Hello Brandon
@TryingToLearn, further but imperfect clarification:
First, per your post #8, Jesus did not perform miracles “from his divine nature”, but from the Spirit of God indwelling Him: “if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God [given Him without measure -John 3:34], then the kingdom of God is come unto you” (Matt 12:28).
But seeking to better reply to your question in the OP, as to how the finite human nature of Jesus could be sustained and kept by His divine nature “from sinking under the infinite wrath of God”? I’m sorry I have not answered this well previously. And I don’t think I can even now, save perhaps to bring what is beyond our ken clearer into focus.
I’ve been looking through some of my books which touch on this topic, and perhaps W.G.T. Shedd in his,
The Doctrine of Endless Punishment, (BOT, 1990 – first published in 1885), gives some light:
“It must be remembered that it is the degree, together with the endlessness of suffering, that constitutes the justice of it. We can conceive of an endless suffering that is marked by little intensity in the degree of it . . . . The infinite incarnate God suffered more agony in Gethsemane [and on the cross, I would add -SMR], than the whole finite human race could suffer in endless duration. Consequently, the uniformity in the endlessness must be combined with a variety in the intensity of suffering, in order to adjust the future punishment to the different grades of sin.” (p. 131)
This in itself doesn’t answer your question, but it adds that there are differing degrees of intensity of the infinite suffering Jesus Christ experienced. (Cf. Luke 12:47-48; Matt 11:20,21,22,23,24.) Still, how could His finite human nature have endured that? On the one hand, I suppose we humans can never fully comprehend and explain that, and on the other, may it not be that we humans in our fallen estates cannot even imagine what the capacity for experience the sinless humanity of Christ could consist of? How great, although finite, His being as a human was? “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col 2:9); see also Col 1:19. Deity dwelt in Jesus Christ bodily — however one might understand that remarkable statement. God was in the Person of Jesus Christ, manifest in the flesh (1 Tim 3:16). Two separate natures, not mingled or confused, in one Person.
So we come to the time beginning in Gethsemane and culminating on the cross where God began to pour forth the wrath of outraged Justice upon the Sin-bearer, the infinite, eternal wrath for the Godhead’s infinite majesty and dignity despised — and Jesus, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross” (Heb 12:2), and, being very God, that He “by the power of His Godhead, [might] sustain in His human nature the burden of God’s wrath; and might obtain for, and restore to us, righteousness and life.” (HC 17)
That the deity of Christ’s Person could sustain His human soul and body to endure what we can’t even imagine as regards the punishment meted out to Him, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen exactly so. The wrath was infinite and eternal, and the infinite majesty and dignity of the Person who bore the wrath did give infinite worth and satisfaction to the outpoured fury of Justice He bore and endured on that dark but glorious day God was glorified in His Son.
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The nature of the wrath — a glimpse
A brief look: from Eryl Davies’
The Wrath of God (Evangelical Press of Wales, 1984), p 52, citing John Gerstner,
Jonathan Edwards on Heaven and Hell, pp 57, 53:
“Jonathan Edwards also stresses that the all-important feature of heaven and hell is God Himself. God makes hell and He is hell: ‘God will be the hell of one and the heaven of the other . . . ’Tis the infinite almighty God that shall become the fire of the furnace’. (emphasis added)
Davies (pp 64, 65) citing The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol 2 (BOT 1974), pp 81-83:
“Preaching on Ezekiel 22:14 with the express purpose of revealing the unavoidable and intolerable punishment of the wicked in hell, Edwards asks his hearers to imagine themselves being thrown into a fiery oven or a great furnace for a quarter of an hour:
‘What horror you would feel! . . . And after you had endured it for one minute, how overbearing would it be to you to think that you had to endure if for another fourteen!
‘But what would be the effect on your soul, if you knew you must lie there enduring that torment to the full for twenty-four hours . . . a whole year . . . a thousand years!—O then, how would your hearts sink if you knew that you must bear it for ever and ever! That there would be no end! That after millions and millions of ages, your torment would be no nearer to an end, and that you never, never should be delivered!
‘But your torment in hell will be immensely greater than this illustration represents . . .
‘You who now hear of hell and the wrath of the great God, and sit here so easy and quiet, and go away careless; by and by will shake and tremble, and cry out, and shriek, and gnash your teeth, and will be thoroughly convinced of the vast weight and importance of these things which you now despise.’ ”
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That you can’t fathom how it could be, Brandon, is natural. It is an article of faith, really. We toss around the words
infinite and
eternal, which do speak of both the wrath and of the Son bearing it, and it should lead, among the elect, not only to godly fear and awe, but to worship and adoration rather than doubt and confusion — for who can really understand such great things? But it is what it is, and can only be as the confessions well declare in light of our Scriptures.
From Alexander Nisbet,
Exposition of 1 & 2 Peter, (BOT); on 1 Peter 3:18:
As the whole time of Christ’s humiliation was one uninterrupted course of suffering, so by that whole course, and especially by His offering Himself a sacrifice for us upon the cross, He has so completed the work of satisfaction to God’s justice for the sins of the elect, and of purchasing grace and glory to them, that nothing thereof remains to be done, nor need that sacrifice be again repeated: for though His sufferings were finite in regard of duration, yet in regard of the worth which the excellency of His person who was God did add to them, they were infinite: for both in respect of the continuation of His sufferings throughout His state of humiliation, and in regard of the completeness of them for satisfaction to God’s justice, as also in opposition to all the legal sacrifices which for their imperfection behoved to be often repeated, Heb. 7:27, the Apostle says here He hath once suffered for sins. (Pp 142, 143)
Brandon, I don’t think I can do any better than this, given my very finite and meager understanding’s limitations.