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1 Peter 3:18
18 For [hoti] Christ [Christos] also [kai] hath once [hapax] suffered [pascho] for [peri] sins [hamartia], the just [dikaios] for [huper] the unjust [adikos], that [hina] he might bring [prosago] us [hemas] to God [theos], being put to death [thanatoo] [men] in the flesh [sarx], but [de] quickened [zoopoieo] by the Spirit [pneuma]: KJV-Interlinear
18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; NASB
Jesus Christ went to the Cross and suffered in order that we may not have to suffer. Christ was nailed to the Cross in the mid morning hours and hung there until noon on the day of the Passover feast, a single day celebration.
At noon, when the sun was high and the day was bright, the skies darkened with a supernatural darkness. The first of two supernatural darkness's that will occur in history. The second will occur immediately before the Second Advent, at the end of their tribulation.
When darkness covered the world, then for three hours, Jesus screamed and screamed in the most horrible suffering beyond human imagination or perception. His physical suffering prior to all of this, the beatings, the mental torture, and so forth, were nothing by comparison.
For three hours, Jesus died a spiritual death, while he was still physically alive and hanging on the Cross, receiving the punishment for all of mankind's sins.
He died once. He went to the Cross once. He paid the price and penalty once, and only once, for that was all that was necessary in order to clear the slate of charges for the sins of all of humanity.
Jesus did not die daily, or even several times during His life. He did not come back and keep on coming back to earth in order to clean up mans continuing mess. Christ died once and He died for everyone, believers and unbelievers alike. All sins were paid in full. None were left out or forgotten or overlooked.
Jesus did not do anything in order to deserve this judgment and suffering. He is the just. Man has failed miserably throughout his life and all of history. Humanity is the unjust.
Being failures in life, man has no future whatsoever. Mans destiny would be eternal separation from God. God is truth, God is life, therefore man was at risk of being separated from truth and life, forever. And that is the Lake of Fire, which is an environment of uncontrollable chaos. God controls all of history, but leaves the Lake of Fire to mans’ and Satan's control, which results in no control.
Therefore, Christ went to the Cross in order to give each one of us an opportunity for restoration to life, which is also a relationship with God, who is life. Apart from Jesus, there is no other means of attaining this restoration.
Jesus went to the Cross and died a spiritual death when He received the punishment of all of mans sins. They were poured out on Him. Then He died a physical death, in the very same manner as every other human being dies. His soul and spirit left the body.
But unlike humanity, who lacks the ability or power to restore themselves, their soul and spirit, back into their physical body, Jesus, in faith, looked to God and was restored back to life.
‘Made alive again,’ means to be restored to life, made alive, recalled to life, reanimated with the affect that He would never lose life again.
And so, we as humanity, who believe in Christ, and living in this devils world, may very well suffer in varying degrees. In our suffering in life, we associate ourselves with the suffering that Jesus endured prior to and during the time He hung on the Cross. Likewise, in our physical death, this suffering as it may be called, because it is the event of separation of oneself from the physical body, is also an identification of Christ in his physical death after the events of the Cross.
So in life and in death we identify with Christ, and likewise being identified with Christ, we will be called back to life and restored just as He was.
There is our eternal guarantee of eternal life and the elimination of any possibility of having a second death or the Lake of Fire. This promise and guarantee belongs to each person who has believed in Christ, and therefore in believing in Him, identified with Him in His work (not our own pathetic attempts at works).
