What does it mean that Jesus was forsaken by God?

Explanation:

We know that Jesus is both God and man. That being so, how can God the Father abandon God the Son? In other words, how can God abandon God? We have to conclude that it is a mystery how God the Father can abandon God the Son, but we can deduce why God the Father abandoned God the Son.⁵ That’s because Scripture explains two things. For one, God is holy, so he cannot stand the sight of sin. We read this in Habakkuk 1:13 where the prophet writes, You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong. Add this to 2 Corinthians 5:21 where Paul writes, For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. In other words, Jesus Christ was made to be sin even though he knew no sin, and because God cannot look upon sin, Jesus was abandoned. We also read in Galatians 3:13 that Christ redeemed us by becoming a curse, and what is it to be cursed but to be abandoned by God.⁶ Also, in Romans 3:25, Paul explains that God put forward Jesus as a propitiation by his blood.⁷ Finally, Jesus himself fully understood that he would give up his life, which might be understood as being abandoned by the Father, for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 20:28; Matthew 26:8).⁸ Thus, although it is a mystery how God the Father could abandon the Son, we know that Jesus took on the punishment for our sins, which entailed abandonment.

Counterargument:

The problem with this argument is that it overlooks the fact that we have to look to the text to understand what it means that Jesus was forsaken by God. Unfortunately, the text has nothing to say about the overarching salvific elements of Jesus ministry. What we have in Matthew 27:46 is the poignant suffering of Jesus on the cross when he is inwardly abandoned by the Father and cries out in the darkness. Matthew is not giving us a theological treatise, but recoding the events of Jesus last moments when he was abandoned by the Father.⁹ The mistake of this interpretation is that it looks beyond the text for meaning when it should consider the immediate context alone.

Response to counterargument:

While it is true that the meaning of a text ought to be consistent with the immediate context, this does not mean that an interpretation cannot be informed by passages outside the immediate context. Arguably one of the central themes of Scripture is that Jesus would take the punishment for our sins. The notion that Jesus was abandoned by God, and suffered immensely such that he cried out when he was on the cross, is perfectly consistent with the notion that the event marks Jesus’ taking on the punishment for sin. Thus, the conclusion that Jesus’ being abandoned by the Father is intimately related to Jesus’ taking on the punishment for our sins is not only plausible but highly likely.

Explanation:

We want to understand what it means that Jesus was forsaken by God, but we have to admit that the text does not explain this. What we do know is that Jesus had a supremely intimate relationship with the Father, since Jesus explained that no one knows the Father except the Son, or the Son except the Father (Matthew 11:27). Thus, it must have been agonizing beyond comprehension when Jesus was abandoned by the Father. Still, exactly how God the Father could abandon God the Son is not explained.¹⁰

Counterargument:

The text does not need to explain precisely how the Father abandoned the Son for us to draw conclusions. We know that Jesus died on the cross so it may be that God’s allowing Jesus to die is what it means that God abandoned Jesus.¹¹ Further, Jesus seems to undergo inward agony, so it may be that God abandoned Jesus by no longer providing him with comfort and support.¹² The point is, just because the text does not say precisely how Jesus was forsaken by the Father does not mean it is impossible to explain how Jesus was forsaken by the Father. It just means that we have to make a case based on what the text does say, along with the rest of Scripture.

Response to counterargument:

While we might be able to deduce what it seems to mean that Jesus is abandoned by the Father, unless God reveals to us the details it will always remain a mystery. That is because Jesus is God, and it seems impossible for God to deny himself. Therefore, unless God reveals the details, we must remain agnostic over what it means for God to abandon Jesus, who is also God.

Response to response to counterargument:

There are many cases where Scripture does not explicitly explain things that seem mysterious, and yet, we are able to draw satisfactory conclusions. For example, when it comes to the Trinity and the incarnation, while Scripture does not explicitly state that God is three persons and one substance, or that Jesus is one person and two natures, theologians reflect on what Scripture does reveal to formulate these models. The models may not be perfect, and there remains some mystery, but the point is, theologians can go a long way explicating the mysteries of Scripture through careful reflection. In like manner, theologians through the centuries have developed various models for thinking about what it means that God abandoned Jesus, without quickly resorting to the notion of mystery.¹³

Possible weaknesses:

The weakness of this view is that the history of interpretation is replete with examples of theologians who try to explain what it means that Jesus was abandoned, while this view opts for mystery. In other words, there is ample resource in the history of interpretation to draw inspiration to try to work out what it means that Jesus was abandoned by the Father. What this view gets right, and why we prioritize it, is that it connects Jesus’ abandonment with Jesus making reconciliation for sin.

Explanation:

Before Jesus’ death on the cross he cries out in a loud voice, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? To understand what it means that God has forsaken Jesus, we need to notice the narrative progression that Matthew has carefully developed. First, Matthew explains that Jesus was abandoned by his disciples who left him and fled when Jesus was confronted by soldiers in the garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:56). Next Jesus is abandoned by Peter, the one who claimed he would die for Christ (Matthew 26:35), by denying Jesus three times in the courtyard (Matthew 26:69–75). Now, as darkness falls over the land (Matthew 27:45), Jesus cries out asking why God has forsaken him (Matthew 27:46). Given the narrative progression that has Jesus abandoned by those who are closest to him, we ought to take Jesus' words at face value. In other words, we must conclude that God has inwardly abandoned Jesus, and Jesus cannot help but express this agony.¹⁴

Counterargument:

Noticing the progression of abandonment in Matthew’s Gospel is insightful and important. Still, this view argues that God the Father inwardly abandoned Jesus, but it does not explain what inward abandonment entails. We know that Jesus is God. But if inward abandonment entails that God’s presence left Jesus, how can God’s presence leave Godself? If God’s presence does not leave Jesus, then it seems that inward abandonment is not meaningful.

Response to counterargument:

While it might not be precisely clear what it means that Jesus was inwardly abandoned by the Father, the text indicates that in some sense he was, and it motivated Jesus to cry out. Reformation theologians, such as Calvin and Luther, argued that in some real sense, Jesus was abandoned by the Father.¹⁵

Explanation:

In Jewish psalms of piety we sometimes find that the psalmist offers a complaint to God, but the complaint is not answered, nor is there instruction for how long the suffering is to be endured. Still, although God does not respond, the psalmist knows that his prayer is heard by God. In words, even though Jesus is forsaken by God, in his suffering he has nowhere else to turn but to God. In fact, we have modern examples of such Jewish psalms, such as one written by a Jew who died in a Nazi ghetto in 1943. The author writes, I believe in the God of Israel, even when he has done everything to make me cease to believe in him…. I will put…the…paper on which I am writing…between the bricks on the wall…. If anyone should ever find them…he shall perhaps understand the feeling of a Jew…who died abandoned by God, in Whom he so deeply believes.¹⁶ Jesus’ words in Matthew 27:46 are similar as Jesus cries out to the God who has abandoned him.

Counterargument:

It is hard to deny that Jesus' words align with Jewish psalms of piety, given that Jesus quotes from Psalm 22:1. Still, that Jesus’ cry of agony aligns with Jewish psalms of piety does not tell us what it means that God has forsaken Jesus. Neither does it suggest that the abandonment, whatever it is, was inward.

Possible weaknesses:

The problem with this view is that it does not explain the meaning of inward abandonment. Does inward abandonment mean that God’s presence or comfort left Jesus? What is the difference between inward abandonment and outward abandonment? If outward abandonment has to do with providing secure circumstances, clearly God has abandoned Jesus outwardly, because his circumstances are anything but secure. So why argue that God abandoned Jesus inwardly, and why not explain what that means?

Explanation:

In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus asks that the cup of God’s wrath would pass from him, yet not his will but the Father’s will be done (Matthew 26:39). In other words, Jesus is asking that he would not have to face the crucifixion, but he never wavered in his desire to follow through on the Father’s will. Now as Jesus bears his suffering on the cross, the same concerns that plagued him in the garden of Gethsemane seem to come to his mind.¹⁷ He cries aloud, asking why the Father has abandoned him. Of course, the Father has not abandoned Jesus, as the resurrection will testify.

Counterargument:

This argument assumes that we should not take Jesus at face value, when the whole episode points in the opposite direction. Jesus was perfectly righteous, and yet God allowed the Jews and Romans to mock and beat him. Not only that, but God allowed the authorities to nail Jesus to a cross where he cried out in anguish and subsequently died. The notion that God did not abandon Jesus fails to perceive the setting in which Jesus, the perfectly righteous man cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? All signs point to the fact that God did abandon Jesus in order to reconcile sinners to himself, so we ought to take Jesus’ words at face value, even if they are hard to fathom.

Possible weaknesses:

The problem with this view is that it fails to see the crucifixion within God’s broader redemptive plans. We know from Scripture that God sent Jesus as a ransom for our sins, so that God’s justice could be satisfied when Jesus carried the punishment for our sin. That God was laying the punishment for sin on Jesus while he died on the cross makes sense of the fact that Jesus faced the agony of being abandoned by the Father. To reduce this agony to the vestiges of Jesus concerns in the garden of Gethsemane fails to grasp God’s justice, or what it means that Jesus took on the punishment for sin.