"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Jesus' cry of dereliction from the cross is often taken to mean that God the Father turned his back on God the Son as he hung on the cross. The idea is that, because Jesus carried the weight of the world's sin on himself, and because a holy God can't look upon sin, the Father thus turned away from the Son. This turning is commonly seen as part of the penalty Jesus paid on our behalf - namely, separation from God.
There are good reasons - both theological and exegetical - for questioning whether this common interpretation is accurate or helpful. For one, the one God is the trinity, and for the trinity to exist, the relationships between Father, Son, and Spirit must be intact. The Father eternally begets (or generates) the Son, the Father eternally brings forth (or spirates) the Holy Spirit. If the eternal generation of the Son or the eternal spiration of the Spirit were to stop, then God would not exist. If God did not exist, then nothing that God upholds and sustains would continue to exist. God continually upholds and sustains the whole of creation. Consequently, if the Father and Son were separated, then God would not exist, and neither would we (or anything else). Obviously, much more could be said about all that. My point is simply to raise the issue. This is one of the theological problems with the view that the Father and Son were separated as Jesus hung on the cross.
For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help (Psalm 22:24)
There's are exegetical grounds for rejecting the separation thesis also. And that has to do with how we understand the quote of Psalm 22:1 by Jesus as he died, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me." The Psalm itself is a hymn that acknowledges the pain of feeling abandoned and yet declares abiding faith in God that he will not abandon his righteous faithful one. In a recent sermon, I made the case that, if the whole of Psalm 22 is taken as context for Jesus' cry from the cross, then it (1) means God did not turn his face from Jesus and (2) that the cry should be interpreted, not as a cry of abandonment, but as a cry of unwavering confidence in the faithfulness of God. Click the button below to watch a clip of the argument. And if you haven't subscribed to the Theology Project YouTube Channel, go ahead and do that, too.
Now here's the question: does the idea that the Father did not turn from Jesus on the cross change your understanding of how Jesus accomplishes our redemption? What's the impact? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.
Dr. Matt O’Reilly (Ph.D., Gloucestershire) is Lead Pastor of Christ Church in Birmingham, Alabama, Director of Research at Wesley Biblical Seminary, and a fellow of the Center for Pastor Theologians. A two-time recipient of the John Stott Award for Pastoral Engagement, he is the author of multiple books including Free to Be Holy: A Biblical Theology of Sanctification, Paul and the Resurrected Body: Social Identity and Ethical Practice, The Letters to the Thessalonians, and Bless the Nations: A Devotional for Short-Term Missions. Follow @mporeilly on X and @mattoreillyauthor on Instagram.
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This issue is often falsely and wrongly used to reject Penal Substitution. However, such an argument is only employed by small minded people who have never bothered to consider Lutheran or Arminian literature. The problem is Calvinism, not Penal Substitution. Let us diagnose the problem correctly moving forward...