Did God forsake Jesus at the cross?

This post continues comments on Forsaken (The Trinity and the Cross, and Why it Matters) by Thomas H. McCall.

Last time we saw how McCall shows that Jesus' cry of dereliction on the cross ("my God, my God, why have you forsaken me"), cannot be taken as indicating that the Father separated himself from his Son. McCall uses several arguments to debunk this wrong-headed (though popular) notion. In this post we'll look at two. First, McCall argues on the basis of God's own essential (and inseparable) triune nature. He quotes Bruce D. Marshall:

God the Son can be truly Fatherless only if God the Father has genuinely given up whatever is necessary for his paternal relationship with his Son... The person of the Father is inseparable from the act of generation by which he eternally brings forth the Son. Without this act of generation, there would be no person of the Father... Were God the Father to renounce his paternity in the passion of the incarnate Son...the Son would at that moment cease to be brought forth from the Father. If this Son came to be Fatherless, he would himself instantly cease to be. At the same time he would naturally cease to suffer the Father's dereliction, since what is not cannot suffer" (pp34-35).

McCall goes on to note that nothing in Matthew's and Mark's accounts of Jesus' cry of foresakenness on the cross demands the idea of a rupture in the triune relationships. Indeed, those relationships cannot be broken, for it is these relationships that constitute the Trinity, and thus the very being of God.

Second, McCall argues from the biblical text, noting that neither Matthew or Mark give any explanation concerning the meaning of Jesus' cry of dereliction. Also, both record that Jesus made a "loud cry" after the cry of foresakenness (Mat 27:50; Mark 15:37), and neither tell us what that cry was - for that we have to go to John's account where "the last recorded words of Jesus come as a triumphant cry from a man with his head held high: 'It is finished' (John 19:30)" (p37). This cry of triumph is hardly consistent with the idea that Jesus had been abandoned by his Father or that the triune relationship had been severed in any way:

There is no hint here of a severed or even strained relationship. There is no sense here of a Father who has rejected his Son or who has turned his back on him. In fact, it is hard to see how such a view could even be compatible with the last words of Jesus. To the contrary, Jesus prefaces his last words with a sense of deep relational intimacy: Jesus addresses his "Father." And they are words of complete trust; what we see here is an expression of the closest imaginable spiritual communion. "Into your hands I commit my spirit."

The last words of Jesus, as recorded by Luke [23:46], are not words of spiritual separation or of utter abandonment of God. They are not the words of someone who knows that the Father has "turned his face away," nor is it the response of someone who believes that he has been rejected by his Father. Luke's last words of Jesus are an expression of confident trust and glad hope. They stand in contradiction to any broken-Trinity interpretation of the cry of dereliction. They are, however, completely consistent with the traditional understanding that the Father -  when he could have rescued him - abandoned Jesus to this death, on the cross, at the hands of these sinful people, for us and our salvation. But even in this abandonment, he is the beloved Son of his Father. The one abandoned to this awful humiliation and death is the one with whom the Father is "well pleased" (Mat. 317; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22) (pp38-39).

Understanding God in the Old Testament

This blog often receives questions about Old Testament (OT) passages that seem to portray God in a way quite different than he is portrayed in the New Testament. In exegeting such passages, it is important to remember that OT references to God are not the full revelation of his being. That revelation comes only in the person and work of Jesus Christ. However, God did reveal something of his essential nature to Israel - a revelation recorded in the OT. Notable is God's self-disclosure in Ex 34:1-35. Let's note some key points.

Having broken the stone tablets containing the Decalogue, Moses is directed by the LORD to make replacement tablets, so that God might restore his people to their covenant commitments, and thus to fellowship with him. Notice Ex 34:1-9:

1 The LORD said to Moses, "Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. 2 Be ready in the morning, and then come up on Mount Sinai. Present yourself to me there on top of the mountain. 3 No one is to come with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain; not even the flocks and herds may graze in front of the mountain." 4 So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the LORD had commanded him; and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands. 5 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation." 8 Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped. 9 "O Lord, if I have found favor in your eyes," he said, "then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance."

This powerful and important scene has a central place in Exodus and all the Pentateuch (and, indeed, in all the OT). Note that the focus in this renewal of the covenant is not Israel’s behavior, but who God is: He is the LORD God (Yahweh Elohim) who will be in covenant with his people. He is, in himself, full of compassion, grace, love (Hebrew=chesed, repeated twice in vv6-7), faithfulness (Hebrew=emet) and forgiveness.

Yahweh is this God’s personal name - a name that proclaims who God is, and what God does in covenant with his people, despite their failure. Yes, God holds his people accountable (“he does not leave the guilty unpunished,” v6b). However, his justice and judgment is always grounded in and expresses his covenant chesed (love) and emet (faithfulness). As we “fast-forward” to the Incarnation of God in the person of Jesus, we see that God ultimately takes his people’s failure upon himself, and in doing so provides for them true justice (atonement) through his self-sacrifice on their behalf.

In response to this self-disclosure of God’s being and doing, Moses worships the LORD God, and pleads with him to be who he is (merciful) with his stiff-necked people, and thus not abandon them. God responds in Ex 34:10-28 by inviting Israel to renew the covenant. Notice:

10 Then the LORD said: "I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you. 11 Obey what I command you today. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 12 Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. 13 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles. 14 Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. 15 Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. 16 And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same. 17 Do not make cast idols. 18 Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt. 19 The first offspring of every womb belongs to me, including all the firstborn males of your livestock, whether from herd or flock. 20 Redeem the firstborn donkey with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem all your firstborn sons. No one is to appear before me empty-handed. 21 Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest. 22 Celebrate the Feast of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year. 23 Three times a year all your men are to appear before the Sovereign LORD, the God of Israel. 24 I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your territory, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times each year to appear before the LORD your God. 25 Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast, and do not let any of the sacrifice from the Passover Feast remain until morning. 26 Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God. Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk.” 27 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." 28 Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.

In this offer of covenant renewal, God promises to work mightily within Israel to display his awesome power. He will drive out her enemies from the Promised Land. However, Israel’s experience of God’s power will be conditioned on her obedience to the covenant stipulations—some of which are here reiterated. The primary focus of these stipulations is to keep Israel from further idolatry. Indeed, strong action is to be taken against temptations to idolatry: altars, sacred stones (male fertility symbols) and Asherah poles must be destroyed. Because Israel has fallen into idolatry (chapter 32) these instructions are more inclusive than those previously given in 23:24.

God is said to be a “jealous” God (34:14)—meaning that as Israel’s sole ruler, he will tolerate no rivals (see 20:3). Israel is thus not to make treaties with idolatrous people. Doing so will lead to involvement in their sacrificial communal meals (34:15), to intermarrying their daughters (many of whom were spiritual and/or physical prostitutes to their gods), and to making of molten images (34:17; 20:4) as they had already done in making the gold calf (see 32:4). Tragically Israel does not heed these warnings and becomes involved in worshiping the false gods of the Canaanites and others. Ultimately this will lead to their expulsion from the Promised Land.

Having described the types of idolatrous worship that Israel must avoid (34:12-17), God reminds them to worship him through the festivals given in the Mosaic Covenant. Three major feasts are enumerated (vv18, 22) with the promise that celebrating them properly will result in God giving them the Promised Land and keeping it safe (v24). The Feast of Unleavened Bread is to be observed in Abib (March-April), the month of the Exodus, and the firstborn are to be dedicated to the Lord. These two are associated because of the link between the 10th plague (death of the Egyptians’ firstborn) and the Exodus.

Before mentioning the second and third feasts (34:22), God reminds Israel of her obligation to rest each week on the Sabbath day (see 20:8) even including in the busiest times of the year (plowing season and harvest). The harvesting season is mentioned because it leads naturally to the next two annual feasts, both pertaining to harvests. The second feast, the Feast of Weeks (also called the Feast of Harvest and Pentecost) occurs at the beginning of the winter wheat harvest in the Spring. The third feast, the Feast of Ingathering (also called the Feast of Tabernacles) is to be celebrated at harvest time in the fall. All male adults in Israel are to appear before God for these three feasts (which later meant traveling to Jerusalem to the tabernacle or the temple). These pilgrimage feasts bind the nation together in worship. God promises that while the men are away worshiping the Lord, he will protect their property.

As with the giving of the Book of the Covenant the first time, Moses is now instructed to write down God’s commands (see 24:4). After 40 days, which is the length of his first sojourn on Mount Sinai (24:18), Moses receives the tablets of stone containing the Ten Commandments—the general stipulations of the Mosaic Covenant. Now notice the rest of this key passage (Ex 34:29-35):

29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD. 30 When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him. 31 But Moses called to them; so Aaron and all the leaders of the community came back to him, and he spoke to them. 32 Afterward all the Israelites came near him, and he gave them all the commands the LORD had given him on Mount Sinai. 33 When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. 34 But whenever he entered the LORD's presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, 35 they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the LORD.

In contrast with the anger that Moses evidenced when descending the mountain with the first set of stone tablets (32:19), this time his face radiates with the reflection of God’s glory (see 2Cor 3:7). However, Moses is unaware of this. This makes the people afraid, but he encourages them to listen as he tells them the stipulations of the renewed covenant. Apparently the people tell Moses about his shining face, because he covers it with a veil (2Cor 3:13). But in the Lord‘s presence, Moses removes the veil (2Cor. 3:18).

Whereas Moses’ fellowship with God is direct, Israel’s is indirect—mediated through Moses, and thus “veiled.”  This is the nature of the Mosaic Covenant itself—it is a veiled “shadow” (see Heb 10:1) of what comes to fullness only in the New Covenant though its one Mediator, Jesus Christ.

This section of Exodus is of great importance to understanding who God reveals himself to be in covenant with his people. This self-revelation of God, to and through Moses, serves as the theological heart (and exegetical key) of the Old Testament. Then in the New Testament, God’s self-revelation comes to fullness in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Thank God that we have this full and final revelation! It is on that basis, and with this light that we can study and understand the story of Israel given in the OT, and on that basis understand all of Holy Scripture. Let us read the Bible with Jesus!

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

IVP recently published Forsaken (The Trinity and the Cross, and Why it Matters) by Thomas H. McCall.

Several years ago, I took Dr. McCall's class on the doctrine of God at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS). The primary focus was the doctrine of the Trinity, and a primary text was The Christian Doctrine of God (One Being, Three Persons) by Thomas F. Torrance.

The class included thought-provoking discussions concerning various (and sometimes competing) theological perspectives on the Trinity. These discussions reinforced in my mind the importance of understanding the historic (Nicaean) roots of the Trinity doctrine - roots reflected in the aforementioned book and unpacked by Torrance in The Trinitarian Faith (for an article summarizing Torrance's view of the Creed, click here).

In Forsaken, Professor McCall brings these historic Trinitarian insights into his analysis of Jesus' famous (but often misunderstood) words of dereliction on the cross: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mat 27:46 and Mark 15:34).

Some commentators, preachers and recording artists interpret this cry of Jesus to mean that God his Father, at that moment, turned his back on his Son. According to McCall, were that the case, it would mean the breaking apart (rupturing) of the Holy Trinity, and that cannot be, even for a moment. McCall writes on page 14:

It is very common, especially among conservative evangelical Christians who strongly defend the necessity and sufficiency of Christ's atoning work, to hear statements such as the following:

• The Father rejected the Son.

• As he exhausted his wrath upon the Son, the Father completely abandoned the Son.

• The Father hid his face from the Son.

• Jesus "became sin." Therefore the Father's wrath was poured out on Jesus.

• The Father turned away from the Son.

• The physical pain Christ suffered in his passion was nothing in comparison to the spiritual and relational pain that Christ endured as he was separated from his Father.

• God cursed Jesus with damnation.

• The eternal communion between the Father and the Son was ruptured on that fateful day.

• The Trinity was broken.

McCall suggests that such statements are inconsistent with the gospel and the historic understanding of the Trinity doctrine, and shows why that is so in an analysis of various historic approaches to the subject. In his analysis, McCall notes the "many differences of opinion" on this passage (p27), then offers his own understanding, which is informed by the viewpoint of the Patristic Fathers (such as Athanasius and the Cappadocian Fathers):

We should not understand it [Jesus' cry to God on the cross] to mean any abandonment of the humanity that Christ came to take on himself and to save. And we should not understand it to mean that the communion between the Father and the Son was disrupted or that the Trinity was any way "broken." We should, however, take the cry of dereliction as a powerful expression of the identification of the Son of God with us and our predicament. And we should understand it to mean that what the Father abandoned the Son to was death at the hands of sinful people. So while the abandonment is real, it in no way implies a loss of contact or relationship between the Father and the Son (p27).

McCall then offers this summary:

...On the one hand we have a view - very common in contemporary Christian thinking - according to which the Father is against the Son; the relationship of mutual communion, love, and trust between the Father and Son is ruptured; and the Trinity is broken. On this view, the Father turns his face away from and utterly rejects the Son. This utter rejection, these contemporary theologians tell us, is good news. On the other hand, we have something very different; the deeply traditional view [of the Church fathers, and extending into certain medieval theologies] is this: the Father forsook the Son to his death, and he did so for us and our salvation. But even so, the communion of Father and Son is unbroken. And this too, the tradition tell us, is good news (p29).

McCall challenges us to read again Jesus' words, and to find there the fullness of the gospel, which speaks of the union of God as Trinity, and our inclusion in that divine communion in and through Jesus' vicarious humanity through which he bears our shame and dies our death. He does this in communion with his Father, not in separation.

I'll share more from this helpful book next time. In the meantime, you might enjoy listening to an interview with Dr. McCall concerning his book - click here and scroll down to the recording.

Why study theology?

Some see theology as an unnecessary, "high brow" distraction. They ask, Why do I need to study theology?

The video embedded below (titled Theology Matters) offers a helpful answer (you can also view the video at http://youtu.be/A2DUKPUKgAI).

The message of Holy Week: In Christ we are healed

Holy Week, which includes Good Friday and Easter Sunday, is a powerful reminder that our humanity is healed in the person of Christ who, through the Incarnation, is fully God and fully human.

Note James B. (J.B.) Torrance's comment in Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace: 

We are not just healed through Christ, because of the work of Christ, but in and through Christ. Person and work must not be separated. That is why [the church] Fathers did not hesitate to say, as Edward Irving, the Scottish theologian in the early nineteenth century and Karl Barth in our own times have said, that Christ assumed "fallen humanity" (i.e., our humanity) that it might be turned back to God, in him by his sinless life in the Spirit, and through him in us (p53).

What is at work in all of Jesus' life (including his death and resurrection) is a two-fold movement (relationship): God-humanword and human-Godword, which constitutes the atonement (the "at-one-ment"), or reconciliation, of God and man.

On Good Friday, Jesus was crucified on the cross as both God and man. In Christ, God tasted death, suffering with us and for us. In Christ, humanity died to sin.

Then on Easter Sunday, Jesus rose from death to new, glorified life. In Christ, God shares with us bodily his resurrection life. In Christ, humanity is recreated.

Through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of the God-man - God gives himself in holy love to humanity, and responds, as man, to God. He does so by coming to us as man; and as man doing for us, what we could never do for ourselves. J.B. Torrance comments:

It is this thought of an all-inclusive vicarious humanity [of Jesus] which was developed by Irenaeus in his doctrine of anakephalaiosis or recapitulation... The Christ by whom all things were made is the same Christ who, for us and our salvation, assumed our humanity. In other words, the  Son of God who created Adam for sonship and communion and immortality does not abandon his loving purposes for humanity, for every single human person. But in order to redeem humanity and to bring to fulfillment his purpose (his telos) for humanity, for everyone, he himself becomes a man that he might fulfill for us in his own person God's purposes of love and obedience and worship. Thus what is lost in the one man ("in Adam") - communion with God - is restored and fulfilled for each one of us in Christ ("the last Adam"), and held out for us by the Spirit in the Lord's Supper. This, of course, is the Pauline doctrine of Romans 5 and Ephesians 1 - that God's great purpose is that "he might gather together in one all things in Christ" (Eph 1:10) (p52).

May we remember these stunning, life-transforming truths as we once again celebrate Holy Week.