Did God Forsake Jesus on the Cross?
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matt 27:46
Most of us are familiar with the scene: Jesus has been beaten and crucified, and is hanging from the cross. The soldiers have divided his clothes, darkness has covered the land, and now the onlookers are mocking him. Jesus musters the strength to cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Shortly afterwards, he yields up his spirit.
What exactly did Jesus mean when he asks God “why have you forsaken me?”
The most common answer I’ve heard is that God (the Father) turned away from Jesus (the Son) as Jesus hung from the cross. Why would the Father turn away from his Son at this epic moment? Their answer is based on Habakkuk 1:13, where Habakkuk says of God “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong...” Their logic is something along these lines: this verse says that God can’t look on evil, and since Jesus was bearing our sins on the cross, God couldn’t look on him. Some folks even go so far as to claim that—at that moment on the cross—Jesus no longer was God; his deity left him and he was alone in his human nature as he suffered and died on the cross.
There are a few major problems with that interpretation.
First, Habakkuk 1:13 doesn’t mean that God literally cannot look on sin; there are many verses that state that God does see sin/evil (e.g., Prov 15:3, Ps 69:5, Hos 7:2, Jer:16:17, Jer 7:8-11). In fact, even the second half of Habakkuk 1:13 alludes to the fact that God can see sin: “why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?”
Second, Habakkuk is being rhetorical; he is complaining to God about the slowness of wrath upon the wicked (and in Hab 2:2-3 God answers that judgment will come at its appointed time). Of course God can see sin, although he doesn’t approve of sin (Ps 5:4-6). God is holy and he cannot stand anything less than his holiness. However, he does see sin and looks at it disapprovingly and in judgment.
Third, if Jesus Christ was a sacrifice for our sins (Heb 9:11-14, Is 53, Rom 5:6-11, etc.), then he was the ultimate sacrifice. Acceptable sacrifices are pleasing to God (Gen 8:20-22, Lev 1:8-9, Lev 23:13), so Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross was (in an important sense) actually pleasing to God. In fact, we are told that Jesus was a “fragrant” (understood as “pleasing”) offering to God (Eph 5:2).
Fourth—and this is very important to avoid falling into heterodoxy—Jesus did not somehow separate his divine and human natures on the cross. He did not somehow “lose” his divinity on the cross and die only in his human nature. When the Son took on human form, he added the human nature to his divine nature. Philip 5:2-11 shows that he—a being now with human and divine natures—died on the cross. There is no hint that somewhere along the way he lost his divinity. Jesus (at least in his divine nature) has always been who he is, and this same Jesus (now with an added human nature) died on the cross (Heb 13:8-12). So no, Jesus did not somehow stop being God on the cross.
Well, then we are still left with the question: what did Jesus mean by asking why God had forsaken him? The answer is actually found in the Old Testament. In Jesus’ day, the “bible” consisted only of the Old Testament, and had not yet been divided into chapters and verses. Jews would typically quote two or three words to reference a passage of scripture. Jesus’ cry on the cross quotes the opening line of Psalm 22. The Jews standing around the cross who clearly heard him would have known that he was referring to this psalm.
Psalm 22 includes many allusions to what was happening to Jesus. Jesus is despised by the people (v6), the crowds mock him and wag their heads (v7), they say “let the Lord deliver him” (v8), no one helps him (v11), his bones have been pulled from their joints (v14), his mouth is dry (v15), his hands and feet have been pierced (v16) yet his bones aren’t broken (v17), and soldiers cast lots for his clothes (v18).
Psalm 22 and Matthew 27 are remarkably similar in what they describe. The crucifixion that the crowd was witnessing echoed the suffering described in Psalm 22. But Jesus wanted them to look beyond just the suffering. The end of Psalm 22 shows that the Lord will deliver his soul and the Lord will be praised, even to future generations. (Interestingly, the psalm even states that God “has not hidden his face from” the afflicted one (v24)—which again shows that God didn’t completely turn away from Christ on the cross.) Jesus is pointing those around him to a psalm—a psalm that speaks of God’s glory and righteousness. Sadly, most of the crowd either misunderstood what he said (they thought he called out for Elijah), belittled him, or otherwise continued in unbelief.
Jesus suffered and died a horrible death. God (the Father) did nothing to stop the crucifixion and indeed wished for it to happen (Is 53:10). Jesus was truly the suffering servant. Yet God did not totally abandon Jesus. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is ultimately a song of victory.