I delivered this message at Spring Creek Bible Church on March 25, 2016, as part of The Seven Last Words of Christ series.
Introduction
We come now to the fourth recorded saying of Jesus from the cross, which is traditionally called the word of abandonment or cry of dereliction:
“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
Bible interpreters have described this as “some of the most profoundly mysterious words in the entire Bible (ESVSB).”
And while it does raise a number of difficult questions, I want to lead us to see how these words take us to the heart of Jesus’ crosswork and the gospel of substitutionary atonement.
Let’s read the passage together, and then we’ll look briefly at four things:
- the context,
- what it didn’t mean,
- what it did mean, and
- what it means for us today.
The Passage
Matthew 27:45–46
45 From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. 46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
The Context
1. The time
This fourth saying brings us to the second half of Jesus’ six-hour crucifixion, and right up to his final moments of life.
Jesus was crucified around 9 AM. The first three sayings of Jesus happened between 9 and noon. Our passage begins at noon and quickly jumps to 3 PM, when Jesus uttered his final four sayings in rapid succession and then died.
There isn’t much said about what happened between noon and 3, except for the weather.
2. The weather
Verse 45 tells us that the whole land was dark from noon until 3. This darkness was no coincidence. God painted an ominous picture in the sky to show what was happening to Jesus.
We don’t know how God caused the darkness, but we do know what it symbolized. Both Matthew and Mark connect the darkness to Jesus’ cry of abandonment.
3. The text
These words were not original with Jesus. They are the first lines of Psalm 22, and Jesus quotes them in Aramaic, which was the primary language of the Jews at that time, possibly signaling for onlookers that he was quoting Scripture.
Transition: With this context in view, let’s consider what this saying didn’t mean.
What It Didn’t Mean
There are at least four things this cry didn’t mean.
1. Jesus wasn’t losing his faith in God.
Some see despair in Jesus’ words, a loss of faith in his Father’s loving care for him. But that cannot be what Jesus meant. He perfectly fulfilled God’s law from the incarnation to the ascension and remained obedient even in his darkest hour.
Without faith, it is impossible to please God (Heb 11:6). And we know Jesus pleased the Father even in death—especially in death. Whatever we see here, we must see Jesus’ faith, not unbelief.
2. Jesus wasn’t asking a question to get an answer.
He wasn’t ignorant about what was happening. While Jesus was fully man and there were times he may not have had access to his full omniscience (like the timing of his second coming), Jesus wasn’t looking for information he didn’t possess.
The Gospels tell us that Jesus knew “all that would happen to him” (Jn. 18:4). He knew what the cup of God’s wrath entailed. This is why he became a man and what his whole life was leading up to. He knew why he was being abandoned.
3. Jesus didn’t think God had permanently abandoned him.
Jesus knew and predicted that God would raise him from the dead (Jn. 2:19). He knew how Psalm 22 ended. He knew the words of Psalm 16:10 that God would not abandon his holy one.
Jesus knew what would come after this dark hour was over. He knew the joy set before him (Heb. 12:2).
4. Jesus didn’t temporarily leave the Trinity.
The hypostatic union of the divine and human natures of Jesus is a mystery, and we mustn’t separate his natures. But we also mustn’t think that the Trinity ceased to be three persons in one God during Jesus’ crucifixion.
These are deep mysteries, but we need to guard against any notion of change in the very nature of the eternal triune God.
Transition: Knowing what this cry didn’t mean, let’s turn to what it did mean.
What It Did Mean
1. Jesus felt forsaken by God.
He was expressing the deep emotional and spiritual pain of broken fellowship with God. This pain was far greater than the physical pain that he’d endured.
As sinful creatures whose normative experience has been broken fellowship with God, we cannot begin to fathom what it must have felt like for Jesus to be separated from his Father’s loving presence for the very first time.
2. Jesus was actually forsaken by God.
This was no mere feeling of abandonment. His Father had really abandoned him during these three hours of darkness. And this abandonment was more than just the absence of God’s gracious presence. It was the presence of God’s infinite wrath toward our sin.
It was here, perhaps more significantly than any other time, that Jesus was fully representing his people.
The full fury of the Father fell upon Jesus, for us. He drank the cup of God’s wrath. He became sin (2 Cor. 5:21) and a curse for us (Gal. 3:13). He was stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God (Is. 53:4).
He was crushed for our iniquities, and wounded for our healing (v5). The Lord laid all of our iniquities on him (v6). His soul was an offering for our guilt (v10).
The God-man was forsaken by God for us.
3. Jesus was fulfilling his Messianic mission.
It’s not coincidental that Jesus chose to quote the opening lines of Psalm 22. They were appropriate not only because they captured his feelings of real abandonment, but because they showed that the death of Jesus was the fulfillment of Messianic prophecies. At least three other places in Psalm 22 point to Jesus’ crucifixion.
It’s worth noting that Jesus cried out as the darkness was coming to a close, just moments before his death. These words mark the end of his abandonment, not the beginning, and point to the victorious culmination of Psalm 22.
Psalm 22:24 reads, “For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him.”
Jesus silently bore God’s wrath for three hours and then called out to God, who responded by ending his wrath and restoring his gracious presence, in fulfillment of Ps. 22:24.
Transition: While we may not be able to understand the full significance of these words—especially not in a few brief moments—we can understand enough to ponder their meaning for us today.
What It Means for Us
There are many points of application that we could focus on. Jesus modeled for us what perfect humanity looks like in many ways: his trust in God, his turning to God, and his use of Scripture—all in his darkest hour.
But I’d like to focus on one thought:
Jesus was forsaken by the Father so that we would never be.
Jesus became sin, became a curse, drank the cup of God’s wrath, and experienced abandonment by the Father so that we might be forgiven, receive his blessing, drink of his new mercies, and experience intimate fellowship and nearness as children of the Father.
Even in our sin and wandering, God doesn’t abandon us. He seeks us out and brings us back to himself. We’re permanently and irrevocably united to his Son and seated with him at the Father’s right hand.
Because Jesus was forsaken, God speaks his promise to us: “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Heb 13:5).
This is the heart of the gospel of substitutionary atonement.
Conclusion
Jesus was abandoned by God, believer, for you.