My first thought, when I read Isaiah 53:3, was that Jesus’ suffering lay in His rejection, but then I discovered that there is much more to come!

Next, the Holy Spirit led me to another Scripture…

Hebrews 2:18 NIV
[18] “Because he himself suffered WHEN HE WAS TEMPTED, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”

Ahh! This verse sheds new light on His suffering. If rejection was not the core of Jesus’ suffering, then what was real issue?

Our Scripture verse says “He suffered when He was tempted…” Let’s try to understand what His suffering meant from the original Greek word.

“Strong’s g3958

• Lexical: πάσχω
• Transliteration: paschó
• Part of Speech: Verb
• Phonetic Spelling: pas’-kho
• Definition: to be acted upon in a certain way, either good or bad; to experience ill treatment, suffer.
• Origin: Including the forms patho (path’-o), and pentho (pen’-tho), used only in certain tenses for it apparently a primary verb; to experience a sensation or impression (usually painful).
• Usage: feel, passion, suffer, vex….

Did you get the force of this word? It was not so much what people did to Jesus because of their contempt for Him that caused His suffering but what He felt when they rejected Him. Their rejection and its outcomes produced a reaction in His…yes…His flesh! The next verse clarifies the nature of His suffering.

1 Peter 4:1 NIV
[1] Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body (“sarx”, meaning “flesh”), arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body (flesh) is done with sin.”

The word Greek word, “sarx”, (translated “flesh”), is most often used in Scripture to contrast the sinful part of our human nature, (that part of us that was dead in trespasses and sins until God made us alive when we believed in Jesus), with our spirit, (that part of us that is alive to God and able to respond to and communicate with Him).

Romans 7:18 NIV
[18] “For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature (“sarx” – flesh). For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.”

God supernaturally made our dead spirit alive and able to respond to the Holy Spirit and His work in us, and also able to control and subdue our flesh … To be born again, then, means to come alive again in our spirits that were unresponsive to God from when we were born.

Ephesians 2:4-5 NIV
[4] “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, [5] made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”

Now we must ask… “Did Jesus have a sin nature?” According to Paul, Jesus, as the last Adam, was born with the same nature as Adam, “able to sin and able not to sin”. Think of this…if He were not able to sin, how could He have qualified to be our substitute by His death for us?

1 Corinthians 15:45 NIV
[45] “So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.”

Romans 5:15 NIV
[15] “But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!”

“… The idea that Jesus was both able to sin and able not to sin is a theological concept that acknowledges his complete humanity, including vulnerability to temptation…” (Google – “Jesus was able to sin or not to sin”)

This has been a long and complicated debate but, it seems to me that, if Jesus was “the last Adam”, then He had the nature of the first Adam, with the choice to sin or not to sin. If He was made like us, then He was subject to the same possibility of sinning, by giving in to temptation, as we are. If His divine nature shielded Him from the power of temptation, as some argue, He could not be identified with us in our weakness.

Hebrews 2:17-18 NIV
[17] “For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. [18] Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”

This argument, that Jesus was able to sin or not to sin, is supported by the writer’s statement…

Hebrews 5:7 NIV
[7] “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission…”

If God did not save Jesus from physical death, since He died on the cross, to what death was the writer referring? Was it eternal death, the punishment for sin, that Jesus prayed to escape? Is it possible, then, that eternal death for Him was a real issue if He was able to sin?

If so, then the suffering Jesus endured by being tempted, was also real! This is a mind-blowing conclusion!

Can you see, then, that it is this aspect of Jesus’ suffering that enables us to suffer with Him. We will never suffer physically for Him as He suffered but suffering with Him means that we also must resist temptation as vigorously and persistently as He did because, if we live according to the flesh, as Paul concluded, WE WILL DIE.

Romans 8:13a NIV
[13] “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die…”

To be continued…