Just before his death, Jesus asked:
Mat 27:46 KJV And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Did God really forsake Jesus just as he was giving his life as a sacrifice for the sins of the world? Does this verse prove a separation between the Father and the Son? Did God leave Jesus on the cross just before he died? Did the Father separate Himself from the Son?
Some have said that the Spirit of God left Jesus. This is not possible because Jesus is God manifest in flesh.
1Ti 3:16 KJV And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
Others have said that the Father left the Son. This would either mean that they are separate entities or that the Deity came out of the humanity and left the man Christ alone on the cross. The Scriptures tell us that God was in Christ during reconciliation.
2Co 5:19 KJV To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
God did not forsake Jesus when he was on the cross because Jesus was God. Jesus was God manifest in flesh to become the sacrifice for our sins. This does not mean that the Father suffered the pain of death because God is a Spirit and cannot die.
I have heard some say that God died on the cross. Jesus did not die as God. Jesus died as a man. If God could die in His deity He would not be God.
The Spirit of God did not leave the body of Jesus and allow him to die on the cross alone. It was not one person within the Godhead forsaking another person within the Godhead. This would have required each person to be a separate individual, either making each one 1/3 of God, or making three Gods. God could not have separated Himself from Jesus because Jesus was God.
Jesus took upon himself the sins of the world. For the first time, Jesus, a sinless man, felt what it was like to feel the judgment of God for sin. He felt sinful. He felt forsaken. Jesus did not sin, but he did feel the sins of the world. He took our place and felt our sin.
We have all sinned.
Rom 3:23 KJV For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
The penalty for sin is death.
Rom 6:23 KJV For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Jesus took our place and suffered the death that we deserve for sin.
Rom 5:6-9 KJV 6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
Jesus, as a sinless man, freely took upon himself the sins of the world. He felt the judgment for sin so we don’t have to. Jesus died on the cross so we could have the free gift of salvation by the grace of God. He provided a way for salvation by buying it with his own blood.
Hello, and nice to meet you. I have decided that your blog will be my “This guy should teach me more about Christianity” blog. :)
I have a concern about what you said:
“Jesus took our place and suffered the death that we deserve for sin.”
My issue is that you say that not only did Jesus suffer death, but that he “took our place” and suffered “the death that we deserve.” You see, it has always been my understanding that the death that you say Jesus died to protect, is the eternal death of being condemned to Hell for all eternity, and that through Jesus we are supposed to obtain eternal life, i.e. an afterlife in Heaven.
Alright, now here is the problem: Christ did not suffer the “death” of eternal damnation, which is “the death that we deserve” that he is supposedly “[taking] our place” in.
You cannot say that he took the place of man by his physical death on the cross, because we all physically die in the end anyways, so he has not actually taken our place–he died with no specific benefit to us. For him to truly have taken our place he would have to have been condemned to Hell for all of eternity.
Secondly, I would like to make the point that God, an Almighty being, does NOT fall into the necessity of doing anything. He can choose to do what he wants, in any way he wants. Therefore, saying that Jesus HAD to die on the cross for our sends is foolish. He is God. If he wanted to forgive us of our sins, he could have simply said, “You are forgiven,” and surely we would be forgiven. To say that his death was required to forgive us of our sins is to say that God is limited in power. If he is unlimited in power, as I believe he is, then the death of his one and only Son was not necessary at all, so we must ask the question, “Why did the Father send his one and only Son to DIE on the cross to forgive sins that he is in no way responsible for, when he could have accomplished the same goal by a flick of the wrist and no death at all?”
All of this being said, I enjoyed your post and look forwarded to reading your blog in the future (and if you wouldn’t mind having a look at my blog, I would appreciate that a great deal).
Drew,
Thanks. I appreciate you stopping by. You’ve made some really good points. Well said. Your site looks nice. I see that you’re reading the Bible using the Life in the Spirit Study Bible. also use the Life in the Spirit Study Bible. The new version (it used to be called the Full Life Study Bible) is better because it has more notes and features. Thanks again for stopping by.
Randy
First off, I reread my post and realized that I said “sends” instead of “sins.” Sorry about that.
Secondly, thank you for taking the time to look at my blog. As I’m sure you know, being a blogger yourself, more traffic = more happy. :)
I do like my Life in the Spirit Study Bible. It seems to be extremely comprehensive; so much so that there are some pages which have more footnotes than actual Biblical text!
Since I am already talking to you, I was wondering if maybe you could answer a small question I have.
Genesis 6:4 NIV:
“The Nephilim were on the earth in those days–and also afterward–when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.”
Using the wonderful referencing system of this Bible, I was also directed to Numbers 13:33 NIV:
“We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
My question is, what are the Nephilim? I asked ChaCha and they told me they were 10 foot tall angel/man hybrids, which I dismissed as utter rubbish. Stupid ChaCha. I asked my high school’s FCA leader and she told me that she had never heard of them, but that it was probably something like Seraphim. The Life in the Spirit Study Bible states that the “sons of God” are probably not angels, but I don’t see how they could be just normal men because the Numbers 13:33 passage indicates that they made normal people seem like grasshoppers.
If you could help me out there, that would be great.
Lastly, I was wondering if you would be okay with me posting a link to your blog on mine? If so, it would not be an attack on you or your blog, it would simply be a “Hey, here is a blog you should read…” kind of thing.
Thanks again!
Drew,
Thanks. I would appreciate a link on your site. I have done some study on the Nephilim. I actually get that question a lot. I’d be glad to write an article on that. There are several points of view. I’ll try to include a few of the best ones.
Randy
Thanks a lot, you’re the man!
Drew,
Here’s an article on this topic that I found interesting:
http://www.nwcreation.net/nephilim.html
Randy
As I understand this verse, Jesus was both God and man while on earth. As man He died on the cross and the moment He died, he had completed the work He came to do on earth. When He cried out to His Father, His Father at that moment turned His back on Jesus the man, because the sins of the world (which was too much for a Holy God to look at) was upon Jesus. The moment He died He and His Father was ONE again. I want to quote Phil. 2:6-11. I think that verse explains it very well.