Jesus' Suffering and Death Closely Examined

Along with his birth and resurrection, Jesus’ suffering and death are the most significant events to have ever taken place. During the most excruciating 12 hours in human history, God sufficiently and finally placed the punishment for humanity’s sin and its consequence, death, on Jesus. A spotless lamb bore the sins of the world in his body and died as our substitute. The power and consequence of sin were broken. Death was defeated when God rightly raised his righteous son from the dead.

Beyond scant details, the one thing Christians universally seem to know about Jesus’ crucifixion is that it was brutal. But what did Jesus’ death entail? And why was it so harsh and violently sadistic? These are two questions often asked but rarely given sufficient answers.

Jesus was arrested between 2 and 3 a.m. in the Garden of Gethsemane. We know this time is accurate because Jesus’ trial before the Jewish Sanhedrin took place over the next few hours and was over before 6 a.m., the time he was taken to Pontius Pilate.[1]  Immediately following his arrest in Gethsemane, he was taken to the home of the high priest, Caiaphas. Along the way, he was repeatedly punched and mocked by the arresting individuals.[2] After his trial was over but before being taken to Pilate, Jesus was blindfolded and repeatedly punched and mocked by private soldiers employed by Caiaphas. He was also repeatedly spat upon in the face.  

After being taken to Pilate at 6 a.m., three hours passed before Jesus was nailed to the cross at 9 a.m. During those three hours Jesus was sent to the home of Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch of Galilee who was in Jerusalem for Passover, where he was dressed up in fancy clothes and mocked repeatedly. Then, he was returned to Pilate where he was scourged by Roman soldiers.

Roman scourging involved beating with a flagellum, a three-chorded whip made by  “plaiting pieces of bone or lead into leather thongs.”[3] Jesus was likely stripped naked, tied to a post, and beaten by at least two, but perhaps three or four Roman soldiers. Among the Jews, scourging was limited to forty lashes, but the Romans had no such limits. They could go until the strength of the ones performing the lashing was exhausted. It is thought that Jesus had between 120-160 open wounds covering his entire body by the time the scourging was over.

Roman scourging alone often resulted in the death of the victim. It was not uncommon for victims to have bones and internal organs exposed during the process, as multiple layers of flesh were removed from the body.  

Following this, Jesus was taken back to Pilate, but not before he was dressed up once again, this time in a purple robe by an entire battalion of Roman soldiers who were repeatedly mocking him as “King of the Jews.”[4] It is often thought that Jesus was subjected to a crown of thorns that looked something like a headband. It is likely that the crown placed on Jesus looked more like a helmet, and that this caused upwards of 50 puncture wounds to appear on Jesus’ head.

While wearing the crown, which would have entailed having around 50 one-to-three-inch thorns jammed into his scalp, Jesus was repeatedly hit over the head with a wooden reed.[5]

After being sufficiently mocked, Jesus was placed back in his clothes and led away to be crucified. It must be noted that, while Matthew and Mark both mention that the Roman soldiers removed the purple robe they had dressed Jesus in, neither mentions them removing the crown of thorns.

Jesus likely carried the patibulum, the cross bar that was attached to the vertical stake during crucifixion,[6] from Pilate’s headquarters to the edge of the city wall. When he could go no further, the Romans forced a man named Simon to carry it the rest of the way. At this point, it’s miraculous that Jesus was still alive, let alone standing and walking.

After being brutally and sadistically tortured, mocked, and spat on for roughly six hours, Jesus was nailed to the cross at 9 a.m., where he would spend the next six hours in complete agony. Jesus’ upper wrists and lower ankles were likely nailed to the cross using seven-inch Roman spikes. By the time Jesus was hung on the cross, it is probable that his shoulders had been separated and that the weight of his entire body was held suspended by the three locations where the nails were placed.

Organ failure was likely already setting in when Jesus was crucified. Somehow, he endured six more hours of pain and mockery [7] before yielding his spirit to the father at 3 p.m.

Undeniably, the physical torment Jesus endured was unlike anything known by human beings before. While the Romans scourged and crucified many people, no known person has ever endured the combination of sadistic acts that were performed against Jesus of Nazareth. It is not hard to see why Isaiah prophesied about a suffering servant whose physical agony would leave him so battered and disfigured that he was beyond human recognition:

Isaiah 52:14 “…his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind.”

But the question is, “why”? Why did Jesus have to be so battered and beaten that his form was beyond recognition? Why wasn't death enough if he were the spotless lamb sent to be the atoning sacrifice for sin?

Sin left the human form so disfigured and beyond recognition that Jesus had to be punished in the same way in order to redeem us from sin’s power and consequence.

In the beginning, God made man in his image; perfect in every way. Through sin’s deceptive and destructive power, the human race became so disfigured from God’s original creation that we became unrecognizable. Jesus paid the penalty in full. He endured the punishment required to forgive all of humanity’s sins.

In short, it had to be as bad as possible for it to be valid.

Jesus was willing to make that sacrifice for you and me. Because of his unfathomable, vast, selfless love for us, he endured the worst torture and death imaginable to offer us forgiveness, redemption, and full access to God. What a king we serve.

[1] Matthew 27:1-2 state “when morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people… bound him and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate the governor.” “Morning,” or the first hour of the day, almost always equates to the 6 o’clock hour.

[2] Luke 22:63

[3] David E. Garland, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Expositor’s Bible commentary, 2010), Carson, 639.

[4] They dressed him in purple because it was considered the color of kings.

[5] Matthew 27:27-30; Mark 15:16-19.

[6] These were large wooden beams that weighed between 70-90 pounds.

[7] Jesus was verbally mocked by the Jewish religious leaders who were present, as well as by the Roman soldiers, who offered him a drink of poisonous wine that would have put him in even more agony had he accepted it. Matthew 27:34; Mark 15:23.

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