I
heard this line sung the other day: “The Father turns his face away…”
Can
you show me a verse in the New Testament that claims that God the Father “turned
his face away” from God the Son on the cross? I’ve never read that.
I
have read Jesus crying out on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken
me?” This is not the same thing. This is the cry of Jesus; not the cry of God
the Father.
Let’s
take a closer look at this, shall we?
Did
you know that Jesus NEVER refers to God as God, except this one time on the cross?
He refers to God as his Father/Abba. For example, when he prays, he says: “Our
Father…” This then, would indicate that on the cross, Jesus was not talking to
or even about God.
What
then was Jesus saying?
He
was quoting Psalm 22. The first verse of this Psalm says: My God, my God why
have you forsaken me. This Psalm goes on to describe the agony of the cross:
betrayal, nakedness, physical abuse etc.
Where
does Psalm 22 lead? To Psalm 23: “Even though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil for YOU ARE WITH ME.” Doesn’t this sound
like a contradiction? One minute Jesus feels forsaken, but then he says, God is
with him.
This
then leads to Psalm 24: the Resurrection Psalm which talks about Jesus ascending
into heaven with clean hands and a pure heart as the King of Glory!
When
I read these Psalms I see the death and resurrection of Jesus; a hurting human
male who feels rejected, but discovers he is not rejected at all and is
triumphant in the end. He represents our feelings of forsakenness by quoting
this Psalm at the cross – knowing that those who stood around him at the cross
would remember exactly what the Psalms say.
There
are no other verses in the NT that support God the Father forsaking Jesus at
the cross. If it were necessary for him to forsake Jesus, wouldn’t this be
explained by the Apostle Paul in his Gospel presentation to the Romans or his
other epistles?
Furthermore,
as Christians, we believe that God is triune and Jesus is God; therefore JESUS
IS TRIUNE. Colossians 1:19 and 2:9 state clearly that “God was pleased to have
all his fullness dwell in him [Christ]” and “In Christ the fullness of the
Deity lives in bodily form.”
Jesus
was on that cross as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. How then can the Father
separate himself from the Son and forsake him? This sounds schizophrenic to me,
it also gives me a sense that the Biblical claim that God never forsakes us (Hebrews 13:5),
isn’t really true, if he can forsake his own son.
Personally
I do not believe in the theology of the “forsakenness of Jesus.” It is not
necessary to my understanding of salvation that God the Father “turn his face away” from God the
Son. They were on that cross willingly, suffering from the effects of sin: the
feelings of ostracism, the consequences of sin (being death and disease).
We
don’t understand exactly how the cross works. Jesus died to stop the problem of
death by resurrecting us as a new creation. This we know; but we don’t
know how exactly. It’s spiritual. But to claim that the reason why is because
God the Father needed to exact punishment onto Jesus and to forsake him; is not
actually what the Bible teaches!!! Take a closer look. Show me where the word “punishment”
is used in the NT in reference to Jesus death? Show me where it says that the
Father “forsook” Jesus in the NT? There are no legitimate basis’ for these
claims.
Great article, very thought provoking! Although I think I disagree, I tend to think that God did forsake Christ on the cross. I’m not familiar with any verses which explicitly affirm this (other than Matt 27:46 which you quoted), but it seems to me that Christ had to be forsaken for the salvation plan to work, just as He had to die as well.
ReplyDeleteThe way I see it is that the price of sin is death, not just physical death but spiritual death as well, which means we are forsaken by God and sent to hell after our death. But because Christ vicariously took upon Himself the sins of all believers, it was necessary that Christ had to be 1) forsaken 2) die, and 3) sent to Hell on our behalf (of course because Christ was divine and pure, Hell could not hold Him).
This is just my neophyte understanding anyway!
Thank you for your comment.
ReplyDeleteCan I ask you a question? Do we need to know how the cross/salvation works, or do we simply need to know that it does work? There are a lot of "theories of atonement" but they are theories not facts. I don't feel a need for Jesus to be forsaken in order for me not to be. But I gladly agree to disagree with you, and am simply excited that someone commented! :)
Lol, you have much comment-worthy stuff!!
ReplyDeleteI agree that we definitely do not have to know the answers, and while it's entertaining to ponder these things, it’s ultimately not that important. It's always such a pity when people leave churches or when there are church schisms simply over trivial theological nuances.