The fathers meant to go further than the 4th article of the Apostle's creed to give us a scope of His entire life. A man of sorrows acquainted with grief. We start at the end of His life to get a clear picture of this.

We have to begin with His death as the significance is in how He died. The cross. We all see, feel, and understand suffering! It is intense. We can learn about our suffering and may even say in the body that some have suffered more than Christ, but we are not dealing with Christ's bodily suffering but the atonement and go to the cross to understand Christ's suffering. There was cursing that comes to light on the cross. Those who are not in Christ are still under that curse. We too are cursed, yet Christ took our curse upon Him as He suffered in both body AND soul. The curse of God was His labeling and was His suffering. A man of sorrows! His very essence was one of sorrow and acquainted with grief. He saw the very magnitude of the curse of God upon sin and He lived that curse.

And there was progress. It starts in His conception. Very God yet He took upon Himself human flesh. He became what He had created. That was a curse, but only part of it. He was under God's curse even though He did not commit a single sin! He saw the wrath of God Almighty in everything around Him. We see the evidences of the curse still here below, but also deal with the evidences of the curse as redeemed Christians...but Christ saw the curse and the very depth of the wrath of that curse of God! Something you and I could not even handle. And it progressed more and more till the end of His life. A continual reminder of the cross to come and one who was to be separated from God even as He WAS very God! He stood under this curse from beginning to end. Forsaken of God for US! You and I!

This was the atoning sacrifice (and the only one) that could attain FULL satisfaction for our curse. All of our sicknesses, pains, diseases are only reminders to us that this life is a continual death and now we are told that Christ took this curse and wrath of God away from us for good! He has freed you and I and set us at liberty. The grace of God in Christ is that He sent Christ to be obedient...to die on the cross to free us from the curse.

We are free! We can live and will never die! We will all experience this fully in eternal glory now because of Christ!