Is this true?

[Jerusalem Blade]

I question the part in bold:

"Within the soul and body of Jesus the eternal wrath due untold millions of us was exhausted; the sin imputed to that infinitely holy soul (2 Cor 5:21) as much a torment as the wrath meted upon it..."

It is something I wrote, which I now question. My original thought was that the Lord could sense the evil that was imputed.

Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

It seems a reasonable conclusion that the knowledge of sin laid on Christ was a horror to him; Gethsemane bears this out I think.

But perhaps you meant to convey something of the consequence of shame for sin? Christ's hideous nakedness, which stands in stark contrast to the coverings of our first parents--first useless and mockworthy fig leaves, then the skins of sacrificed (in some sense) animals--is symbolic of the fact that shame belongs to sin and sinners. The wicked will rise to everlasting shame, Dan.12:2.

If Christ bore our penalty, then I think he must also have felt our shame.

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

Thanks, Bruce. I understand the horror of the approaching storm of both the unspeakable loss of His Father's presence, and the wrath of outraged Justice with hatred for sin to be meted by the Father which stunned the Lord Jesus in the garden; what I wonder concerning is did Jesus have an awareness of the cesspool abyss of elect humankind's vile transgressions of all holiness being laid upon Him, and for which He would bear the fury; in other words, did the infinitely holy Jesus apprehend in its fathomless particulars the sheer evil He would be paying for, and would this be a torment? Or was it only the eternal torment of God's wrath He bore?

I do not want to add a whit beyond what is revealed.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Why would we reduce the Subject of wrath to a (mere) Object?

Whatever a trembling lamb felt standing by the side of a smelly altar covered in blood waiting for its throat to be cut; whatever extensions the offerer made to impute (in his mind) his sense of self/sinner into that creature which stood for him; there remained an infinite gulf of being and feeling between the man and his substitute, and between the awareness of what was transacting in the human mind and in the mind of the sacrificial beast.

In the typological substitution, the animal is simply an object of wrath. It dies simply in the place of another, and its apprehension of any greater purpose or symbol is irrelevant to it, and indeed is foreign and inaccessible to it. This is one of the inadequacies expressed by Heb.10:4, "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins."

Christ the Lamb of God, by the nature of the contrast instantiated by his Being, surpasses the quality of the typological oblation. He is no more a vessel or target without a personality, not even a sensate creature that fears and would avoid pains. He is the rational One who accepts being sent and willingly undertakes the effort, despite the cost he knows it will demand. It seems plain to me that the exquisite horror and shame of this One Sacrifice are inextricable to the hell which he took for others.

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

Yes, the Scripture explicitly says of Him, "who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame" (Heb 12:2). It is the nature of the imputation of our sins I am not clear on, or rather Jesus' perception of this imputation of sin; was it just the general shame of being the conscious Sin-Bearer, and treated as such, or were the sins being borne palpable to His heart? To God sin is an unspeakable affront and violent opposition to His holy character; to the infinite dignity and holiness of the man Christ Jesus, was there an impact upon Him of these sins, or was the impact limited to the wrath they called forth? I don't know how better to put what I am getting at.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Let's consider Ps.69:5-7.

5 O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee.
6 Let not them that wait on thee, O Lord GOD of hosts, be ashamed for my sake: let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel.
7 Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face.

The Psalmist, king David, here expresses not merely the fact of guilt, but the feeling of it. He, of course, is a supreme type of Christ in the OT. There is no need to debate whether all Pss. are in some sense messianic or only some; we know this Ps. is messianic beyond all doubt from v21, cf. Mt.27:34.

So, how does the Messiah and sinless One take on the confessions of the leader of the people? He mediates for them, he stands for them; he takes them up into himself. As far as the ideal King goes, we might say he expresses in these words not merely the feeling of the guilt, but the fact of it, inasmuch as 2Cor.5:21 says, "He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin."

I reason, that the shame is inextricable with the sin and the penalty. Insofar as it is part of the penalty, it is general in that he receives worthy opprobrium. But shame belongs to the nature of a sinner; he not only deserves and receives an objective disgrace, he is a disgrace and feels the disgrace.

The Passover lamb is born a sacrificial lamb. Then, one year on the 10th day of the first month, he is reserved to his fate, which is to take place on the 14th. Every lamb brought to the altar for sacrifice endures a moment of symbolic transference, a pressing or laying-on of the hands. See Jn.12:23-27; there, I think, is a palpable demonstration of a "felt moment," "Now is my soul troubled!" such as our Lamb should have known in anticipation of his death; which incident is followed even by a Voice from heaven.

Gethsemane is simply more proof, to me, that our Lord feels more than fear at death, or even the devastating impact of untrammeled divine fury; but is conscious in that hour of a sinner's sense that he deserves his ruin. He also knows he personally does not, but is fulfilling his Mediatorial role. He might have needed strengthening just to steel himself for the ordeal; but I truly think that the strength he was given by the angel was help necessary for One who never in his life felt guilt and shame until this hour. Is.53:6, "the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."

The following comes from Lange's commentary, on Ps.69:5-7

It is very evident that the reference is without doubt to his own folly and guilt. So likewise it is clear and without doubt from Ps.69:26 that the speaker regards himself as one stricken by God, and in the class of those who are pierced through by God, that is, painfully smitten by His arrows (Lam.3:12 sq.), and internally wounded (Jer.8:18; Ps.109:22). Accordingly he finds in the necessities that have come upon him, and threaten him with peril of death, not only the abuse of cruel enemies, but at the same time Divine visitation. Since however he resigns himself humbly, penitently, and in faith to God; he may hope in God’s favor and help (Ps.69:13 sq.) the more confidently, as on the one side many of the pious look upon him and his fate as typical and instructive, on the other side the enemies show by their conduct that they are least of all servants of God.

However it does not follow from this, that folly and guilt are here to be taken as ideas which can be interchanged with sufferings (Hupfeld) The state of the case is rather this, that his sufferings awaken and strengthen in the Psalmist the feeling of his sinfulness and punishableness, his feelings of penitence and desire for salvation, involve likewise the corresponding expressions of these feelings, and thus characterize the sufferer as a pious martyr, whose very piety makes him the butt of the scoffings, and the assaults of the ungodly.​

If this is true for king David, who actually was a sinner yet pious; then the feelings a true sinner feels when he knows himself guilty must also belong to the One who takes on the guilt in a perfect way--not by becoming a sinner, but by taking on the entire consequence of the sinner.

Finally, I will check again, but I believe FW Krummacher's discourses on the Lord's passion (The Suffering Savior) treats the Gethsemane experience including this aspect.
http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=LjbYq4_cKQQ=&tabid=312&mid=1026