Matthew 45-46; Mark 15:33-34
I. In the most excruciating moment of His earthly life, Jesus prayed to the Father and quoted Scripture.
In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears. Psalm 18:6
My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word! Psalm 119:28
II. Jesus felt abandoned by the Father.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:15
III. Jesus never stopped trusting in the Father.
The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord! May your hearts live forever! Psalm 22:26
IV. God the Son was forsaken by God the Father as He bore the sins of the world.
Louw Nida 35.54 35.54 ἐγκαταλείπωb; ἀνίημιb: to desert or forsake a person and thus leave that individual uncared for—‘to desert, to forsake.’
for•sake : to renounce or turn away from entirely
For the first and only time in all of eternity, the Son was out of fellowship with the Father. He was forsaken and abandoned by God. The only time Jesus does not address God as Father.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:6
But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. Isaiah 59:2
whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. Romans 3:25
Propitiation. Propitiation properly signifies the removal of wrath by the offering of a gift. In the OT it is expressed by the verb kipper (*Atonement). In the NT the hilaskomai word group is the important one. In modern times the whole idea of propitiation has been strongly criticized as savouring of unworthy ideas of God. Many suggest that the term ‘propitiation’ should be abandoned in favour of *expiation, and this is done, for example, in rsv. The objection to propitiation arises largely from an objection to the whole idea of the wrath of God, which many exponents of this view relegate to the status of an archaism. They feel that modern men cannot hold such an idea. But the men of the OT had no such inhibitions. For them ‘God is angry with the wicked every day’ (Ps. 7:11, av). They had no doubt that sin inevitably arouses the strongest reaction from God. God is not to be accused of moral flabbiness. He is vigorously opposed to evil in every shape and form while he may be ‘slow to anger’ (Ne. …
NBD
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt. . . Isaiah 53:10a
Jesus did not die as simply an heroic example for us. If so, the Father would have looked on His son with pleasure. Jesus died as a substitute for us, bearing our sins so that Father poured out His wrath and turned away because Jesus carried upon Himself the totality of mans sin from every generation and every local on earth. Lying, gossip, greed, lust, rape, murder, child abuse, adultery, cheating, disobedience to parents, theft – Every sin from want we call small to what we call big. Your sin. My sin. Upon Jesus so that the wrath of the Father was poured out on him. And God the Father abandoned God the Son!
This was the cup of which Jesus prayed, “Father, if possible take this cup from me but not my will but thine.” It was not the physical torture Jesus feared. It was be the object of God’s wrath and being Forsaken by the Father!
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Isaiah 53:10
Because Jesus was forsaken we never have to be! See 2 cor 4:9 & Hebrews 13:5
But without Jesus you will experience the pain of being separated from God forever! 2 Thess. 1:9
