Let us examine a supreme lesson of Sacred Writ: How Christ suffered the punishment for the sins of the world.

     What was the punishment that Christ suffered? In the garden of Gethsemane, the stress of bearing the sins of the world was go great upon Him that His blood vessels ruptured, producing the sweat of blood that dripped from His skin to the earth. One thing must be understood as we review the events leading to the Cross: the punishment of sin that Christ suffered, occurred while He was alive, not after His death—this is important; for it is directly related to the punishment that the unrepentant are to endure before their death in "the lake of fire:" the time when sin’s blight on the Earth is removed, and those who chose of their own freewill to remain in their sins are reduced "to ashes upon the earth."

     As our Savior hung as a spectacle condemned by both Jews and Romans (a condemnation that exists even unto this day) the Bible says, "Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour." Matt.27:45. From noon until three the Father made it pitch black so that none could witness the dying agonies of His dear Son. This agony of the Savior, words cannot describe; but the duration of Christ’s suffering was short. The suffering that our Savior, Jesus Christ endured was not due to the double scourging of Pontius Pilate; nor was it the nails that pierced His hands and His feet when He was literally nailed to a tree as the supreme ‘trophy’ for the ‘big game hunter’ of sinful man; nor was it due to the difficulty of breathing while mounted on the crucifix, where it is said that crucified victims typically lived up to a week in this brutal execution before they suffocated and perished. No no! His agony was carrying the sins of the entire human race: the guilt, the torment, the feelings of responsibility for the gargantuan cry of anguish emanating from this world throughout its history where trillions of creatures that Christ created to only receive blessing, peace and joy in the day He created them—all are perishing—drowning in desperation, fear and pain! (Never forget, over 800 verses of Scripture verify Christ as the Creator of all things.) In addition, the weight of sin that bore upon Him was coupled with the thought of being forever removed from the presence of His Father. He could not see the victory that the Bible prophesied was surely His while in His agony. This was not a time when He could sing hymns of praise to GOD. Medically speaking, He literally died of the broken heart (Jn.19:34).

     Our LORD and Savior entered the grave without the comfort of the foreknowledge of His being delivered from it. He thought sin was so distasteful to the Father that His separation from Him was to be eternal (Matt.27:46). But He chose to lay down His existence—forever, if that’s what it took to save us. His willing condescension to become a man and the humiliation He bore will never be measured, for who can measure the self-emptying love of GOD, in Whom Love is as infinite as time and space? As His life faded, in the end Christ placed His fate in the hands of His Father regardless of the outcome, because the salvation of His children was more important to Him than that of His own life. This was The Incarnate Love Born of Heaven. This is the same Love that rules the whole universe: the same Love the whole world including apostate Christianity is defiantly at war with because they reject the Holy Law of GOD that commanded our very salvation. His closing words to His Father were, "into thy hands I commend my spirit." Lu.23:46. Wrote Solomon, "The dust shall return unto the earth and the spirit shall return unto GOD who gave it." Eccl.12:7.

     Christ died the same death that those who must face the second resurrection must face: the Bible calls it "the second death." This is a death from which there is no hope of a resurrection. Such will be the case with the unrepentant in the end of time, as we will see the Bible texts clearly and without perverting the meaning of words. Men, corrupting the meaning of Scripture is the whole reason the doctrine of eternal torture by fire came into existence in the first place. The Protestant teaching of everlasting torment is merely an extension of the pagan/Catholic doctrine of purgatory, first recorded by Plato in the 5th century B.C., whose essence teaches that Christ’s sacrifice is insufficient and His method of justice corrupt by any standard.

     "False shepherds" have always held perverted views on the character of GOD. GOD summed it up to the religious leaders this way, "Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit….These things thou hast done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes." Ps.50:19-21.

     Let’s sum up the simple arithmetic of this problem: if Jesus suffered the same punishment that the deceived of Satan will face, then there cannot be a place of eternal fiery torment. To refute this simple deduction, the abstract statement is given, "He conquered hell." What did Christ conquer? Most ministers of the Gospel don’t understand how Christ conquered the domain of death let alone what He has saved the sinner from. Christ said to the apostate religious leaders of His day, "Ye shall die in your sins." Jn.8:21,24. Death means just what is says in the Bible. No mystical meaning. No allegorical definition—No spaced-out wonder. Just the total cessation of life: never again to love, to share, to laugh, to sing—to explore the inexhaustible riches of heaven.