The uniqueness of Christ's suffering I volunteer at a soup kitchen which is run by a pastor with a Born Again style.  Each meal is preceded by a sermon and attendees are encouraged to come to Jesus.

I had a come-to-Jesus conversation with the pastor.  He summarized his beliefs, including the idea that God gave Jesus to suffer for all of us.  On this I noted that the punishment suffered by Jesus was not unique: 2000 years later, people are still crucifed and suffer even worse forms of individualized cruelty, in what was and remains a very dangerous place.

Since then, in several visits to the soup kitchen, the pastor has avoided making eye contact with me.   I feel certain that I am among the damned.

Question: Is there a name for my heresy?  I'm sure I'm not the first person to come up with the observation that the suffering of Jesus does not make him unique (in that regard).  I imagine that there is a line of Jesuit thinking or something somewhere that already has a name for this particular observation and the consequences that come from it.
The suffering caused by the physical cross and by the soldiers was only a tiny portion of Christ's suffering.  His suffering and death was vicarious, meaning, he suffered in our place, Christ died for our sins.  God poured out upon His Son the wrath that was due to us.  The wrath of God against sin is very great.  Sinners will spend an eternity in Hell for the sins of just one life.  Even one sin is enough to condemn to hell forever.  How much then must be the punishment of Christ who bore the torment for all the sins of his people?


  The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all, (Isaiah 53:6).


He was made a curse for us, (Galatians 3:13).

The punishment, then, was incomparably the worst punishment anyone has ever endured, and if he had not been God as well as a man He would not have been able to endure it. 

When He was suffering on the cross there was darkness for the space of three hours.  The intimation is that even if we had been there as a bystander we would not have been able to see the depth of his suffering.  It would have been pointless to stand and watch him suffer because you would not have been able to see it: so God gave a curtain of darkness to demonstrate the pointlessness of trying to see all his suffering. 

His sufferings of mind are described in Psalm 69, which is clearly associated with the cross in verse 21, "in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink".