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Several years ago I was talking with a friend of mine who was an agnostic. It wasn't until I explained to him the true significance of Jesus’ death on the cross did he have a better understanding of it. My friend thought that other humans had suffered worse physically in history than did Jesus. He was correct in that assessment. I then pointed out to him the two aspects of Jesus’ crucifixion that set Him apart from all other human beings that have ever lived.
The first is that Jesus is the only sinless being to ever walk the earth. He was tempted in all ways yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus is the spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Jesus came to earth to save people from their sins so that they may be with God for eternity (John 3:16). That humans would crucify a sinless man was indeed a unique event in history. There is a difference between being innocent of a particular sin and being innocent of all sins.
The second is that for the first time in eternity Jesus would not experience the presence of God the Father. Jesus BECAME SIN for us when God laid all the sins of the human race on Jesus at His sacrificial death (II Corinthians 5:17-21). This means that when the Father looked at Jesus on the cross He saw a murderer, a thief, a rapist, a child molester, a drunkard, a liar, a blasphemer, an idolater, a sexually immoral person, and every other sin that humans have ever committed. As a human being I know the guilt feeling I've had when I committed a sin. I cannot imagine what Jesus felt when every sin that has been or will be committed was laid upon Him.(see number of sins calculations below) Since Jesus had never committed a sin this feeling was something He had never experienced before. Just as our sins separate us from God, our sins separated Jesus from His Father (Isaiah 59:2). In the garden of Gethsemane did Jesus dread the physical suffering He knew He was about to endure or was there more to it than that? While Jesus was totally God he was also totally a human being and therefore suffered physical pain (John 1:1-3,14). However, I believe the reason Jesus asked His Father, God, to use His will to find another way to save mankind was not because Jesus was afraid of the flogging and the excruciating pain of the crucifixion He was about to experience. Rather it was because Jesus knew that for the first time in eternity He would not feel the Father's presence. What I really find amazing about this is that Jesus knew after three days the presence of His Father would be restored to Him. Yet Jesus did not want to be away from His Father's presence for even that short period of time. But we know that on the cross Jesus could not sense the presence of His Father because He said, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46).
This says a lot to me about what heaven is going to be like. Heaven is not going to be about playing harps, being in the most beautiful places in the universe, speaking with the great men of God who lived on earth, or even being with family and friends for eternity. All of these things will be part of our eternal lives but they will not be the zenith of our heavenly experience. No, the supreme experience we will have will most definitely be the feeling of love, safety, serenity, ecstasy, joy, peace, rest, and security that can only come when we are in the immediate presence of God!
Conversely Hell will be a terrifying, nightmarish experience but just as the best part about dwelling in heaven is being in the presence of God, the worst part about dwelling in Hell will be not experiencing the presence of God!
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146 Quadrillion Sins: [With the understanding that all the numbers in this section are unverifiable estimates because of the nature of the data, I have endeavored to give a quantification to the suffering of Jesus on the cross] - According to the magazine "Population Today" , there have been more than 100 billion human beings who have lived on the earth. The average lifespan throughout history would be close to 40 years (taking into account that the greatest number of human beings in history have lived on earth in the last 200 years):
The number of thoughts a human being has per day ranges from 2,000 to 55,000 according to various sources. Taking the lowest number on the thoughts spectrum (2000 per day) would mean that a human would have 730,000 thoughts a year. If only 100 of these thoughts per day (whether they led to negative actions or not) are of a sinful nature, that would mean that the average human throughout history would commit 36,500 sins a year. Taking the average lifespan of 40 years means that a single human being commits a total of 1,460,000 sins in their lifetime. With the total number of human beings consisting of more than 100 billion souls (not including future sins committed by those who come along until Jesus Christ returns and judges the world) means that Jesus took the judgment for over 146 quadrillion (146,000,000,000,000,000) sins committed by His human creations. Only a God of love come in the form of a human being could have made such a sacrifice.