Jesus' Death on the Cross - Quantitative Suffering

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If Jesus died for everyone, including the people who choose hell anyway, does that mean that his suffering was quantitatively increased by taking on the punishment of the sins of people who ended up being lost anyway?

Another way to get at the same question I think would be to ask if individual sins contributed to Jesus’ suffering on the cross. In other words, if I sin less, is Jesus’ suffering on the cross less?

I am wondering this because I feel like it will help me understand the nature of God to know the answer. If you can answer either question, I would be greatly appreciative!

In Jesus,

Theresa
 
I don’t think it matters the exact “amount” of Jesus’s suffering. I wonder similar things about the nature of redemption so my opinion is just my opinion but it seems to me like it wasn’t so much Christ’s suffering that reedemed us on its own but rather his willingness to obey God and suffer for our sins.

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”(1 Peter 4:8)

“Forgive them Father, they know not what they do”- Luke 23:34
So from the first two quotes, I gather that Jesus’s love of God and love of us was so perfect and infinite that it reedemed us. (I think St. Thomas also stated that any act of Jesus could have reedeemed us b/c any deliberate action of Christ was an act of infinite and perfect love)

“For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.”

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”- Luke 22:42

From these next two quotes we can see that Christ submitted fully to the Father even though they were equal, Christ emptied himself. This humiltiy and obedience also I think played a major part.

So overall, I would say that the more we sin dosen’t neccessarily make Jesus feel any more pain on the cross (but on the other hand, it is traditionally held that Jesus saw our sins in the garden) because redemption was not caused by the pain itself but rather the infitely perfect priest offering himself (the infintly perfect victum) to the Father

Just my :twocents:
 
That’s a really good question!

The one important figure that you missed is that love is not measured into quantity.
For instance, say God has 100% love. That would be 100% for one person. If there were two people, that would pose a problem as 100% is everything! Each person would only receive 50% of his love. We of course know that’s not the case since God’s love is eternal ad infinitum.
This is largely speculated:
Dying he destroyed our death and rising he restored our life. When he died, he descended to inferos, the place where people who died before Christ waited (“limbo of the fathers,” some call it."). Since his suffering was temporal suffering on our behalf, atonement, we know that since he did suffer for the patriarchs and matriarchs of the past, it’s safe to assume that the atonement he did was eternal (past, present, and future). In addition, since temporal suffering is, well, temporary, we can assume that he does not suffer anymore for our sins because it was temporal. Now, we do the suffering, our “own cross” Jesus asks us to pick up. Check out Luke 9:23
 
Theresa, I agree with Anthony that love is 100%. The French writer Leon Bloy wrote:

“If we stand at the foot of the Cross we can see **all **the sorrow of the world, past, present, future gathered together in one sorrow.”

Jesus shared the grief and suffering of all humanity regardless of whether it was caused by sin. His compassion knows no bounds because His love enables Him to identify Himself with us totally. That is why Pascal - another more famous French writer - wrote:

“Jesus Christ is in agony until the end of the world”. How could it be otherwise when He is prepared to live, suffer and die for us when we have done nothing to deserve such love? Perfect love does not weigh or measure. It gives all and expects nothing!

But then why do we pray: “Forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us”?
Justice demands that we are treated precisely as we treat others. So perfect love seems to conflict with perfect justice. It doesn’t because God knows our limitations. His capacity for love is unlimited but ours is not. He doesn’t tell us to pray: “Love us to the extent that we love You!” because that is impossible.

God’s love even extends to those who are in hell because they are still His children created in His image and likeness. He doesn’t love them as He loves the saints in heaven because His love is not reciprocated. His infinite compassion implies that He shares their suffering even though it is self-inflicted because He knows all evil is due to ignorance. Yet it is culpable ignorance because the evildoer knows what he does is wrong.

I may be mistaken but if God’s love is infinite not even the rejection of His love can diminish His love. Shakespeare wrote in one of his sonnets:

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.** Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove**:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.**”

**Shakespeare was a Catholic and he believed God created us with the capacity for such love - which remains scientifically inexplicable…
 
Thanks everyone, these replies are helpful but I think I need to explain a little further why I am asking this question.

I was reading the Catechism and I was struck by paragraph 605 that talks about how Christ suffered for every single person who has ever lived. I wondered why he did that since he is God and he knew who would reject him. Couldn’t he have just died for the people he knew would accept him?

I have asked several people this question and the best answers I have gotten are:
  1. Jesus died for everyone to teach us the nature of God
  2. We would not truly have free will unless Jesus had died for everyone, showing us the nature of love (100%) and therefore the true nature of God
So, the reason I am asking this question is this: What difference does it make that Jesus died for everyone? If he had only died for those who would accept him and nothing would have changed (i.e. in his suffering) then he might as well have died for everyone and the distinction does not matter. But I feel like it must matter. It had to have made a difference in something (his suffering?) for Jesus to have died for everyone.

Any thoughts?
 
Theresagnes said:
I have asked several people this question and the best answers I have gotten are:
  1. Jesus died for everyone to teach us the nature of God
  2. We would not truly have free will unless Jesus had died for everyone, showing us the nature of love (100%) and therefore the true nature of God
    It is true that Jesus died to show us God’s love and his justice and also the nature of sin. But I also think the distinction is important so we can see the will of God to save all. If we knew Christ only died for the elect, then would it feel the same for us? Basically, we couldn’t claim Christ died for me in particular because we do not know if I will end up in heaven, so it is a little less comforting
So, the reason I am asking this question is this: What difference does it make that Jesus died for everyone? If he had only died for those who would accept him and nothing would have changed (i.e. in his suffering) then he might as well have died for everyone and the distinction does not matter. But I feel like it must matter. It had to have made a difference in something (his suffering?) for Jesus to have died for everyone.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
A few thoughts:
  1. we believe that Jesus not only died for all, but he made infinite satisfaction, meaning he made satisfaction for all of the sins we committed or could ever commit.
2)The reason for the above is that the sacrafice was made by an infinite and perfect priest offering and infinite and perfect victim
  1. I think when we say Christ died for all we mean that all have the oppurtunity to accept the gift and recieve forgiveness. In other words, the benefits of the passion are available to all men without exception
  2. Christ’s death did not simply allow us to be forgiven but it merited all grace. Since every person recieves actual grace, Christ’s death was beneficial to them even though they didn’t use the grace but still they were affected by the sacrifice
 
Theresagnes said:
It had to have made a difference in something (his suffering?) for Jesus to have died for everyone. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
I don’t think the question arises, Theresa, because His infinite compassion implies that He shares everyone’s suffering whether He died for them or not. Even if He knows a person rejects His love He does not reject that person but respects that person’s decision. “respect” may seem a strange word to use in the context of evil. How can one respect an evil decision?! What it really means is that He respects the freedom to make a decision regardless of whether it is good or evil because without that freedom we would be incapable of love…
 
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