Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/7318

7318 Good Friday....

March 27, 1959: Book 77

Jesus' walk on the cross and His death on the cross were painful beyond measure.... And should this suffering be made so obvious to you humans that you could grasp it, you would truly perish with horror and be unable to comprehend that a human being could endure such a measure. But it was the strength of love which endured such things for fellow human beings who were under satan's bondage and whom He wanted to liberate from this bondage. The man Jesus, by virtue of His high degree of love, saw the immeasurable suffering of the whole of humanity under satan's rule. And this took pity on Him so that He wanted to take everything upon Himself in order to reduce people's suffering and to clear the way to their heavenly father, Whom they had once voluntarily left and therefore fell into the adversary's hands. He knew about the infinitely great sin of apostasy from God, but just as He also knew that people were never able to make satisfaction for these sins. And thus this inability also meant eternal separation from God, from the father, as Whose children they had once come forth in supreme perfection. In His infinite love for God and also for the fallen brothers He sought to reunite them and was willing to pay the highest price for it.... to offer the act of salvation on the cross as a sacrifice of atonement for the great guilt of the once fallen. But the man Jesus contained a soul from the kingdom of light.... But this soul, in the form of a weak human being, had to accomplish the work of redeeming the guilt, which meant that the magnitude of the guilt was disproportionate to the degree of torment and suffering a human being was capable of enduring, and a human body would never have been able to endure it, what the human being Jesus took upon Himself had He not, through His greater than great love, also possessed a measure of strength which enabled Him to die the most agonizing death on the cross after immense suffering and pain before which would have been enough for any other human being to take his earthly life. But Jesus wanted to suffer for the sake of people, and the strength of His love endured until the end.... But the suffering was immeasurable and incomprehensible to you humans, and only because love offered this sacrifice did God accept it, and He allowed the tormentors to pounce on a pure, sinless human being as emissaries of satan and inflict ever new pain and wounds on Him in order to increase His suffering. It was truly an act of utmost mercy which can only be explained by the fact that Jesus also saw the appalling spiritual hardship people were facing and wanted to redeem them from this adversity. Earthly life will end once but spiritual life will continue, and He overlooked this spiritual life in all its agony and bondage. He knew that there was no longer any salvation from it, that people themselves could not save themselves from it, that the great debt had to be paid first, which people themselves were incapable of doing.... And this knowledge moved Him to His plan of redemption with all its torments and sufferings, with all fear and the most bitter suffering and dying on the cross. Jesus went to His death quite consciously, and precisely the knowledge beforehand increased His suffering many times over, because as a human being He had to endure the same fears and pains and thus had no reduction of them through His divinity.... For the presence of God in Him had not determined His will, which had to decide completely freely until the end, which cost the most bitter struggles and overcoming before the last act of the act of salvation took place. But He had passed the battle, He voluntarily gave His life on the cross, for He had the power to turn everything away from Himself until the end, yet He no longer used this power but suffered and died in excruciating pain in order to accomplish the act of salvation.... to make atonement for humanity before God again and to open the way to the father for it, which until then had been closed to it.... For Jesus' love for His fallen brothers was endless and this love took everything upon itself to bring them help, to redeem them from sin and death....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers