Featured Forsaken in Matthew 27:46

This topic came up on another thread and I cautiously decided to bring it here. Maybe this time discussion will prove better than before.

My understanding is that on the cross Jesus’ cry "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?"was a fulfillment of Psalm 22. I believe that here “forsaken” means that the Father has left Jesus in his sufferings (deliverance was not present, although not far off). The Father has offered the Son as a guilt offering. And Jesus, bearing our sins, is experiencing death as man. He is “forsaken”, crying out to the Father for deliverance (in obedience and faith, trusting that God will be faithful to deliver because God is faithful to his word and his promises will not fail.

“Forsake” here does not mean that Jesus is no longer God (Jn 1:1; 10;30-33; Col. 2:9), nor does it mean that the Father is not looking on the Son with love (Mat. 3:17; Jn. 3:35). It does not meant that Jesus was separated from God’s Spirit (Heb. 9:14; Acts 10:38; Jn. 3:34) and It does not mean that God abandoned (withdrew himself/ his presence from) Christ (Psalm 9:10;16:10; 94:14;1 Chr. 28:20; Job 8:20; Acts 2:27;13:35).

Regarding Jesus, Habakkuk 1:13 states that his “eyes are too pure to approve evil” and he “cannot look on wickedness with favor”. This “forsakenness” cannot mean that Jesus was approving evil, but instead is forsaken on the grounds that he is suffering for our sin. Jesus is dying as a man under the curse of the Law, for “cursed is anyone who is hanged from a tree” (Deut. 21:23; Gal. 3:13).

On the cross Jesus was offering himself to God through the Spirit (Heb. 9:14). Scripture presents the Cross as a Triune event - the offering and sending of the Father, the obedience in faith and willingness of the Son, and the power of the Spirit. God’s Spirit was still with Jesus and still empowering Jesus. He was not there of his own will, but the will of the Father through the Spirit. This is vital, because had Jesus been abandoned by the Spirit not only would Scripture have been nullified and God demonstrated unfaithful, but the work of the Cross would no longer be one of submission. Jesus was clear. It was not his will as a man, but the Father’s. Not his work as a man, but the Spirit. And this forms a pattern for those who are “in Christ”, that take up their crosses and die daily to the flesh to live with and in Him.

 

I was raised hearing the same teachings, but I think sometimes this was just a way of simplifying doctrine and emphasizing points. Sometimes we take one doctrine (the atonement, for example) and explain it in in a concise manner to teach others. But what we end up with are "micro-doctrines" that are designed to stand alone. When we try to put them together they don't fit.

But yes, I agree. If God separated from Jesus then the Father and Son are not one. No Trinity, no immutability, no redemption.

 

The English word "forsake" often carries a meaning other than a physical abandonment - such as “leaving to”, "not rendering (deliverance or aid), or “giving over to”. Quite simply, the word itself does not demand the meaning that you are giving it here. For example, when God says “I will never leave nor forsake you”, this is not mere repetition. God is speaking of provision, of deliverance. The issue, however, is the word ἐγκαταλείπω, not the English word used in translation. Does this word necessitate the meaning that the one doing the forsaking has "departed from" the forsaken?

I understand those passages that you present, and I agree. As Jesus suffered the wrath, drank of the “cup” as the Father laid our iniquities on him as a guilt offering, he was “forsaken”. But we have to be careful not to deny Scripture in order to emphasize the point. Scripture says that God will not abandon the “forsaken”. Instead, in faith the righteous will look to God for deliverance, and God will be faithful to deliver. Not only that, but Scripture says that it was “through the Spirit” that Jesus offered himself on the Cross.

And to clarify:
2 Thessalonians 1:6-10 For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. <=These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed—for our testimony to you was believed.

I am not saying that you mean God abandoned (God himself departing) from Jesus, or that the Spirit was no longer abiding in Him on the Cross. But I am asking for clarification.

 

Actually, no. I have to side with R.C. Sproul here (which is a rare thing, not because I disagree with the man but because I do not reference him often). Jesus experienced, as God and man, all of the Cross. You are confused about the nature of death.

When men die their bodies die but their spirits do not. Jesus experienced death as a man because what we are speaking of is human death. This does not mean that he did not experience human death with his "God senses". The entire basis of your argument here is not logical.

Jesus is fully God and fully man. Not more human than human, and not less God than God. All of the time (not one way on the cross, another way walking on the water).

 

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My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. …In You our fathers trusted; They trusted and You delivered them. To You they cried out and were delivered; In You they trusted and were not disappointed… All who see me sneer at me; They separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying, "Commit yourself to the LORD; let Him deliver him; Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him." Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb; You made me trust when upon my mother's breasts. Upon You I was cast from birth; You have been my God from my mother's womb. Be not far from me, for trouble is near; For there is none to help. … I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And my tongue cleaves to my jaws; And You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me; They divide my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots. But You, O LORD, be not far off; O You my help, hasten to my assistance. … You who fear the LORD, praise Him; All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, And stand in awe of Him, all you descendants of Israel. For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard. (Psalm 22)

I gave My back to those who strike Me, And My cheeks to those who pluck out the beard; I did not cover My face from humiliation and spitting. For the Lord GOD helps Me, Therefore, I am not disgraced; Therefore, I have set My face like flint, And I know that I will not be ashamed. He who vindicates Me is near; (Isa. 50)

Jesus answered them, "Do you now believe? Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. (Jn 16)

But the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; He is their strength in time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them; He delivers them from the wicked and saved them (Ps. 37)

I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you. (Joshua 1, as quoted in Hebrews 13)

From my distress I called upon the LORD; The LORD answered me and set me in a large place. The LORD is for me; I will not fear; What can man do to me? The LORD is for me among those who help me; Therefore I will look with satisfaction on those who hate me. (Ps. 118)

You pushed me violently so that I was falling, But the LORD helped me. The LORD is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation.The sound of joyful shouting and salvation is in the tents of the righteous; The right hand of the LORD does valiantly.The right hand of the LORD is exalted; The right hand of the LORD does valiantly. I will not die, but live, And tell of the works of the LORD. The LORD has disciplined me severely, But He has not given me over to death. Open to me the gates of righteousness; I shall enter through them, I shall give thanks to the LORD. This is the gate of the LORD; The righteous will enter through it. I shall give thanks to You, for You have answered me, And You have become my salvation. The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief corner stone. (Ps 118)

Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the LORD your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you." (Deut. 31 as quoted in Heb. 13)

Do not drag me away with the wicked And with those who work iniquity, Who speak peace with their neighbors, While evil is in their hearts. Requite them according to their work and according to the evil of their practices; Requite them according to the deeds of their hands; Repay them their recompense. Because they do not regard the works of the LORD Nor the deeds of His hands, He will tear them down and not build them up. Blessed be the LORD, Because He has heard the voice of my supplication. The LORD is my strength and my shield; My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart exults, And with my song I shall thank Him. The LORD is their strength, And He is a saving defense to His anointed. Save Your people and bless Your inheritance; Be their shepherd also, and carry them forever.(Ps 28)

For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard. (Ps. 22)

I have set the LORD continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely. For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever. (Ps 16)

Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. (2 Cor 5)

"I and the Father are one." (Jn 10)

But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power. For David says of Him, 'I SAW THE LORD ALWAYS IN MY PRESENCE; FOR HE IS AT MY RIGHT HAND, SO THAT I WILL NOT BE SHAKEN. 'THEREFORE MY HEART WAS GLAD AND MY TONGUE EXULTED; MOREOVER MY FLESH ALSO WILL LIVE IN HOPE; BECAUSE YOU WILL NOT ABANDON MY SOUL TO HADES, NOR ALLOW YOUR HOLY ONE TO UNDERGO DECAY. 'YOU HAVE MADE KNOWN TO ME THE WAYS OF LIFE; YOU WILL MAKE ME FULL OF GLADNESS WITH YOUR PRESENCE.' (Acts 2)

May the LORD our God be with us, as He was with our fathers; may He not leave us or forsake us (1 Kings 8)

 

I am saying it does not mean "abandoned" as you mean it. It does not mean "forsaken" as you mean it. It means the Son is suffering at the will of the Father, yet he has not lost faith for his trust is in Him (Jesus remain submissive to the will of the Father).

Here are a couple of authors/preachers that I respect and who may communicate this truth of scripture to you a bit better than I:

Joel Beeke -

"This phrase represents the nadir, the lowest point, of Jesus’ sufferings. Here Jesus descends into the essence of hell, the most extreme suffering ever experienced. It is a time so compacted, so infinite, so horrendous as to be incomprehensible and, seemingly, unsustainable.

Jesus’ cry does not in any way diminish His deity. Jesus does not cease being God before, during, or after this. Jesus’ cry does not divide His human nature from His divine person or destroy the Trinity. Nor does it detach Him from the Holy Spirit. The Son lacks the comforts of the Spirit, but He does not lose the holiness of the Spirit. And finally, it does not cause Him to disavow His mission. Both the Father and Son knew from all eternity that Jesus would become the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world (Acts 15:18). It is unthinkable that the Son of God might question what is happening or be perplexed when His Father’s loving presence departs.

Jesus is expressing the agony of unanswered supplication (Psalm 22:1-2). Unanswered, Jesus feels forgotten of God. He is also expressing the agony of unbearable stress. It is the kind of “roaring” mentioned in Psalm 22: the roar of desperate agony without rebellion." ( Article at www.ligonier.org)

John Piper -

There are certainly some very clear negatives. The forsakenness cannot mean, for example, that the eternal communion between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit was broken. God could not cease to be triune. Neither could it mean that the Father ceased to love the Son: especially not here, and not now, when the Son was offering the greatest tribute of filial piety that the Father had ever received. Nor again could it mean that the Holy Spirit had ceased to minister to the Son. He had come down upon him at his baptism not merely for one fleeting moment, but to remain on him (John 1:32), and he would be there to the last as the eternal Spirit through whom the Son offered himself to God (Hebrews 9:14).

And finally, the words are not a cry of despair. Despair would have been sin. Even in the darkness God was, “MyGod,” and though there was no sign of him, and though the pain obscured the promises, somewhere in the depths of his soul there remained the assurance that God was holding him. What was true of Abraham was truer still of Jesus: Against all hope, he in hope believed (Romans 4:18).

Yet, with all these qualifiers, this was a real forsaking. Jesus did not merely feel forsaken. He was forsaken; and not only by his disciples, but by God himself. It was the Father who had delivered him up to Judas, to the Jews, to Pilate, and finally to the cross itself.

And now, when he had cried, God had closed his ears. The crowd had not stopped jeering, the demons had not stopped taunting, the pain had not abated. Instead, every circumstance bespoke the anger of God; and there was no countering voice. This time, no word came from heaven to remind him that he was God’s Son, and greatly loved. No dove came down to assure him of the Spirit’s presence and ministry. No angel came to strengthen him. No redeemed sinner bowed to thank him. (DesiringGod.org)

 

Until I looked up those quotes for MartinM, I had not really considered John Piper's explanation. But the more I think of it, he is right. Jesus was forsaken by the Father as He delivered His Son to Judas, to the Jews, to Pilate, and to the Cross. It is not that the Father was absent, or departed, but that God had abandoned Jesus to suffer and die. God sent Jesus for the purpose of redeeming man, being a guilt offering.

The reason it bothers me for a brother to believe that God departed from Jesus (beyond its obvious theological and hermeneutical issues) is that it diminishes the the Cross. The Early Church Fathers imagined a "contest" or battle with the Father in the middle as Judge, the Spirit working in Christ, and Jesus squaring off with Satan in battle. I can't imagine such things (we are products of a more "enlightened" time, I suppose). And I think the view problematic. But as underdeveloped as their theology here may have been, they never diminished the Cross to Jesus suffering and dying "in his humanity" apart from a reliance on the Spirit with faith in the Father to deliver him.

The problem is that Jesus' faithful obedience even to death, relying on the Spirit and trusting in faith towards the Father's deliverance, is the exact same faith we are to have. We are to take up our crosses daily, in faithful obedience to Christ, relying on the Spirit and trusting in faith towards God's deliverance in the same Resurrection. If God abandoned Christ then Christ will abandon us.

 

First, I apologize but I misattributed a quote to Piper. It belonged to Donald Macleod (a contributor on Piper’s website). John Piper wrote that Jesus said these words because there was a real forsakenness for our sake (he experienced God’s wrath for us), that Jesus was experiencing desolation (not isolation from the Father or Spirit, but a state of desolation) , and he was fulfilling Psalm 22.

My argument has been the positions of Piper, Beeke, and Macleod. "Forsaken" does not mean that God departed from Christ, but Jesus feels forgotten of God; The Holy Spirit does not depart from Christ, but Jesus lacks the comforts of the Spirit. The Father never leaves the Son, instead he is offering his Son as a guilt offering (he is as present with Jesus as Abraham was to Isaac as he prepared to sacrifice his son). The Father never leaves the Son, but the Father withdraws his loving presence for a time.

It appears I misunderstood your post to be an argument against mine. I apologize for the assumption. Yes, apparently we agree.

In application, perhaps this should be as much a comfort to us as it was to the early church. God will never leave us. Even in our trials, even when we cannot hear His voice, we can trust in Him to deliver us because the Father answered His Son's cry for help and three days later he rose from the tomb. Therein is our hope.

 

No, I am not stating that you have Jesus ceasing to be God.

Let's pause to see where we are at:

We have agreed that:

1. God never departed from Jesus in the context that would have Jesus ceasing to be God.

2. The Father never departed from Jesus in a sense that would separate that "oneness" Jesus has with the Father ("I and the Father are One").

3. The Father never abandoned Jesus insofar as His presence was not right there, loving His Son but at the same time actively offering Jesus as a sin offering, laying our iniquities upon Him.

4. The Holy Spirit never ceased to minister to Jesus as that would deny John 1:32 (that the Spirit remained on Him) and Hebrews 9:14 (that it was through the Holy Spirit that the Son offered Himself on the Cross).

5. That Jesus was "forsaken" means God withdrew His loving presence, that Jesus felt abandoned and longed for deliverance, that He found no comfort, but through it all He remained faithful trusting in the Father through the Spirit.

So we agree that God did not depart from Jesus in the sense that God was not there. We agree that the Father did not depart from Jesus in the sense that the Father was not there. We agree that the Holy Spirit did not depart from Jesus in the sense that the Spirit was not there.

I do not understand why you objected to my statement that the God did not abandon Jesus on the cross as we affirm the same thing. The Father was there. The Spirit was there. The Son was there. Our redemption was accomplished on the Cross by God (the Father in offering His Son as a sin offering, the Spirit by ministering to Christ, and the Son by laying down His life).

 

Did you know that one of the strongest advocates for the Penal Substitution Theory was John Wesley? Would it be fair to accuse you of Wesleyan Arminianism because John Wesley also held to Penal Substitution?

I am curious, why do you see me as holding to the Christus Victor Theory?

I've affirmed that Jesus died in our place, as our representative, and took the wrath due man. I've also said that I believe God offered Jesus as a guilt / transgression offering. This has disobeying God's law in view. Where we differed was that I said I also believe Jesus fulfilled the role of sin offering, that he died to atone for the sinfulness of mankind (our sinful natures).

Where we disagree is not in what I affirm but in what you deny. I do believe in penal substitution, but I also believe that Christ died as a sin offering in order to defeat the curse, to gain victory over sin and death. And I believe that the Father glorified the Son because did not see equality with God a thing to be grasped but humbled himself, submitted himself, even to death.

I do not believe that one truth takes priority over another. When we start reading Scripture through one theory at the expense of another then we start reading into Scripture what we expect or want to find.