IT IS IMPORTANT TO KEEP IN MIND THAT JESUS CHRIST SUFFERED THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE PERIOD OF HIS HUMILIATION - from the moment of His conception. But undoubtedly it increased in intensity during His time here on earth.
Finally we read of the hours He spent in Gethsemane. How could we begin to understand what really transpired there! But at the same time, how could we even think of comparing it with Calvary! If Gethsemane was the prelude, think of the terrible reality of Calvary!
The sayings on the cross
In all there are seven sayings of Jesus on the cross recorded in the four gospels. This fourth saying, our text for today, appears only in Mark and Luke.
The first three sayings have to do with the interests or well-being of the people around the cross.
• Firstly Jesus does intercession for sinners - in this case His executioners: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Lk 23:34). It is important to note that the Greek verb used is in the imperfect tense, indicating that He was praying for them continuously.
• Secondly He consoles a sinner who humbles himself - one of the two criminals crucified with Him. He gives him a wonderful promise: "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise" (Lk 23:43).
• Thirdly He takes care of His mother's well-being by entrusting her and John to each other: "Dear woman, here is your son ... Here is your mother" (Jn 19:26-27).
• Apparently there then followed a long period of silence - it could have been as long as three hours - before Jesus uttered the last four sayings in quick succession. This time they concerned the suffering of our Lord Himself and also His relationship with the Father. Our text is followed by three short sentences: "I am thirsty" (Jn 19:28). “It is finished" (Jn 19:30). "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" (Lk 23:46).
It is only natural and also typical that Jesus should now be concerned with Himself and His heavenly Father. Once a dying person is finished with his worldly affairs, he turns his face to the wall, as it were, in readiness to meet death and to be alone with God.
An extraordinary event
The crucifixion of Jesus is probably the most remarkable event in world history - the creature executes his Creator! And the exclamation in our text is the most appalling moment of this terrible event: the eternal and most wonderful relationship between the first and the second Persons of the holy Trinity is shattered!
World history is no stranger to the rejection of the innocent by the guilty, or the execution of the benefactor by the very people he served. It started with the murder of the pious Abel by his jealous brother. But the One who was nailed to the tree was no ordinary human being - He was the complete, the perfect man! Throughout history not one of the people killed by their persecutors has been totally blameless - none of us is completely without fault before God. But of this Person even the pagan judge had to say, "I find no basis for a charge against this man" (Lk 23:4).
Even more astonishing is the fact that the One they executed was not only a perfect man - He was the Son of God and God the Son!
If we find it impossible to understand how God the Son could subject Himself to something like this, what are we to say of the biblical revelation that it was God the Father who delivered His Son to this shameful death? And exactly this is what the Bible teaches.
The fourth saying
It is the ninth hour, or 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The world has already been in total darkness for three hours - midnight at noon, as it were. And the Lord Jesus is dying. "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" - "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
What went through Jesus' mind during those three hours of silence in the dark? Did He perhaps experience ecstatic fellowship with His heavenly Father? That would have been typical of a dying believer. Many of us have seen that happen at the deathbed of a saint. How many martyrs have not been so carried away in heavenly rapture that they could sing songs of praise in a sea of flames?
But this was not the case with our Lord. On the contrary!
The hoarse cry of anguish with which he shattered the silence was the expression of all that He had suffered during the preceding hours of darkness.
Exactly the same words are used in verse 1 of Psalm 22, the Messianic prophesy written a thousand years before: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The Hebrew word translated as "groaning" in the same verse is used for the hoarse bellowing of an animal in its death-struggle. Never before in history was there such a cry; never again will there be such a shout. It is not just any human being dying here, it is the eternal Son of God!
And the Father does not send an angel to strengthen Him. He does not perform a miracle by dramatically tacking Him off the cross. He simply leaves Him to His fate. For the first time in all eternity there is no communion whatsoever between the Father and the Son. Jesus is completely alone!
Why is this so? Because God will not, in all eternity, have communion with sin!
Something we should be quite clear about is that the suffering of Jesus did not just lie in the way He experienced it physically and subjectively. No, His separation from God was a stark reality. God literally forsook Him.
What we have here is the fulfilment by Christ of the prophesies of one thousand five hundred Days of Atonement (Lev 16). He is the fulfilment of that which was represented by the two goats: the one "for the Lord" which was sacrificed, and the scapegoat which was sent into the desert laden with the sin of the people, alone and lost, to die there of hunger, thirst and exposure.
Here the Lord Jesus suffers the torment of the doomed. God's treatment of Him is not that of a loving father. No, it is the judgement meted out to a criminal by a just and wrathful judge. Jesus is crushed by the sins of millions. He is struck again and again, mercilessly, by the lightening bolts of God's holy wrath. The eternal condemnation of millions of pardoned sinners is heaped on Him. And it crushes Him. He is alone, completely and utterly abandoned!
"But," you may well ask, "is this fair? Surely this shows His wonderful obedience to His Father? Is this not, after all, why He came?" This is exactly the point. He took our guilt upon Himself so that the Father could punish Him in our place. In this way the perfect justice of God was satisfied. This is how He made atonement for every single sin of every single one of the elect throughout the ages!
Looking at the saying word for word
• "My God, my God". In the first and last of His sayings on the cross Jesus addressed God as "Father". But here he simply calls Him "God". Is this because the intimacy between them was destroyed?
The Aramaic word for "God" which Jesus probably used, is "El". It is derived from the root "to be strong." It therefore points to God as the almighty One. The bond between Father and Son was therefore not severed because the Father could no longer hold on to His tormented Son. No, what happened here was exactly the opposite. This is what had been determined by the three Persons of the Trinity before creation.
• "Why?" What was God's reason for abandoning His only Son here in the hour of His greatest need? After all, He had given His Father no reason. He had been faithful and obedient to the minutest detail.
Of course, Jesus understands, but here we see Him in the weakness of His humanity.
• "Have". His Father has already forsaken Him. This is not some threat of what is to come some time in the future. It is an accomplished fact! This is the most terrible moment in God's eternity!
• "You". Was the emphasis in the sentence perhaps on this word? As if Jesus was saying, I know all about rejection. My brothers have done so long ago. My people in Nazareth rejected Me; in fact, they even tried to kill Me. My people have turned their backs on Me. Most of my disciples have taken offence at Me. Judas betrayed Me. So did even Peter. And the rest of my disciples have fled. I could bear all that - because I had You. That is why I could say in the upper room, "But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me" (Jn 16:32).
But now my Father, You have also forsaken me!
• "Forsaken". Were the Father and the Son not always as one in mind and soul? Was the unity between them, their mutual love and delight, their intimate fellowship, not more and deeper than could be expressed in human words? Was it not like that from all eternity? But now, now that the Son seems to need the Father's assistance and fellowship more than ever before, He is suddenly alone.
• "Me". Or was the emphasis perhaps on this little word? Then the call to the Father would have been, Man is the crown of Your creation, but he has fallen into sin. Therefore the entire human race has sinned. It is therefore understandable, no, inevitable that you should reject all of mankind. But I am the second man, the last Adam. Have I not kept your covenant of works perfectly? Was I not perfectly obedient to You every day of my life - in action, word and thought? Was it not of Me that You said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased"?
The Father has simply forsaken the Son! Why? Why? Why?
Conclusion
Surely you know why. It was done to save millions of sinners from God's wrath, the very same wrath at which we have just been looking. Are you one of these saved sinners? Are you?
Can anything be more appropriate at this moment than a few minutes of quiet, personal prayer? Sometimes - no, often - one needs to do nothing but pray.
Nico van der Walt
• Nico van der Walt subscribes to the historically respected and internationally recognized 1689 Baptist Confession - like most Reformed Baptists worldwide - as well as the Confession of Sola 5, an association of God-centred evangelicals in Southern Africa.
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