Explain Jesus's suffering?His suffering is supposed to have meant more than any of millions of cancer victims?

Question

Jesus suffered at most a day and a half of pain and given the impact of shock he may have been numb by the time they nailed him up.

Explain Jesus's suffering? His suffering is supposed to have meant more than any of millions of cancer victims, or the victims of war, or of the pain of childbirth?

Answer 1

This is something that always struck me as odd, too - this claim by some (not all) Christians that Jesus suffered *more* than any other human before or since.

Clearly that "more" aspect lies in something other than the actual physical suffering he endured, because most anyone can think of one or more people who must have experienced at least as much physical suffering.

Also, in my work as a nurse, I've done an extensive amount of research on pain, and I've learned that there gets to be a point where the pain is so great, it no longer registers in the person experiencing it. Though that depends on the type of pain.

Nerve pain often persists to the absolute highest thresholds. It appears to be the most excruciating type of pain a human can feel, while also being the most difficult to treat. Our strongest opioid medications are often powerless against nerve pain - and people frequently die from respiratory depression related to the massive doses they have to take just to take the edge off of their pain.

Flesh and bone pain, on the other hand (like what Jesus was primarily subjected to) have a much lower threshold before your body decides to stop registering it. Between the blood loss, and the amount of flesh ripping involved, chances are good that by the time that the scourging had really taken off (I've seen Passion of the Christ - it's definitely a BDSM snuff film... wow), Jesus was probably already dissociating from his body.

So I assume when people refer to the degree to which Jesus suffered, they're considering supernatural, unprovable aspects, as have been already mentioned above: he carried the weight of the world's sins, he hurt more because he was innocent... etc.

In that respect, it becomes a matter of personal faith, because science can not account for those types of suffering, and that is where I hit the bottom line of extreme disagreement with Christians, and debate can go no further.


If you get a chance, listen to Julia Sweeney's audiobook called, "Letting Go of God." She played the androgynous character, "Pat," on Saturday Night Live.

She lost her faith the same way I did - she read the Bible straight through, and was horrified by the book itself. Her audiobook documents her journey from faithful to faithless. She is now a hardcore atheist.

She made one particularly poignant comment that is relevant to your question. She was talking about how strange it was that people told her the reason she needed to believe in Christ was because he suffered so horribly for her sins. She decided this was strange logic, because she'd watched her brother die from cancer and suffer terribly as well, and arguably much more than Jesus did, as the length of her brother's suffering was much longer.

Julia's comment was, paraphrased, "so I guess my brother suffered terribly, for months upon months for nothing. But Jesus had a really bad weekend for my sins."

Answer 2

The point is not how long he suffered the point is he suffered. Jesus broke no laws. Both the Biblical and secular accounts show that no Roman Laws were broken by Jesus. Pilate ordered his execution to appease the mob not to punish the breech of Roman Law.
The point is that Jesus was billed in Old Testament Scripture as a King yet he entered this world in the lowliest of manner with a birth announcement given first to the Sheppards who were among the most disenfranchised of the society at that time and his exit from this world was among common criminals by one of the most excruciating deaths the Roman Empire could devise.
The point is he lived out his life in humble servitude and through his death the sins of man were forgiven.

Answer 3

Physicially, Jesus did not suffer the most pain of any human being ever to live.

Many others, including criminals on death row, suffered far more physical pain than Jesus Christ ever did. It's likely that other persons crucified to death suffered longer on a cross and took longer to die than Jesus.

The best explanation for the idea that Jesus suffered physically more than anyone else is a fib or more correctly stated, a non-profit fib by one or more faiths-based religions.

Answer 4

Yeah, well, you know (as a friend always says).

Kiki Camarena, undercover DEA agent turned over by Oliver North to drug gangs, was tortured for over a day, resuscitated by doctors for more torture, then killed.

Few remember Camarena, yet North gets around $100,000 per speech.

My uncle died of bone cancer. Not even Dilaudid could ease his pain near the end.

Hail Jesus, I guess.

Answer 5

The pain he bore was undeserved. The wages of sin is death, yet he never sinned. Everyone that has died before and since him had sinned. That is a reasonable consequence for what they had done.

By accepting what he did for us, we are able to have eternal life after the death of our physical body. That is something no cancer victim or victim of war can do for any of us.

He suffered more than the physical pain of death. His suffering came from the fact that he was spotless and did not deserve and at any moment could have prevented his death, yet gave willingly and freely.

Answer 6

I believe several other people were also nailed up at the same time that Jesus was said to have been. I assume that they suffered much more than he did because he is a god and they weren't.

Answer 7

His physical suffering was unconscionable, but not nearly as painful as the heart pain he must have felt on the cross wondering if mankind would turn away from God eternally.
Only Love could say while nailed to wood, "forgive them..."

Answer 8

well just think... the whole sin of the entire world was put on Him when he carried the cross... and thats a literal meaning... its says in Isaiah that He was beaten so badly that a person couldnt even tell He was human... He was a walking corpse carrying a cross and they even tore/pulled off His beard as He walked by... pretty painful...

it wasnt just being nailed to the cross like the other two... He was first chastised, whipped by the weapon called 'cat and nine tails'..google that crap... and then crowned with a thorny rose bush..

Answer 9

Cancer victims do not willingly suffer. Jesus gave himself up totally/ willingly for our sins and for everyone. Peace

Answer 10

Have any cancer patients bled from every pore of their body because of the pain they were going through??

Did they have nails driven through their bones?

I've lost people to cancer, but it is no comparison.