Part 1: Did God the Father Forsaken God the Son on the Cross? | Hyperlinking Easter and Psalm 22 Series

This is a multipart series on the relationship between Jesus and Psalm 22. I have tackled this subject four years ago in my blog titled Was Christ Abandoned by the Father? Today, in 2023, I want to share with you my further exploration of the deeper meaning of Jesus’s last words. 

In Part 1 of this series, I want to revisit and reexamine the claim often made by preachers, pastors and commentators: God the Father abandoned Jesus on the cross.

Introduction
The sky begins to turn dark and the winds are blowing ferociously. The people begin to shield their faces for grains of sand were pelting them. Yet, no one moved on that crowded hilltop called Golgotha. All watching a man suffer. All waiting to hear his last exhale. 

Jesus has been hanging on the cross for nearly three hours now, agonizing over the searing pain felt throughout his body. His arms and shoulders throbbed as his tendons and muscles are stretched beyond their elastic limits, to the point of tearing. Yet he had to push through the burning pain to pull himself up by his pierced hands because he was suffocating. But when he finally takes in a welcomed breath, his lungs exploded as if it were on fire. Further, as he tries to hold himself up with his pierced feet and trembling legs, wood splinters dig deeper into his torn and exposed spine from Roman executioners’ merciless lashings. With every ounce of his will, he fought the human body’s desire to giving in to subconsciousness as its pain management and self-protection mechanism, which he put in place as its Creator. He slowly gathers his strength for one final declaration. The same mouth that spoke the world into existence now cries out one last time to his Heavenly Father, he recites the opening line of Psalm 22 (Mat 27.46 ESV; Mar 15.34), 

“Eli, Eli, lemá sabachtháni?” That is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

With these four Aramaic words Jesus spoke his last and gave up his spirit.

The Claim
When Jesus cried out his these last words, the crowd beneath the cross misunderstood his plea, thinking he was calling on Elijah to come save him. However, today, there is a different misunderstanding regarding these words. It’s the belief that God the Father had forsaken Jesus on the cross in the final minutes of his anguish. The idea is Jesus’s cry of abandonment by the Father was far more distressing than his physical flogging, thorns from the crown pressed into his scalp and brows, and large spikes driven through his hands and feet. His Father had forsaken him on the cross. Some even claim, for the first and only time in history, God the Son was all alone, separated from God the Father. After all, if it weren’t true, then why would Jesus, the Truth personified, make such a shocking claim.

The assertion of the Father’s abandonment has always troubled me over the years. It presupposes the reason God the Father had to turned his back on his Son is because he cannot look upon sin, when Jesus became sin on our behalf. For example, the Reverend Billy Graham answered a similar question with the following response (emphasis added),

“But in reality His words point to something far different. They point to the fact that when Jesus died on the cross, all our sins—without exception—were transferred to Him. He was without sin, for He was God in human flesh. But as He died all our sins were placed on Him, and He became the final and complete sacrifice for our sins. And in that moment He was banished from the presence of God, for sin cannot exist in God’s presence. His cry speaks of this truth; He endured the separation from God that you and I deserve.” (https://billygraham.org/story/did-god-abandon-jesus-on-the-cross-billy-graham-answers/)

“Banished.” That was an even stronger, more forceful language than “forsaken” or “abandon”. Miles Custis echoes Reverend Graham’s notion in his article (emphasis added),

“The opening line of Psalm 22 beautifully expresses the anguish of the psalmist. He is suffering greatly, but his chief concern is that God—the source of his trust and deliverance—appears to have abandoned him. Matthew and Mark both attribute these words to Jesus (Mt 27:46; Mk 15:34). Jesus’ physical sufferings pale in comparison to the trauma of being forsaken by God as he takes the weight of our sin upon himself.” (https://www.logos.com/grow/5-allusions-to-psalm-22-at-christs-crucifixion/)

The Rationale
Reverend Graham was no doubt the greatest evangelist of the 20th century, but was he correct in his theological claim? And what does that tell us about God if we carry his claim (and all similar claims) to its logical conclusion? 

Those defending that “the Father abandoned Jesus because he cannot look upon sin” conclusion do so by conflating two ideas from unrelated passages, Habakkuk 1.13 and 2 Corinthians 5.21. 

In Habakkuk 1.13 after the prophet saw the abounding wickedness in Judah, he declared,

Your eyes are too pure to look on evil,
And you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.

And in 2 Corinthians 5.21 we read of Paul’s teaching on the means of reconciliation for humanity to God,

He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The presupposition that God forsook Jesus on the cross came as result of a literalistic reading of these passages. The syllogism behind it is as follows:

Premise 1: God in his purity cannot look on evil or sin (Hab 1.13).
Premise 2: Christ literally became our sin on the cross (2Co 5.21).
Conclusion 1: Hence, God in his purity cannot look on Christ who was sin.
Conclusion 2: Hence, God in his purity cannot be in the presence of sin that was in Christ.
Conclusion 3: Therefore, God must turn his back on Christ and abandon him on the cross.

Your Thoughts
I will address my evaluation of the logic behind this claim in my next post. In the meantime, I’m interested to read your feedback. Do you agree or disagree with the syllogism? Why or why not?