My God, My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me

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​Dr. Jake Haulk

The Fourth of the Last Seven Words

From Mark 15:34, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani. And from Matthew 27:46, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani.In both translations this cry from the Cross means My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? This verse has been one of the most difficult to explain. Why? In part, because it is the only time Jesus addresses the Almighty as God. In all other instances of Jesus praying or addressing God He says Father. There is one other instance in the Gospels wherein Jesus uses the words my Godand it is not in prayer. In John 20:11, He tells Mary Magdalene,go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend to my Father and your Father; and to my God and your God.

Naturally, over the centuries theologians, the early Church Fathers, the great Christian thinkers have pondered this verse. 

For instance, St. Ambrose  writing in the fourth century says, The man cried out when about to expire by being severed from the Godhead; for since the Godhead is immune from death, assuredly death could not be there, except life departed, for the Godhead is life.And so according to Ambrose it seems that when Christ died, the Godhead was separated from His flesh. Further quoting Ambrose, It was in human voice that he cried: "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" As human, therefore, he speaks on the cross, bearing with him our terrors. For amid dangers it is a very human response to think ourself abandoned.

In the view of many who hold to the penal substitution theory of atonement, Christ was made sin as a substitute for our sins and God would not look upon sin and turned away from His Son, evoking the forlorn cry. 
Others have pointed out that the cry My God, My God why hast thou forsaken meis the first line of the 22ndPsalm and would have been well known to Jews in the crowd. Jews would have realized that what they were witnessing was the fulfillment of many prophetic passages in the Psalms. Along with Isaiah 53, Psalm 22 is one the most powerfully prophetic chapters regarding the Messiah in the Old Testament.  St. John Chrysostom says, Why does he speak this way, crying out, "Eli, Eli, lama sabach-thani?" That they might see that to his last breath he honors God as his Father and is no adversary of God. He spoke with the voice of Scripture, uttering a cry from the psalm. Thus even to his last hour he is found bearing witness to the sacred text. 

By crying out the opening sentence of this Psalm, Christ would have forced the Jews, both those for and against Him, to remember the prophetic words David wrote a thousand years before. For example All they that see me laugh me to scorn, they shoot out the lip saying, He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver him, let Him deliver him, seeing that he delightest in him.The very words were being spat at Jesus by the mockers. And then, They part my garments among them, and acts lots upon my vesture.And this perhaps most telling, the wicked have inclosed me; they have pierced my hands and my feet.

Surely, one cannot help but believe that Jesus would choose this verse to make plain that his loving and his suffering had been foretold by King David.  
While this explanation has much to recommend it, it still seems incomplete. The difficulty in understanding this verse arises because of our problems in understanding how Jesus could be both fully man and fully God. The Church has accepted this to be the correct understanding since the Council of Chalcedon in the mid5thcentury. The Council decided once and for all to ratify and adopt the arguments of a letter from the Archbishop of Rome (now called Pope Leo I) that forcefully denounced the heresy that Jesus had only a Divine will and that human will was extinguished. 

Leo was undoubtedly drawing heavily on Holy Scripture from Paul and John. 
Paul in Philipians2:6-7 says, Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal to God: but made himself of no reputation and took him the form of a servant and was made man. And John’s gospel he opens chapter one with In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God, and in verse 14, And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and behold we beheld His glory, the glory as the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth.

What is needed for salvation is the re-creation of human nature, and this re-creation can only occur if the Word dies in the flesh. All must indeed die—such is the divinely ordained curse of mortality.  Athanasius writes, And thus it happened, that both things occurred together in a paradoxical manner: the death of all was completed in the lordly body, and also death and corruption were destroyed by the Word in it. For there was need of death, and death on behalf of all had to take place, so that what was required by all might occur. Therefore, the Word, since he was not able to die—for he was immortal—took to himself a body able to die, that he might offer it as his own on behalf of all and as himself suffering for all, through coming into it ‘he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.

We believers in the Lord Jesus Christ seem to prefer to think of Him during His ministry as primarily performing miracles, healing the sick and infirm, changing water into wine, walking on water, raising the dead or delivering wonderful discourses and parables. But the Gospels also contain many examples that point to his humanity. He fasted and was hungry. He grew tired and He slept. He was flogged and he bled. With the mourners at Lazarus’s tomb, He wept. He wearied. And in the Garden of Gethsemane, he is reported to have sweated drops as of  blood as He came face to face with the hours of horrible suffering and the terrible soul wrenching burden of taking on himself the sins of the world in his death. And yet He remained without sin even knowing what lay in store. He remained committed to the task He was destined by God to fulfill, even taking on the sins of the world. 

Thus, while Christ as the eternally begotten Son could not suffer physical pain or die, He would have been sensitive to the pain and suffering of His human flesh and soul. He was one Person with two natures. By the miracle of resurrection Christ was reunited with His old body that had been transformed into a new incorruptible body. A body that we as believers are promised on the day of judgment if we have believed on Him and kept His teachings and commandments.  

The great minds of the Church have struggled with what this cry of Jesus means and what caused Him to cry out.  It is possible a complete understanding must wait until we like Paul are face to face with our Maker and no longer see through a glass darkly. But we can know that when Jesus cried out to God in despondency He used the words of a psalm that opens in despair but moves in a few verses to these stirring words. Be not far from me for trouble is near for there is none to help. And thenO Lord, O my strength, haste thee to help me.

In quoting this psalm in His horrendous torment, Jesus proved that He was fully human but knew at the same time that God would see Him through whatever he must endure.  
Thanks be to God.
 

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