The smallest sin which is still visible to Him will keep one from spending eternity with Him. So, He provided Jesus as the atonement for the sins of all the world. Salvation is available to all but it is received only by those who repent of their sins and are covered with the shed blood of Jesus. Then, when God looks at you, He does not see your sins but He sees only the blood of Jesus applied to your life because you believed what He said about Jesus and you committed your life to Him by faith. But, if there was even one sin not covered, you would not be able to approach God. So, we can get a better idea of why the death of Jesus had to be so brutal. He was providing the covering for people with the most grievous of sins in their lives. He took the beating and death on the cross for us. He voluntarily took the judgment upon sin for you and me. In His death on the cross and his subsequent Resurrection from the grave, Jesus defeated death itself and He provided eternal life for all who believe in Him and commit their lives to Him. God was satisfied with what Jesus did and He justifies and redeems all those who trust Him and believe in the work of Jesus.
When a person gets truly saved, the morality of God lives inside of them because the indwelling Holy Spirit brings God’s morality with Him. So, a saved human is indwelt with God’s way of thinking and acting on moral issues. Man can still choose to do evil but he always knows what is right and wrong because of the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. He instantly warns when sin looms in order to keep us in the right relationship with God on a moment to moment basis. If we are obedient to the Holy Spirit who is instructing us, we can avoid the sin which grieves God. When we do sin, John 1:9 says that if we confess that sin that God is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We must be people who will strive to live lives pleasing to him. We must not let Jesus pay such a heavy price and then act the way we do so often. He did not redeem us so that we could continue to live the way we did in the past. If one does that they are ”making light of the cross.”
So, The Passion of the Christ was a human effort to portray the crucifixion of Jesus. When we begin to realize a little bit better what was really behind all that suffering, we understand to a deeper degree why the death of Jesus had to be so brutal. Remember, Isaiah says that he was unrecognizable after the Roman beating. The holes in His hands and feet made by the Roman nails have become the main visual image of His death on the cross, but they were only a part of the brutality He endured for us to be saved and redeemed.
Remember, God was satisfied with His Son’s brutal death and He is satisfied with us if we accept what Jesus did for us and take it to ourselves in faith in order to obtain the redemption He provided.
Let me suggest that people always keep this verse of scripture in mind: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The sacrifice of Jesus was for YOU too. Wm F. Harrell….1-24-2024
