Jesus Christ, in becoming sin for humanity, endured profound suffering and separation as part of God's eternal plan. At the crucifixion, as described in Matthew 27, He cried out in agony, questioning why the Father had forsaken Him, reflecting the deep emotional and spiritual torment of that moment. This cry, a quotation from Psalm 22, signaled the fulfillment of Messianic prophecy before the eyes of the Jews, affirming His identity as the Messiah. Isaiah 53:6 reveals that the Eternal laid on the Messiah the iniquity of all, making Him a substitute who bore the sins and penalties of mankind. Galatians 3:13 further explains that Christ became a curse for us, as Paul applies Deuteronomy 21:23, indicating that being hanged on a tree signifies being cursed by God. This act necessitated distance from God's holiness, aligning with His nature to withdraw from what is cursed. In II Corinthians 5:21, Paul states that Christ was made to be sin for us, not merely a sin offering, but a representation of sin itself. This identification with sin meant that He had to experience the full range of consequences, including separation from God. Romans 8:32 underscores that God did not spare His own Son, allowing Him to undergo all that sin entails, such as being wounded, bruised, pierced, and shamed. The symbolism of thorns, pressed onto Christ's head as a crown in John 19, connects to the curse of sin from Genesis 3:17-18, representing the piercing effects of iniquity laid upon Him. During the crucifixion, as noted in Luke 23, darkness covered the whole earth from noon until 3 p.m., signifying God's withdrawal of light and presence, a judgment fitting for the moment when all human sin was placed on the divine Substitute. This darkness over all the earth reflected the Father's forsaking due to His transcendent purity and opposition to sin. Ultimately, Christ's experience of being forsaken was not due to His own sin but because He took humanity's place, bearing the separation that sin causes. Hebrews 9:28 assures that when He appears again, it will be apart from sin, as the curse was carried out, God's justice satisfied, and the darkness lifted. This act of becoming sin, though excruciating, was the awesome price of God's love, demonstrating that love and hardship are not mutually exclusive, but part of a greater eternal purpose.

In the final hours of His human life, Jesus Christ bore the weight of mankind's sins, not merely in a legal sense, but through a profound and agonizing sacrifice. Our sins were laid upon Him, and He paid the penalty of death for them, fulfilling the will of Almighty God. Yet, this legal fulfillment was only part of His great act of sacrifice. During His torture and crucifixion, Jesus likely did not dwell on the individual sins for which He suffered. Instead, His thoughts were shaped by His knowledge of what must come to pass. He knew the precise timing of His suffering and death, set for the Passover Day in AD 31, and that He must be entombed as that day ended. Aware of His impending separation from His beloved Father, Jesus sought close communication with Him in Gethsemane, praying earnestly as His final moments of human freedom slipped away. Jesus also knew He was despised and rejected, not just by those of His time, but by generations across the ages. The Eternal Lord, Creator of the universe, was regarded as contemptible, even becoming the subject of scorn. He understood that even His closest friends would stumble, forsake Him, and scatter, with one betraying Him. This rejection, coupled with the betrayal in progress during the Passover dinner, weighed heavily on Him. Upon arriving at Gethsemane, Jesus was suddenly overwhelmed by intense sorrow and profound distress, a depth of agony surpassing any human experience. His suffering was so great that, had it deepened further, He might have died there. Yet, determined to fulfill all things, He endured, knowing the set time for His death had not yet come. In agony, He prayed more earnestly, His sweat becoming like great drops of blood falling to the ground. The reasons for His sorrow were manifold, likely including the rejection by every generation, the betrayal and forsaking by His friends, and the dread of physical torture and death. However, the most painful aspect was being cut off from His human brothers and sisters, whose sins caused His suffering, and more crucially, from His perfect, loving, and eternal Father. In His final moments, Jesus cried out in delirium, expressing the desolation of being forsaken by His Father, feeling deserted in His hour of greatest need.

Christ's sacrifice included an uncomfortable reality that is often overlooked: the Father made Him to be sin. The live goat of Leviticus 16, the azazel, prefigured this. Sins were laid on its head by the high priest, and it bore them away from God's presence as an innocent substitute. Isaiah 53 fulfills both actions, as the LORD laid the iniquity of us all on the Messiah, who bore it in extreme suffering that included the disfiguring effects of sin, not merely death. Hebrews 9:28 and I Peter 2:24 confirm that Christ bore our sins in His body on the tree. II Corinthians 5:21 goes further by saying God made Him "to be sin for us." This does not mean He committed sin. The Hebrew chatta'ah means both sin and sin offering, because the substitute animal became the guilt, punishment, and purification of sin. In Greek, however, sin simply means sin, so softer renderings such as "offering for sin" are unfaithful to the text. Christ also became a curse (Galatians 3:13), being hanged on a tree. Like the azazel, He was led outside the gate, away from the Temple and God's presence, and endured this for hours. His bearing of sin was real and lasting, not merely a legal pronouncement. It was a terrible but necessary role that only He could fulfill so that we might be reconciled to God.

In His last hours as a human, Jesus Christ endured unimaginable agony as every sin ever committed was forced upon His perfectly pure head. He understood the limitless repulsion between God and sin, and the necessity of His Father turning away during this time, leaving Him to complete the task alone. This separation, though brief, was almost unbearable for both Jesus and His Father, with each moment feeling like an eternity. Jesus, in His suffering, quoted prophecy, crying out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" fulfilling the words He inspired David to write a thousand years prior. Even in delirium, His utterances remained rooted in His own Word. In Gethsemane, Jesus prayed about the cup He was to drink, a spiritual poison composed of the world's sin and the separation from His Father. This cup, though a healing medicine for mankind, was deadly to Him, racking His body and mind with stinging agony. He asked if the time to endure this awful drink might pass quickly, yet only if it aligned with His Father's will. Jesus knew He must imbibe, retain, and endure every drop of this poison, as planned with His Father since the foundation of the world. The sins of the world, laid upon Him by His Father, contaminated Jesus until they were poured out with His shed blood, bringing remission and release. Despite the foreknowledge of this torment, He remained resolute, knowing that to falter would leave humanity without hope. Throughout His trials, Jesus suppressed thoughts of escape, aware that His Father could send legions of angels to rescue Him, but choosing instead to fulfill the Scriptures and pay the death penalty for humanity's sins. In His final human hours, Jesus did not dwell on individual sins but suffered the collective weight of seven millennia of human transgression. With quiet resignation after Gethsemane, He bore the physical torture and spiritual poison, focusing on His soon-coming reunification with His Father and the future vision of His enemies witnessing Him at the right hand of Power. In extreme agony, He cried out at the pain of separation from His Father, yet endured until the end, His human thoughts ceasing as His tortured body lay dead for three days and three nights.

Jesus Christ had been made sin for people and suffered the penalty of God's justice which sin deserves. He symbolically drank the cup of God's wrath for all sinners as their representative and mediator. In this covenant of death He took on all the punishment and paid the price for sin which is death along with all the pain and suffering that sin creates. He had to take on all that pain and suffering all the way to His death and He had to do it all alone with it laid on Him. When He said it is finished His redemptive work that the Father had sent Him to do was completed and paid in full because He knew His death was close.

Jesus was laden with sin once He took our sins upon Himself, and the law claimed His life. This is why the sin and trespass offerings, though requiring unblemished animals that represent the sinless Christ, were not a sweet savor to God as the burnt, meal, and peace offerings were. They were burnt outside the camp, showing God's aversion to sin and the separation it produces. Sin separates man from God (Isaiah 59:1-2), and Christ's blood overcomes that separation, since His sacrifice is sufficient to cover the sins of the whole world (I John 2:2). The two offerings cover sin from every angle. The sin offering of Leviticus 4 covers the evil human nature, the heart's sin, while the trespass offering of Leviticus 5 atones for the specific acts that nature produces. Because human nature cannot be repaired, even by the Holy Spirit, and remains present as long as one is in the flesh, Christ's sacrifice must cover both the nature and its fruits. When a sinner repents, God allows Christ's sacrifice to substitute for the death penalty. This gives God a claim on the believer's life, and He also adds grace: forgiveness, communion, His Spirit, and everlasting life. Works never admit anyone into the Father's presence; Christ's sacrifice does.

The topic is touched on only briefly, as part of Christ's role as the perfect intercessor. Drawing on Isaiah 53 and 2 Corinthians 5:21, Christ is the Sin-bearing Servant who, though innocent, was charged with human sins and so bore our penalty: "the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." He was numbered with the transgressors, not only in the outward circumstances of His death but as a description of the meaning of His sacrifice. This is set against the Old Testament priesthood, where guilt was transferred by laying a hand on the animal, which bore the offerer's sins and was presented to God by the priest. That acknowledgment of sin and surrender to God is completely fulfilled in Christ's offering of Himself. Because God "made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him," Christ's sacrifice involves the imputation of guilt to Him as the sinner's representative. It also involves the victory of His life over death, which is given to man when God accepts His substitution. This once-for-all sacrifice grounds His continuing intercession as High Priest and Advocate.