What Jesus Did for Us

This is an excerpt from A Case for Christ by Lee Strobel in which Strobel interviews Alexander Metherell, M.D. Ph.D.  Metherell describes what Jesus went through prior to his crucifixion.  This is not for those with a weak stomach.  This is what Jesus went through.  He knew this is what he was going to go through.  He was so incredibly stressed about going through this that he actually sweat blood prior to this experience (which actually caused his skin to be more sensitive).

Leading up to the crucifixion...

Roman floggings were known to be terribly brutal.  They usually consisted of thirty-nine lashes but frequently were a lot more than that, depending on the mood of the soldier applying the blows.

The soldier would use a whip of braided leather thongs with metal balls woven into them.  When the whip would strike the flesh, these balls would cause deep bruises or contusions, which would break open with further blows.  And the whip had pieces of sharp bone as well, which would cut the flesh severely.  

The back would be so shredded that part of the spine was sometimes exposed by the deep, deep cuts.  The whipping would have gone all the way from the shoulders down to the back, the buttocks, and the back of the legs.  It was just terrible.

One physician who has studied Roman beatings said, 'As the flogging continued, the lacerations would tear into the underlying skeletal muscles and produce quivering ribbons of bleeding flesh.'  A third-century historian by the name of Eusibius described a flogging by saying, 'The sufferer's veins were laid bare, and the very muscles, sinews, and bowels of the victim were open to exposure.'

We know that many people would die from this kind of beating even before they could be crucified.  At the least, the victim would experience tremendous pain and go into hypovolemic shock [massive loss of blood causing the heart to over work itself to pump blood that isn't there, fainting, shutdown of kidneys etc].

Now the crucifixion...

He [Jesus] would have been laid down , and his hands would have been nailed in the outstretched position to the horizontal beam.  This crossbar was called the patibulum, and at this stage it was separate from the vertical beam, which was permanently set in the ground.  

The Romans used spikes that were five to seven inches long and tapered to a sharp point.  They were driven through the wrists.  Through the wrists, this was a solid position that would lock the hand; if the nails had been driven through the palms, his weight would have caused the skin to tear and he would have fallen off the cross.

And it is important to understand that the nail would go through the place where the median nerve runs.  This is the largest nerve going out to the hand, and it would be crushed by the nail that was being pounded in.  (the same idea with the nail through the feet).

Metherel explains this by telling Strobel to think of taking a pair of pliers and crushing and twisting the nerve in the arm that you hit when you "bump your funny bone."

The pain was absolutely unbearable.  In fact it was literally beyond words to describe; they had to invent a new word:  excruciating [which means 'out of the cross'].

Jesus arms were stretched about six inches in length and immediately ripped from their sockets.

Now you could go into greater detail about what if felt like and what Jesus endured when he was tortured and hung on the cross for our sins.  The things that levels me is that he KNEW BEFOREHAND exactly what pain he was going to be in and how awful this was going to be, but he did it anyway out of love for us.  Which one of you would knowingly go through all of this for anyone else on this planet...I'd love to say I would, but lets face it, 99.9% of us would back out.  Think about it.