Featured How was Christ Forsaken?

You have no idea at how many hours I have pondered this question.

Eapecially since the Bible says that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself

 

We can expect God to be faithful to us, to not abandon us, precisely because He did abandon Christ. Because Christ was forsaken during those hours of darkness, we, who deserve to be forsaken, never shall be. God did not forsake the righteous because Christ was made sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

 

The Scriptures say God is not a man, yet Jesus was a man.

Christ was made sin, made a curse, and forsaken as are the unrighteous.

 

I have written this before on this forum, but perhaps it will be helpful to do so again.

'Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” Which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”‘ (Mark 15:33-34).

We will first look at the supernatural darkness that came over the land. There are several places in the O.T. where darkness denotes God’s wrath and judgement, especially connected to the ‘day of the Lord,’ e.g. Joel 2:31; Amos 5:18-20; Zephaniah 1:14-15 and particularly Isaiah 13:9-11 (quoted in Mark 13:24-25). so the darkness indicates the righteous anger of God, but against whom? The Lord Jesus Himself tells us that it is against Himself. ‘Then Jesus said to them, “All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written, ‘I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered'”‘ (Mark 14:27). The quotation is from Zechariah 13:7 which makes it perfectly clear that God Himself is the One who will strike the Shepherd. The Lord Jesus was made sin, and God’s righteous anger against sin was poured out upon Him instead of us, with His full knowledge and consent.

We now come to the dereliction of Christ. As I have said elsewhere, I cannot accept that “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me” can possibly be read as “My God, My God, You haven’t forsaken Me.” Nor can I accept that David, who is described as a prophet in Acts 2:30, was actually a false prophet in that he made an error in Psalm 22:1 (c.f. Deuteronomy 18:20-22). Nor is it a case of ‘God forsaking God’ any more than God prays to God (e.g. John 17). The Son prays to the Father, although the Father does not pray to the Son, and on the cross, the Father temporarily forsakes the Son. To be sure, we need to be careful here. We must not suggest that the Father was not present at Calvary for the very good reason that He is Omni-present. ‘”Do I not fill heaven and earth?” Declares the LORD’ (Jeremiah 23:23-24; c.f. Psalm 139:7-12). Rather it means that the Son, who had enjoyed the constant and closest possible relationship with His Father, now lacked completely any sense of His presence until the sun appeared once more and He cried, “It is finished!” The Greek word tetelestai can also mean, ‘It is paid’ (c.f. Matthew 17:14) or ‘it is accomplished (c.f. Luke 9:31). In fact, our Lord’s cry meant all those things. The ransom was paid in full, reconciliation between Man and God was accomplished, and His suffering was about to be ended.

This forsaking of Christ is an integral part of the atonement. Christ ‘is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him.’ His is a complete salvation. I shall not be condemned for my sins because Christ was made sin for me. I shall not suffer the pains of hell because Christ has suffered them on my behalf on the cross. I shall not be shut out from the presence of God (2 Thessalonians 1:9) because Christ was, for those hours, shut out from the felt presence of His Father on my behalf.
[Taken from my blog article Penal Substitution and the Trinity More detail on the Cross and the Trinity available there]

 

Jesus who became sin was separated from the Godhead. God's Holiness would not allow sin in His presence He was alone on the cross Jesus as God and man , being man we share in His death , being God only He could pay the sin debt. (to Himself for us)

egkataleipō
abandon, desert
leave in straits, leave helpless totally abandoned, utterly forsaken to leave behind among, to leave surviving

 

He became sin and that was why He God left him. God is too Holy to have a relationship with sin, This describes our situation and the reason for Jesus to come. Sinful death is separation from God.

 

No Christian could possibly believe that Christ was separated from the Godhead, so we are one-all on the straw man stakes.
And you are aware, I suppose, that the term "leave in straits" includes the word "leave"?

 

I don't believe that it is a strawman argument. Either God did forsake Christ or He didn't. I don't see that there is a half-way house.

 

When jesus was the Sin Bearer, at that time upon the Cross, God the father treated Him as If he himself was the chief of all sinners, so he experienced exactly what lost sinners will in hell, forsaken by God!

 

Jesus in His deity was always in the Trinity, but in His humanity, he experienced exactly same as any lost sinner would due to being sinners!