My God, My God
“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabach thani? That is to say, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Matthew 27:46
The fourth utterance from the cross that Jesus spoke which we will examine came at a moment when the pain and agony had reached its climax for the Son of God. Jesus was fully God, but He was also fully human, and all the measures that the soldiers took in His crucifixion caused excruciating pain throughout His entire body. There are many people who have had cancer or some other debilitating diseases or injuries and have experienced a lot of pain. This pain, most of them would likely say, was a ten on the scale of one to ten. However, Jesus’ pain must have measured at least one million or more above that one to ten scale. Not only was He in physical pain, but mental and emotional pain as well. Those who have been through emotional traumas can testify that sometimes they are more painful than physical pain.
Imagine being abandoned by someone who loves you more than anyone else on earth. Jesus’ passionate exclamation is a fulfilling of Psalm 22:1 and Joel 3:15-16. Jesus’ cry was a verbatim quote from Psalm 22:1. When King David wrote this Psalm and asked why God had forsaken him, he continued by asking, “Why art Thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?” The prophet Joel foretold that, “The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.” Matthew 27:45 records that “from the sixth hour (noon) there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour (three p.m.), the exact time when Jesus cried out to His Father. The complete and utter darkness in the middle of the day would have only made it worse for the suffering Savior. Darkness is a metaphor for sin. It was at this point that the entire wrath of God came down upon His only Son. Some people try to explain the darkness by claiming that there was a total eclipse of the sun, but God didn’t need an eclipse to bring darkness over the earth. Even in a total eclipse, there is still some light available. I believe that during these three hours, the people gathered at Golgotha could not see their hands in front of their faces. That’s how dark that sin is. I remember many years ago visiting Sequoyah Caverns in Alabama. We were deep into the cave when they turned out the lights. It was a very eerie feeling, pitch black, and no light at all. I have often wondered why the crowd gathered at the site of the crucifixion didn’t realize that Jesus really was God’s Son, the Messiah. We know that some did, a Roman centurion and his men, after experiencing the earthquake that occurred just as Jesus died, “feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God” (Matthew 27:54).
There are some Bible scholars who have difficulty understanding in what sense Jesus was forsaken by God. They don’t believe that God could ever turn His back on Jesus, even if only temporarily. I will admit, that is difficult to fathom. However, if we examine this closely, we can begin to understand how sin is such a vile and hostile affront to the LORD God of heaven and earth. Habakkuk 1:13 says that “God is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity”. When Adam and Eve sinned, God had to sever His relationship with them. Everyone born since that time is separated from God because of his or her inherent sin nature. The purpose in Christ’s sacrifice was to satisfy the justice of God, paying the penalty for man’s sin, and making reconciliation for man. Since the utmost penalty for those who reject Christ is not everlasting punishment in hell, but eternal separation from God, it was necessary for Jesus to be separated from His Father in order to experience this most extreme penalty that unbelievers will experience in order to completely fulfill God’s justice.
When Jesus cried out, “Eli, Eli,” He was actually calling out “Eloi, Eloi,” which was Aramaic, His spoken dialect of Hebrew for “My God, My God”. Some of the people watching and hearing Him crying out, “Eli, Eli,” thought that He was calling on the prophet Elijah to save Him. Rather than crying out and saying, “My Father, My Father”, Jesus, while still the sinless Son of God, had become representative of the lost sinner who must cry out to the sovereign LORD of all creation for pardon and relief from the guilt and ravages of sin. I cannot imagine how much this hurt God to allow His Son to undergo such suffering, pain, and humiliation, but it was the only way whereby you and I and every person that has ever lived on earth can be reconciled back to God, the Father. What Jesus endured for us should cause our hearts to be filled with an overwhelming gratitude for all eternity. I know that I am eternally grateful.
Tomorrow: “I thirst.”