Did God forsake Jesus?
April 21, 2008
Well friends,
I have a question for you all to help me with. I preached a sermon last week that you can check out here. In that sermon, which was on the topic of suffering, I mentioned that Jesus can sympathize with us in our sufferings because he obviously led a life of suffering, which culminated with him suffering and dying on the cross. I also mentioned that he suffered emotionally when he was forsaken by God on the cross.
A member of our community came up to me this week and challenged me on the fact that God could forsake his Son. This person said that God was incapable of forsaking his own Son in that God would no longer be tree-in-one, and thus becoming two, separate Gods.
I mentioned Romans and the propitiation of Gods wrath on Jesus, thus forsaking him on the cross, but in the moment I didn’t formulate a good response. Now that I have had time to think about it I am interested to know what you think about this theological issue.
Did God forsake Jesus on the cross?
Now, this discussion can go in a variety of directions. Atonement, characteristics of God, the trinity, hypostatic union, etc. Take it where you will and I’ll chime in where I can. In all of this let’s keep in mind that we are not experts of the land, but only familiar with the territory.
Word.
April 21, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Here is a few verses that would help:
Psalm 115
1 Not to us, O LORD, not to us
but to your name be the glory,
because of your love and faithfulness.
2 Why do the nations say,
“Where is their God?”
3 Our God is in heaven;
he does whatever pleases him.
Isaiah 46
9 Remember the former things, those of long ago;
I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me.
10 I make known the end from the beginning,
from ancient times, what is still to come.
I say: My purpose will stand,
and I will do all that I please.
God is God. He does what he pleases. Just because he forsakes His Son does not mean he jeopardizes the Trinity. I believe the idea that Jesus became sin for us and therefore the holy God had to forsake him because God cannot stand sin. This idea comes from 2 Corinthians 5:21. The righteousness Jesus “earned” paid the price for all men’s sins and made possible the “gift” of righteousness (Romans 5:17) to all who believe in his work on their behalf.
Something I’ve Read over:
Matthew 27:46—“Why have you forsaken me?”—I ask myself if we really understand what Jesus said and why. Without going into depth about the Aramaic words Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, suffice it to say that Eloi means “My God,” lama means “why,” and the root word shabak, while usually translated “forsake,” is also translated “kept” or “reserved.” Thus, the context is important to determine its meaning.
This is a super hard area to handle. I turn to scripture first and different Bibles i have can say different things. I’m not sure where I stand right now. I have to read more of my word and think, prayfully ask some questions of my heart. Best of luck with the conversion. Let me Know how it goes. Hope I helped.
Andrew “Tyson”
April 22, 2008 at 7:33 am
Thanks Andrew,
I agree with you on the 2 Corinthians thing, him who knew no sin to be sin. I also agree that it isn’t impossible for God to forsake Jesus, the man. I don’t believe that “God” died on the cross, but the man side of Jesus did, and was forsaken. That’s the mystery of Jesus being both fully human and fully God. It’s called the hypostatic union.
Thanks for your thoughts.
April 22, 2008 at 12:11 pm
It’s a great question and I wonder if there’s another side to it. In Jesus’ cry to the Father asking why He had been forsaken, is it possible that the pain, suffering, heartache, the physical weight of sin was so unbearable that it was as though Christ had been forsaken??
From the perspective of the Son, the Father had turned His back but we are not given the perspective of the Father.
In contrast, at the baptism of Christ in Matthew 3 were are given words from God the Father speaking about Christ the Son - the Father loves the Son and is pleased with Him. We are not given this direct commentary from the Father’s perspective at the crucifixion.
April 22, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Chris-
That’s an interesting perspective. I wonder if there is a way to be “almost forsaken”. I guess if the full weight of sin was put of Jesus, and if God cannot stand sin, then the logical derivative is that Jesus was forsaken. Now, of course we will never know all of the mystical ways that God worked on that cross, but one thing I think can be safely said, Jesus had to take the full weight of sin in order to absolve God’s wrath, thus conquering sin.
Thanks for adding to this discussion.
April 22, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I am afraid I am a bit amateur to have much to say, but I am a bit uncomfortable with any idea that Jesus the man could be forsaken while the Second person of the Trinity was not. That seems to lead not to “fully God and fully man” but to a blended nature, of which the divine portion did not suffer the full depth of the cross. That sounds too much of an old heresy whose name I forget.
But the mystery of a split in the very nature of Trinity! That is too profound to contemplate, it would be the undoing of all things, the destruction of the Godhead and the total victory of the enemy. Perhaps that is what our adversary expected.
The closest I can get to it is the time when I lacked my son out of the house when he was 17. He was not allowed back in for months, and then only for a brief “discernment” meeting. I do not want to go into the reasons, or the wisdom or folly of my actions. But it is clear, and from my son’s experience of his life, my abandonment was real, and total. And yet, and yet he was always my son, and I grieve for every night under a bridge, every meal bummed and forsaken passion that raged through him. If he had cried his pain and anguish to the night “My Father! Why have you abandoned me!!” I could not have blamed him, or said he was wrong. And he may have done - I wasn’t there to hear him. But he was always my son, and he is my son, and by the grace of God, will always be my son.
I can’t work out the theology, but my heart tells me that this points in the right direction.
On a related topic, the “descended to the dead” part of the creed, I did a bit of an essay here
April 25, 2008 at 8:06 am
I don’t believe that God forsook Jesus on the cross. It is inconsistent wit His nature and would be a breech of His promise to never forsake or leave us. If He could forsake His only son in His hour of greatest need, then He could also forsake me. But the best argument I have is to refer back to the very Psalm Jesus is quoting here. We know from John 19:28 that all Jesus did, even on the cross, was to fulfill scripture, and He constantly pointed people to the scripture to defend His claims. Jesus quotes Psalms 22:1, the most descriptive passage in the Old Testament concerning crucifixion. This Psalm later states that God did NOT forsake Him and ultimately all nations turn to God and worship-declaring the triumph over the world. As a human, I’m sure Jesus felt abandoned just as we do when we go through tough times. That does not mean that God has done so. In addition, I think Jesus words could have also been intentionally pointing us to the scripture describing His death and ultimate triumph, as He had done throughout His ministry. He wanted us to know that God kept His word and fulfilled his promise to us.
June 5, 2008 at 9:46 am
First of all I must say that I believe that the notion of the trinity is a man made constuct with no biblical basis.
On the subject of God forsaking Jesus on the cross it is to me inconceivable. I believe that rather than God not being able to look on sin (he sees our sin every day) God could not bear to look on the suffering of his son, which must be totally identifiable to any parent.