THEOLOGY: My God, My God, Did Not Forsake His Son
A quick examination of Scripture will prove it.
Jesus Christ is risen from the dead!
Without the blessing and power of the Father, Christ would still be dead and we would be doomed to hell. Christ did nothing on his own; he said, “I do nothing on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.” Moreover, Christ told the people,
“I lay down my life that I may take it up again. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”
But, the Church often asks, might it be that in the midst of that charge that the Father would briefly abandon and forsake the Son? Why else would Christ cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (That a charge would entail abandonment of the very link that validates it seems inherently impossible to me, but who am I to say without examination that God cannot assign such a thing?)
The answer to those questions is no, and the reason is simple—it lies within the cry itself!
David wrote in Psalm 22 the words that Jesus echoed on the cross. That Psalm contains several prophesies about the coming Christ, particularly his death; he shall be “scorned by man and despised by the people,” which happened at Jesus’s death, all who look upon the Christ shall mock him and “wag their heads,” which happened at Jesus’s death, the Christ will be “poured out like water” with all his bones out of joint, which happened during and after Jesus’s crucifixion, enemies will pierce Christ's hands and feet, which happened at Jesus’s death, and people would divide the Christ's clothing and cast lots for it, which happened at Jesus’s death.
But the Psalm does not end in tragedy and heartbreak. The very next stanza is a plea for salvation, and it ends, “You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!” This, consequently, must have happened at Jesus’s death. The Church might ask whether that is a representation of Easter Sunday and not Good Friday. Psalm 22 continues, “For [the Lord] has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him.” God affirms by David that the Father will not leave the Son when he is afflicted, and moreover that he will hear the Son right when he cries to him; he does not leave and reunite later.
Now, the Church might say, the Father heard the Son, but Psalm 22 itself says that God is “far from saving” and does not answer the cries he hears. This is true, but that merely means there is no change immediately following the plea.
If a child runs to the embrace of his father and then asks a question that he cannot fix for whatever reason, and the father does nothing but continue the embrace, can one say that the father abandoned the child or forsook him although there was no answer? Certainly not! As the child pleads for an answer, he already stands in a loving embrace; after no answer, he is still in that embrace—if it were otherwise, his plea would have found an answer, albeit an unpleasant one.
That is a description of Christ on the cross. The Father could not have ‘fixed’ or ‘saved from’ the situation because it would have left his glory defiled and mankind condemned, but there remains an embrace.
Thursday night before Jesus’s death, he prayed for an alternate solution for man's sin, but he did so only once. For the Father responded to Jesus with a loving embrace by way of an angel to strengthen him, to symbolize that the Father was with him. After the angel strengthens Jesus, he prays twice, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” That is a prayer for preparation, a prayer of understanding. Thus, the Father had already given his answer; Jesus knows what will come on the cross and has made peace with the Father about it. No further answer or change comes, not because the Father forsook the Son, but because no further answer is needed. And because there is no further answer or change, Jesus stands within God’s embrace even on the cross.
Now, the question still remains: Why did Christ cry those words on the cross?
Was it simply to allude to the fact that he himself was the One to fulfill the prophecies within Psalm 22? If that were so, verse 25 would have sufficed (or so my human mind supposes), “From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will perform before those who fear him.”
But Christ quotes another Psalm on the cross; with his final breath, he says, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” That, itself, quotes only half of Psalm 31, verse 5. The complete verse reads, “Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.” There is nothing of abandonment—there is the exact opposite! In the midst of suffering, Christ quotes to the Father a verse that says, “you have redeemed me,” as in present perfect tense! How can God have forsaken Christ if he had already redeemed him? That, indeed, is impossible.
Psalm 31 continues, “You have known the distress of my soul, and you have not delivered me into the hand of my enemy.” Later still, it says, “I had said in my alarm, ‘I am cut off from your sight.’ But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to you for help.” David, the author, gives vent to his spirit, recognizing that it yields feelings that are contrary to God’s truth. Of course, it is no sin to express to God one’s own feelings. Therefore, Christ fulfilled this prophecy as well, for in his humanity he surely felt alarm at meeting death, and for prophecy’s sake he had to use words that portrayed an image of being cut off, forsaken.
That is why Jesus cried those particular words, yet God through the psalmist declares that it was nothing more than human alarm, not an actual state of abandonment, that birthed those feelings, and again God shows that he hears right when the righteous cry to him.
Psalms 22 and 31 are replete with sentiments about the Christ and the Father's favor towards him, but it would be cumbersome to include all of them here. However, a thorough reading of them would be beneficial to anyone who wants to rejoice in the faithfulness of God and the salvation of Christ following Easter.
Additionally, the words of Christ himself—which, again, are the words of the Father—show that God never forsook him or abandoned him. Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.” He did not say, “I and the Father are almost always one,” or “I and the Father will be one;” no, he said, “I and the Father are one,” without any conditions or exceptions. How, then, can one abandon or forsake the other? He cannot.
Christ prayed on the very eve of his death, “Holy Father, keep [the people whom you gave me] in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.” As Jesus was about to be betrayed and crucified, he still declared that he and the Father were one. Someone about to be abandoned does not say such a thing. Furthermore, Jesus says the Father gave him his very name, the name which the Father revealed to Moses as “I am that I am,” illustrating that his very being is indisputable, indestructible, and unchangeable. How can an unchangeable being forsake himself or his name? Again, he cannot.
After Christ rises from the dead, he tells the 11 disciples, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And Christ testifies why the Father sent him,
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.”
The Father sent Christ the Son to redeem creation and defeat death through death. If the Father abandoned the Son in the hour of death, then he sent him just to abandon him. Likewise, the Son would be sending us to suffer pain and, in the midst of it, abandonment from the Father even as we proclaim the Father's faithfulness. The ultimate call for everyone, then, would be to join with Christ to suffer the Father's abandonment.
That cannot be true, especially since Christ proclaimed as he sent the 11 disciples, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” If that is how Christ sent us, then it must also be true that that is how the Father sent Christ, “I am with you always.”
But, the final cry of the church will be, Christ died; was the Father with him in death? If the logic is that God abandoned Christ because he led him into suffering, then it must also be true that God abandoned Christ in the wilderness as Satan tempted him. For 40 days the devil buffeted Christ with temptation, and the Spirit led Christ into that place.
However, nobody argues that God abandoned Christ in that time. There is nothing different about Christ's death. Is God’s power limited? Is his hand shortened, that there are places it cannot reach? By no means! God asks by David and answers, “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!”
While it is tempting to believe in a forsaken and abandoned Christ to augment our sorrow over the crucifixion, it simply is not true; God testifies repeatedly in the Scriptures that he never forsakes or abandons Christ. There is enough sorrow in the fact that man's sin killed the Creator of the universe, and killed him by the most painful means that man ever invented.
And, to add sorrow upon sorrow, Christ had to drink “to the dregs” the cup of God’s wrath for the punishment of sin. That cup carried condemnation for mortal man—it was, in a sense, a ‘double death’ for Christ. Without the faithfulness and presence of the Father, Christ would lie dead in Joseph's tomb, overcome by the Father's power. Put differently, if the Father had abandoned the Son, there would be no salvation for anyone.
Hallelujah that God is faithful, that the Father and the Spirit and the Son are one, and that he is in his very being unchangeable and indestructible!
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.”
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