What Happened When Jesus Died?

He suffered death for us. . . . By God’s grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone.   Hebrews 2:9

The Bible speaks about death in two dimensions: Physical death is the familiar event that happens to over six thousand people in America every day. But the Bible also speaks about the second death (see Revelation 2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8). This is the judgment of God that will be poured out on the last day.

When Jesus died on the cross, he “tasted” both dimensions of death: Jesus suffered a slow, painful physical death and he bore the wrath of God. God laid our sins on Jesus and poured out the judgment that was due us on him.

On the night he was arrested, Jesus cried out, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death” (Matthew 26:38). Nothing else had crushed him, but as Jesus looked toward his death, he said, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me” (26:39). Jesus was appalled at what he was about to experience.

Since then, a long line of martyrs have died for their faith in Christ. The extraordinary thing is that when you read their stories, you find a very different attitude toward death.

Come with me to Oxford, England. The year is 1555, and two men, Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer, stand before a court on charges arising from their faith in Christ. They refuse to recant their faith, so they’re sentenced to be burned at the stake.

As they are brought out, Latimer says to Ridley, “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.” Were Ridley and Latimer more courageous than Jesus? Or was Jesus’ cup filled with suffering that Ridley and Latimer never knew?

Ridley and Latimer endured excruciating physical suffering in their deaths, but they never knew anything of the cup that was so overwhelming to Jesus. And as a Christian believer, neither will you. You will never see the second death. Christ “tasted” this death for you so that you should never know what it is like.

For further reading, see Revelation 20