He did not.
Christ is God and He cannot forsake Himself.
Jesus cried out the first bar of a Psalm called 'the hind of the morning'
the hind is Israel. in the song, Israel, in unbelief, thinks it has been forsaken, but it has not.
He is describing what is happening all around Him, the fulfilling of prophecy even as He speaks it.
He's not full of unbelief on the cross. He is the everlasting Father, the Mighty God on the cross, in full control of the entire universe, living in the form of a completely sinless ((i.e. no doubt or unbelief, ever)) man.
i believe your presumption that God turned His back on Himself is false -- though extraordinarily common -- and is predicated on a very low view of the person of Jesus. so i don't even feel comfortable clicking 'other' because of how doing so partially legitimizes your question, but i did anyway because the truth as i understand it is something really, really, very, extremely other.
Christ is God and He cannot forsake Himself.
Jesus cried out the first bar of a Psalm called 'the hind of the morning'
the hind is Israel. in the song, Israel, in unbelief, thinks it has been forsaken, but it has not.
He is describing what is happening all around Him, the fulfilling of prophecy even as He speaks it.
He's not full of unbelief on the cross. He is the everlasting Father, the Mighty God on the cross, in full control of the entire universe, living in the form of a completely sinless ((i.e. no doubt or unbelief, ever)) man.
i believe your presumption that God turned His back on Himself is false -- though extraordinarily common -- and is predicated on a very low view of the person of Jesus. so i don't even feel comfortable clicking 'other' because of how doing so partially legitimizes your question, but i did anyway because the truth as i understand it is something really, really, very, extremely other.
For a cup is in the hand of the Lord, and the wine foams;
It is well mixed, and He pours out of this;
Surely all the wicked of the earth must drain and drink down its dregs.(vs 8 NASB)
The 'this cup' was the cup of His Father's wrath as Jesus became sin when He was imputed the sins of His people. In 2 Cor. 5 it is written...
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.(2 Cor. 5:21 NIV) Jesus became the very embodiment of sin when He took the sins upon His people upon Himself. He stood before the Father as a man guilty of breaking the Law, yet He never committed one sin. God then had to withdraw Himself from His own Son as He paid for the sins of His people.
And this is not a very low view of Jesus, either, but rather, a very high view of God. God, in His holiness, righteousness, justice, can not let sin go unpunished. When His very own Son stood before Him, He did not spare Him one smite, but fully poured out His wrath upon Him. I take comfort in knowing this, that God would not go easier on sin, even when His own Son was paying for it on our behalf. As Paul so poignantly wrote "who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?"(Romans 8:32)
I will close with this beautiful writing from John Flavel...
The Father’s Bargain with the Son
by John Flavel
Father: My son, here is a company of poor miserable souls, that have utterly undone themselves, and now lie open to my justice! Justice demands satisfaction for them, or will satisfy itself in the eternal ruin of them: What shall be done for these souls?
Son: O my Father, such is my love to, and pity for them, that rather than they shall perish eternally, I will be responsible for them as their Surety; bring in all thy bills, that I may see what they owe thee; Lord, bring them all in, that there may be no after-reckonings with them; at my hand shalt thou require it. I will rather choose to suffer thy wrath than they should suffer it: upon me, my Father, upon me be all their debt.
Father: But, my Son, if thou undertake for them, thou must reckon to pay the last mite, expect no abatements; if I spare them, I will not spare thee.
Son: Content, Father, let it be so; charge it all upon me, I am able to discharge it: and though it prove a kind of undoing to me, though it impoverish all my riches, empty all my treasures, (for so indeed it did, 2 Cor. 8: 9. “Though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor”) yet I am content to undertake it.
Flavel: Blush, ungrateful believers, O let shame cover your faces; judge in yourselves now, has Christ deserved that you should stand with him for trifles, that you should shrink at a few petty difficulties, and complain, this is hard, and that is harsh? O if you knew the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in this his wonderful condescension for you, you could not do it.
I feel like bawling when I read that.
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