177 — Was Jesus Forsaken?
This is a major question but I will try to answer it while sitting in a hospital waiting area, waiting on my daughter to deliver our first grandchild.
My question is about the doctrine or belief that God did forsake Jesus while he was dying on the cross. This position of understanding appears to come from Matt 27:46. John makes it clear to us that Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice fulfilling both prophecies and the law. However, if one also believes in the Trinity then wouldn’t it conflict for God to forsake Jesus? Could Jesus have shared the feeling of our separation from God, but without actually being forsaken? I have heard it suggested that Jesus could have possibly been crying out a verse from Psalms 22, a prayer for deliverance. If this is the case would this prayer had been for us or him? Luke 23:46 says “Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last”. My suspicion is that Jesus himself was not forsaken, but I am searching for other thoughts on this subject for further consideration.
The questioner has mentioned one word that will guarantee we get comments from a couple of my readers who don’t care for that doctrine at all. Sadly, we won’t talk much about it in this answer, though.
Jesus made a point of telling people time and time again that he did whatever the Father told him to do and that the Father did whatever Jesus asked Him to do. That was something he really wanted to make clear — it was a sign that he was who he claimed to be. And then… one night, in anguish of spirit, he asked God to deliver him from the suffering that waited for him at the bottom of the mountain. And God didn’t.
Humiliated, beaten, mocked, and mistreated beyond our ability to describe, Jesus also suffered emotionally from losing that incredible connection to God. God did not leave him, but He remained silent, inactive at a time when Jesus was in extremis. In that sense, he was forsaken. In this he also shared with us who often feel that God has gone silent or just… gone, especially when we needed Him most. Sometimes, the cavalry doesn’t ride over the hill just in time. Sometimes, the pain doesn’t go away. Sometimes, the big cloud has no bright lining. We feel forsaken, just as Jesus did. Once again, according to Hebrews, all of this occurred so that Jesus could serve as a perfect and complete High Priest for us, familiar with every emotion and situation we face, yet without sin.
There was no spiritual/physical separation necessary for Jesus to feel forsaken. In fact, he didn’t think God had gone anywhere or, else, why would he commend his spirit into God’s hands shortly after saying he felt forsaken? He felt forsaken because the prayer he prayed on the mountain wasn’t answered in the way he had always been answered before. He was truly another human at that point and not the Son, the equal of the Father and Spirit. As Philippians says, he laid aside that special relationship and, by so doing, God rewarded him with a Name that is above all names, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow on heaven and on earth.
May 7th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
That is the BEST explanation I have ever read on the subject of God forsaking Christ. I have always struggled with comments made by men that God left Christ or turned His back on Him because scripture so clearly states God will never forsake us. I just haven’t ever been able to line up with God forsaking Christ in the sense that he left Him.
Thanks, as always you really make me think.
May 7th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
If you list the sayings of Jesus from the cross, and then turn to Psalm 22, you’ll find just about everything he said can be related to those lines of lament.
Ray Vander Laan teaches that Psalm 22 is a common prayer for dying Jews. I haven’t checked him out on that, but I think it is hauntingly beautiful and instructive to think of Jesus meditating on Scripture even in such a terrible time. Not only meditating on Scripture, but allowing that Scripture to shape his actual interaction with the world around him, despite the mind-rending pain.
May 7th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Blessings for a safe delivery of a healthly grandchild. Our first came Sunday. Psalm 139.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:04 am
“The questioner has mentioned one word that will guarantee we get comments from a couple of my readers who don’t care for that doctrine at all.”
Patrick, I can’t imagine, who or what you are talking about.
You may have as many gods as you want, I only need “ONE GOD”
Mk:12:32: And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he:
May 8th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
I think your explanation makes more sense than many explanations I’ve read or heard.
May 9th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
I agree with nick’s perception of Psalm 22 … and I’d add that Isaiah 53 is phrased in this way:
“Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (emphasis mine.
Sometimes what we see/consider is not what it seems. God did not drive nails into His Son’s hands; men did. God simply permitted Him to bear our sins while on that cross – sins that are despicable in His sight. Both were willing for His will to be done in this way.
Paul tells Corinth: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
God turned His back on His Son-made-sin for a moment so that He could turn His face to shine upon us forever.
May 11th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
The Old Testament scriptures say that YHWH will send a fore-runner, to make the path straight for Him. (Isa 40:3; Mal 3:1)
After the fore-runner YHWH Himself will come unto Zion.
In the New Testament, we have a clearly-identified forerunner, and one who came after him also clearly identified.
After the fore-runner comes YHWH.
Who in the New Testament did what the Old Testament promised that YHWH Himself would do?
May 11th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Nick, read Psalm 110, that is one of the best scriptures I have found that describes the relationship of God and Jesus.
Look at the two words used to refer to two different “Lords”
May 12th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
I’ll discuss yours, Laymond, if you’ll answer my simple question above.
Who did Isaiah and Malachi say would come after the fore-runner?
Who do the gospel writers say came after the fore-runner?
PS – Multiple times in the Pentateuch, as well as other places in the OT, God is referred to by both YHWH and Adonai. The fact that David did not understand to whom God referred is understandable — even the experts in the law could not understand it, remember?
May 16th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
I look at Jesus saying my God my God why have you forsken me, with an emphasis on me. as a lesson to us in a sense. Since there was no reason God would be able to forsake Him He ws innocent. If we were on the cross dying for sin we could not say this because we would be getting our own due justice.
But if its Christ then saying my God my God why have you forsaken me, means something. the question is ours to answer, and the answer is because only innocents can ask why they are forsaken when in deed He was. This is what is going to make God wrathful with those the sons of disobedinece, when they gave regard, wisdom cried out and no man regarded, only Christ could say my God my God why have you forsaken ME! And because He is the only one who can say this it tells us He has paid as only an innocent man can and still be justified and only an innocent man paying on our behalfs has any effect no payment from an individual who has sinned can say this nor pay the price.