Originally posted by @romans1009
Well He certainly wasn’t praising and singing (as an aside, I love the passage in Acts where Paul and Silas did that in prison.)
He knew that His death was more than a mere martyrdom. He would be judged for the sins of the whole world. He knew He would be lifted up as Satan, as being the sole bearer of all the sins under God's wrath.
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up ..." (John 1:14a)
If the Apostle Paul knew that He became sin for us how could the Son of God not know that that was about to happen to Him under divine wrath.
" Him who did not know sin He made sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Cor. 5:21)
This is beyond our full comprehension.
The Bronze Serpent signifies Satan under Judgement.
Neither, though, do I think He was attempting to avoid it; though He asked for the cup to be removed, He added, “Not my will, but Thy will be done.”
You are right.
For the first three hours on the cross it was man's persecution. During the subsequent three hours the things that happened were not under the control of man -
the earthquake, the darkness over creation, the riping of the temple veil from top down to the bottom.
These are the things which happened during the second three hours of His six hours of hanging on the cross. They signify the things come upon Him supernaturally from the wrath of God's judgment.
This must have been the cup which He dreaded.
And it is at this stage He cried out that God had forsaken Him.
"Now from the sixth hour darkness fell over the land until the ninth hour.
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani! that is,
My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me." (Matthew 27: 45,46)
This was beyond martyrdom.
This was the cup of the wrath of God which He had to drink on our behalf.
I remember He was silent before His accusers, which I believed fulfilled at least one Old Testament prophecy.
Yes, All true.
And GOD ... GOD caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. And it please GOD to smite Him. This was beyond the smiting torture of mere men. This was the cup He drank of divine wrath poured out upon Him
(Isaiah 53:4-10) including the words proving that God crushed Him.
"Jehovah was pleased to crush Him, to afflict Him with grief when He makes Himself an offering for sin." (v.10)
And on the cross, He asked God the Father to forgive His enemies because they didn’t know what they were doing.
Though fully God and fully man, Jesus knew where He came from and where He was going.
This petitioning of His Father was during the first three hourse. In answer to that eternal petition, that mighty universal prayer of efficacy God answered by making Him, the executed One, the object of His wrath.
He was made sin for us during that second phase.
He died in the form of the judged Satan, the bronze serpent, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.