In the last six hours of His life, nailed to a cross, Jesus uttered seven statements. The one statement "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me" stands out as something you would not expect coming from Jesus. Why did He say this? In Charles Swindoll's book "The Darkness and the Dawn" I believe we find the answer. Most of the following comes from this book. The seven statements of Jesus are as follows:
1. Father, Forgive them.
2. Today you shall be with Me in Paradise.
3. Behold your son! Behold your mother.
4. My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
5. I am thirsty.
6. It is finished.
7. Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit.
The first three statements had to do with other people, and the last four with Jesus Himself. The first three had to do with His compassion for others, the last four had to do with His suffering and the meaning of His death. While other victims of crucifixion, through the enormous pain - cursed and screamed vitriolic words of bitterness, Jesus focused His mind first on others, then on the Father. And what’s more amazing, His very first words were gracious terms of forgiveness...after all He had been through.
Six of the statements are understandable. Only Jesus with His great compassion for humanity could forgive the people who nailed Him to the cross. Only Jesus, in all His great pain could listen to a crucified transgressor next to Him and offer him Salvation. (By the way you notice the transgressor doesn't have to pray or make a sincere promise. Furthermore he doesn't have to be baptized. He doesn't have to perform six months of good works to earn Heaven - or even a one week probation period - to prove himself worthy of eternal life with God. He's accepted by Faith - by Faith alone - in Christ alone.)
At the very end Jesus takes care of His mother’s welfare. Entire books could be written about His last three statements, dealing with prophecy and the end of His ministry on earth. But the statement that puzzles a lot of people is #4: "Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthan" that is "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:45-46) Jesus did not just speak these words, He shouted them. Notice the way He addresses the Lord: "My God, My God." Jesus addresses the Father Three times in His seven statements from the cross. In two of those statements Jesus calls Him "Father". But not in this statement. Here, alone, Jesus calls Him "God". It is as though you were to walk up to your father and address him as "Mister" rather than "Dad" or "Daddy". There is a distance, even alienation, here. Jesus, a member of the Godhead, addresses the Father as though He is removed from Him, and indeed He is! He cries out "My God!" and then literally, "Why Me have You forsaken?" Why did the Father forsake Him? In 2 Corinthians 5:21 we find the answer.
"He God the Father made Him (God the Son) who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." Jesus had never known a time when He was not the Father’s delight (see Proverbs 8:22-31). The Son had never known a time of broken fellowship with the Father. But now for the first time in all time, He experiences it.
God the Father made God the Son, Who was sinless, to be sin on our behalf. At this moment on the cross, God the Father poured on Christ all the sins of mankind, from the beginning of time to the end of time. Jesus Christ, who came to earth in human flesh and lived a totally sinless life, suddenly in this moment of time became sin for us. This explains why the fellowship between God the Father and God the Son was broken, leaving Jesus alienated, abandoned, forsaken, dying alone on the cross.
God is Holy, we are told this over and over again through the Scriptures. And Holy means "separate from sin." It means "absolutely pure." Thus when the Lord Jesus Christ took our sin on Himself, when the Father laid on the Son "the iniquity of us all," the Holy Father could not fellowship with Him. The crushing weight of mankind's sin was borne all alone by Christ, separated from the presence of the Father.
Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice for our sins, once for all. Never again would the priests have to make sacrifices in the Temple; never again would blood have to be shed for the forgiveness of sins. Christ was God's one, final, acceptable sacrifice. Mission accomplished! Having made that sacrifice, Christ satisfied the Fathers demand on sin and opened the way for us to know God intimately. His being "forsaken" by God meant we would now be accepted by God. Grace!
God the Father forsook His Son then. so that He might never have to forsake us now. That, in one sentence, is the answer to the question, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" God the Father forsook His Son once for all that He might never have to forsake His adopted sons and daughters now or evermore. "For He Himself has said, "I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5b).
By George Konig
March 27, 2005
www.georgekonig.org
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