Does Jesus Know What Sin Feels Like?

Someone from my home group made a provocative statement a few weeks ago. She said she thought Jesus knows what it's like to be a sinner.

We we were discussing St. Paul's assertion that Jesus "became sin" (God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the rightousness of God. 2 Cor. 5:21).

So I've been chewing on this for weeks. Does Jesus know what it feels like to sin? To be a sinner? And what implications does that have for the remorseful sinner?

Here's the critical point: In order to truly "take our place" Jesus had to do it fully. He had to feel it fully. I think Paul's words may well indicate that Jesus felt what it feels like to sin, to have sinned, to be a sinner: he felt rejection/separation from God. Thus the Psalms 22 quote (My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?).

Anything less is short of full atonement - at least I think you could argue that.

The fine line is here (I think): He did not chose to disobey God. Therefore he is authentically "without sin", perfect, able to be the sacrificial lamb.

But his fully empathic sacrifice necessitates a level of experiential knowledge which, I think, is equal to the guilt and misery of knowing that you have broken relationship with God. Not that Jesus "broke it" but that "it" was "broken" - voluntarily, mutually, and yet fully.

Crazy.

So it's not just "Jesus died for my sins."

It is (as the apostle's creed strongly implies): "Jesus went to Hell for me."

That's just amazing.

What's most powerful about it, in my mind, is what that could mean for the heart and soul of the sinner. The potential for communion with Jesus, for comfort from the Spirit of Jesus, in the crushing moments following the sinful act, the truth that Jesus knows you fully even in that moment - actually has the opposite effect as the original sacrificial act (which separated Jesus from God): Jesus' full emphathy actually could draw you (the sinner)closer to God (in Christ).

So, as Paul says, "Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more."

I could be wrong here - I've never read this...but the ramifications of this idea, from a spiritual formation perspective, are awesome.