The punishment that brought us peace was on him,Īnd as a sheep before its shearers is silent,īy oppression and judgment he was taken away.įor he was cut off from the land of the living įor the transgression of my people he was punished. Isaiah 53:4–12 foretold the passion of Christ and revealed its meaning:īut he was pierced for our transgressions, He endured all that to save those who would trust in Him. When He was beaten and mocked, when the crown of thorns was pressed on His head, when He was nailed to a cross, when He hung there and struggled to breathe, He was experiencing genuine, excruciating suffering to pay for our sins. When Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me” (Matthew 26:39), He was in genuine anguish over what He was to suffer (cf. It is not as though He simply appeared to suffer He actually suffered and died.

It is important to note that Christ’s suffering-His passion-was real. It is through the passion of Christ that we are made right with God. Indeed, the crucifixion of Christ is the apex of human history and the grand theme of the apostles’ teaching: “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). Scripture often highlights the suffering of Christ.

Likewise, “passion plays”-re-enactments of the last few hours of Jesus’ life in which He suffered-are popular around Easter. Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ covers these events. The word passion is from the Latin pati, which simply means “to endure” or “to suffer.” The term passion of Christ has taken on a technical or semi-technical meaning in theology, referring to the time from Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane to His death on the cross-the time of His greatest suffering.

The passion of christ movie covers