THE CRY OF DERELICTION
“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud
voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have
you forsaken me?”” (Matthew 27:46, ESV)
Part 3
You will recall in my previous Blog, that I thought Dr. Tom McCall’s conclusion to his work on Christ’s cry of abandonment from the cross wasn’t convincing for the reasons given. I mainly took exception to his understanding that God abandoned Jesus TO sinful men and that the Father did not Himself abandon Christ; and his view of penal substitution, not accepting the Father’s direct action in causing His wrath to fall upon His Son.
So how are we to understand this cry of dereliction?
The Suffering Was Real
First of all, let us affirm that the suffering of Christ, bearing the sin of wicked men, was a real, objective suffering. It was not a feeling. It was real. McCall rightly warns us of this, “There are several misleading and potentially dangerous ways of interpreting the cry of dereliction. The first of these is the view that Jesus did not really suffer or was not really abandoned at all” (p. 42). John Piper stresses that Jesus was not merely feeling abandoned or speaking poetically. He really was forsaken in a specific sense: the Father poured out divine wrath on the Son as the substitute for sinners. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” means he really did [experience this]. He is bearing our sin. He bore our judgment. The judgment was to have God the Father pour out his wrath, and instead of pouring it out on us, he pours it out on him.”[1]
Kevin DeYoung[2] affirms that this forsakenness was temporal and relative, not absolute, total, or eternal (as experienced by the damned). “Jesus “experienced the abandonment and despair that resulted from the outpouring of divine wrath.” He “became the object of the Father’s wrath—the first time in all of eternity He had known the bitterness of His Father’s displeasure, the pain of His Father’s rejection.”[3]
This forsakenness was temporal and temporary. As I will explain next, it was also relative.
The Hypostatic Union of the Trinity Was Retained
The cry of
Christ was not just a feeling. God imputed the guilt of sinners upon the Savior
and He became sin and a curse, bearing the wrath of God (Galatians 3:13; 2
Corinthians 5:21; Isaiah 53:10). The Father treated the Son as if he were
guilty—pouring out divine wrath against sin upon him as our substitute—so that
we might never face that wrath or forsakenness ourselves (Hebrews 13:5).
But in that Divine Act there was no division in the divine essence or being of God (God is one; the Trinity cannot be “torn apart”). The union of the Trinity was not severed and the eternal love that the Father had for the Son was not diminished.
How is that possible? It is possible because the forsakenness pertains to Christ’s role as mediator and substitute in his incarnate state. In his human nature and experience, he endured what we deserved (the horror of bearing sin and its judgment). In his divine person and nature, he remained fully God, upheld by the Spirit, and united with the Father in will and love.
Stated otherwise, as touching His humanity, Jesus became sin, became a curse that fully paid for our sin, in our place, but as God, He remained God. That language retains the truth that Jesus did really become a propitiation for sin, and the Trinity was not ruptured. Theologians always distinguish what Christ experienced “in His humanity.” Jesus thirsted, grew weary, and cried out in forsakenness according to his true humanity, while his deity remained fully God. The person of Christ (the divine Son) endured the cross, but the suffering and dereliction occurred in and according to his human nature. (confirm[4])
This does not
remove all mystery. There is yet a paradox for we must not fall into the error
of Nestorianism (that
the Father and Son are two separate persons). No, as the Creeds
affirm: the two natures remain united in one person without confusion or
separation. This means that in the mysteries of the hypostatic union of the
Trinity Jesus could experience things “in his humanity” that His divine nature
did not experience, yet they remained fully united. Athanasius maintained
that if Christ is not God, forgiveness is impossible; if Christ is
not man, humanity is not truly reconciled to God. As he summarized,
"Jesus, that I know as my Redeemer, cannot be less than God"[5].
So, the wrath of God was borne in Christ’s humanity, yet not divided from His deity. What a mystery?
Conclusion
How should we
then think about these things and how should we speak of these things? In
short, Christ was truly forsaken for us so that we who are united to him by
faith will never be. The cry of dereliction magnifies both the terrible cost of
our sin and the glorious love of the triune God who accomplished redemption at
infinite personal price, all without dividing the indivisible Trinity. This is
why we can say with confidence that the God-man was forsaken as touching his
humanity, yet caused no division in His deity. And because of the union of
divinity and humanity in one person, Jesus' death was a "spotless
sacrifice" of infinite worth.
[1] https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/my-god-my-god-why-have-you-forsaken-me-didnt-jesus-already-know
[2] https://www.facebook.com/tokaicommunitychurch/posts/cry-of-derelictionin-the-last-moments-of-his-life-as-he-suffered-the-cruel-torme/1050735533907107/
[3] https://www.gracechurch.org/sermons/14258
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