How, Where & Why Did Jesus Suffer?
The Apostles’ Creed says of Jesus Christ that He, “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried and descended into hell…” Many people have recited that creed and have declared biblical truth without ever understanding the meaning of it. For the first 26 years of my life, I was one of them. Others, without having recited the words, have incorrectly understood the biblical truth that the creed expresses and have declared false doctrine to others. The creed, when understood correctly, is a great statement of biblical truth.
The How Of Christ’s Suffering
In the incarnation, Jesus took upon Himself genuine humanity without taking upon Himself the sin nature of Adam. Genuine humanity consists of the body, the soul and a spirit (some combine the soul and spirit as one, but I believe there is a distinction between the two). In His body Jesus, suffered what has been called the cruelest torture that man has ever devised against another man- crucifixion. Having been scourged by Pontius Pilate, an act that often was itself fatal, Jesus was compelled to carry His cross to the place of crucifixion, an act He ultimately was incapable of doing. At Golgotha they nailed His hands and feet to the cross and there He was left to die. Alfred Edersheim states that, “the punishment was invented to make death as painful and as lingering as the power of human endurance.” The soul is the seat of man’s emotions. Jesus suffered in anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane, so much so that His perspiration was as drops of blood. On the eve of His crucifixion one of the twelve who followed Him, who He called friend, betrayed Him for 30 pieces of silver. The other 11 completely deserted him and one of those denied Him, not 3 times as most think, but I believe 6 times. He ached for the city of Jerusalem and the country of Israel, His chosen people, knowing of the destruction that would come upon them in 70 AD and grieving that He would have gathered them as a hen gathers her chicks, but they would not come to Him. So difficult was His emotional suffering that Psalm 69:20 was literally fulfilled with His crucifixion (“Reproach hath broken my heart…”). The spirit of man is that which brings life to the body and soul (James 2:26) and, when man is born again, is the seat of communion with God. Being the eternal Son of God, Jesus was always in perfect communion with His Father but on the cross He bore the sins of the entire world. God, being of purer eyes that He could not behold evil and not able to look upon iniquity (Habakkuk 1:13) had to turn from His Son, and consequently, there were 3 hours of darkness upon the face of the earth wherein Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” My father passed away 6 months ago and I greatly miss my fellowship with him, but to an eternal being, the three hours on that day of crucifixion were infinitely greater than the 6 months I have experienced. I believe it is safe to say that when Jesus suffered on the cross, He suffered infinitely greater in the totality of His being than any human has ever suffered.
The Where Of Jesus’ Suffering
The orthodox teaching of Christianity through the almost 2 millennia of its existence has been that the suffering of Jesus ended on the cross. However, there are some today that teach, possibly in regards to the statement in the Apostles’ Creed, that the suffering of Jesus continued on in the fires of hell up to the day of the resurrection. The most notable teachers of this error are Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, Andrew Wommack, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Fred Price and Joyce Meyer. Not only do these teachers of false doctrine pervert the Scriptures, but some, like Joyce Meyer even state that they have additional revelation about what transpired in hell when Jesus suffered there. In a sermon entitled From The Cross To The Throne, Joyce Meyer said, “Jesus said ‘It is finished.’ And He meant the old covenant. The job he had to do was just getting started. He really did the job the three days and nights that he was in hell. That’s where the job was done… He was pronounced guilty on the cross but he paid the price in hell… They were having the biggest party that had ever been had. They had my Jesus in the floor and they were standing on his back jumping up and down laughing… All the hosts of Hell were upon him. Upon him. Up on him. The angels were in agony. All the creation is groaning. All the hosts of Hell were upon him. Up on him. They got on him. They got him down in the floor and got on him and they were laughing and mocking. Ha ha ha. You trusted God and look where you ended up. You thought he’d save you and get you off that cross. He didn’t, ha ha ha… Justice has been met, somehow the things been taken care of. And ole God gets his voice together and he hollers out three words and they go roaring through the universe and entering the gates of hell. He said, ‘It is enough! It is enough!’” That Jesus was suffering in the torments of hell can be easily refuted by one statement from the lips of the Savior on His cross when He spoke to the repentant thief and said, “Today you shall be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). 
What kind of paradise is a place where demons jump up and down on your back? So how then is the Apostles’ Creed correct in stating that Jesus descended into hell? According to Luke 16, hell (Greek word = hades, Hebrew = sheol) was a place of two compartments, one called Abraham’s bosom and the other a place of torments in fire. At the ascension of Jesus, He led captivity captive (Ephesians 4:8) so that the Apostle Paul would later say that he knew a man that was caught up (not down) into paradise (2 Corinthians 12:4). When Jesus descended into hell, He descended into the paradise compartment of hell and was there until the resurrection, but with the resurrection, paradise was taken with Jesus into heaven itself. According to Luke 16, there is no escaping from the torment compartment of hell and if Jesus had descended there, He would still be there today. The suffering that Jesus suffered was finished when He said, “It is finished!” which brings me to:
The Why Of Jesus’ Suffering
When God created Adam, He told him that if he would disobey the prohibition of eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in that very day he would die. I understand that the Hebrew text literally reads, “dying you shall die” and indicates a two-fold nature to death. The “dying” is the physical aspect of it, a process, which for Adam, did not culminate until over 900 years later. But the “shall die” is an immediate aspect which indicates a separation from God. When Adam sinned, he became estranged from God, guilty of sin, and worthy of eternal punishment. Once sin had entered into the world, Adam was incapable of remedying it. And since all of mankind is descended from him, we all have received his sin nature and consequently all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and we are equally as worthy of eternal punishment. But God is not willing that any should perish and sent His Son to die in our place, to pay sin’s penalty in full, which He did on the cross. Jesus did not go to the cross as a martyr, He went as a Savior. But if a man refuses Christ as Savior and opts instead to be “at peace with God” on the basis of his own merits or good deeds, then that one will need to suffer the same as what Jesus did. But the problem is the suffering is eternal in duration. Jesus, being eternal could make the payment in one act of time, but man, being temporal, can never accomplish the same, and so the literal fires of hell await him. You can either receive Jesus as your Savior and enjoy the paradise of heaven upon death or you can refuse Him and suffer the torments of hell forever when you die.