Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34 recorded one of Jesus’ statements on the cross not long before He died. The account in the Gospel According to Mark reads, “And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’” (NKJV). These words are a quotation of Psalm 22:1, where we find, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me, And from the words of My groaning?” David’s Psalm 22 is noted for being Messianic and prophetic about the sufferings of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Through all the adversity described therein, nevertheless, an unfailing confidence in Almighty God concludes Psalm 22.
The questions arise, “Why did Jesus on the cross utter, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’”; “What did Jesus’ statement mean?” and “In what sense did God the Father ‘forsake’ Christ on the cross?” Scripture does not answer these questions for us specifically. Hence, commentators are perplexed and provide varying explanations. Like some similarly difficult biblical passages, it is easier to declare what the passage does not mean than it is to confidently affirm what it does mean. As such, for instance, the notion is rejected that the divine side of our Lord separated from the human side, leaving only the abandoned, suffering and confused human on the cross.
Instead, following are some of the best observations from commentators that offer plausible and biblically compatible insight to our Lord’s utterance on the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
- “Jesus sensed a separation from the Father He had never known, for in becoming sin the Father had to turn judicially from His Son (Rom 3:25-26).” (Bible Knowledge Commentary)
- “Jesus had been made sin for us (2 Cor 5:21).” (Bible Exposition Commentary)
- “He was bearing the sins of the whole world; the Lord had laid on him the iniquity of us all; there was no one to comfort him in his heaviness; and the light of God’s countenance was for the time withdrawn from him. He was ‘left’ that he might bear man’s sins in their full and crushing weight, and by bearing save.” (Pulpit Commentary)
- “Nothing from Jesus so well illustrates the depth of his suffering of soul as he felt himself regarded as sin though sinless (2 Cor 5:21).” (Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament)
- “…solitude or loneliness because God, who cannot look upon sin (Isa. 59:1-2), forsook Jesus (in a sense) as He bore the sin of the world in His death upon the cross. Paul states, ‘For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him’ (II Cor. 5:21). It is also a prayer of crisis because of the humanity of Jesus and the intense suffering which He was undergoing and because the Sinless One, ‘who did no sin’ (I Pet. 2:22), was being made a sin offering.” (Cook 56)
To my mind, the best explanation of Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34—“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”—is summed up by comparing Isaiah 59:1-2 with 2 Corinthians 5:21. “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear” (Isaiah 59:1-2). “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). For a time, God the Father was “separated…from” ‘hid His face from’ and did “not hear” (acknowledge) Jesus Christ on Calvary’s cross because our Lord was bearing all the sins of humanity. Our Holy God can have no association with sin. Therefore, while Jesus bore mankind’s burden of sin, God the Father could have no fellowship with Him. The agonizing expression of Jesus in Matthew 27:46 highlights the additional torture of a ruptured fellowship with God atop the excruciatingly painful death that He was experiencing. That breach of fellowship was something that the Second Person of the Godhead had never experienced throughout eternity. Likewise, one of the punishments for the ungodly at the end of time is separation from the presence of God (2 Thessalonians 1:9).
Afterward, the fellowship between God the Father and God the Son was restored as Jesus Christ ascended and took His place on “the right hand of God” (Romans 8:34; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 10:12; 12:2; 1 Peter 3:22). “…Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him” (1 Peter 3:21-22).
Works Cited
Bible Exposition Commentary. CD-ROM. Colorado Springs: Chariot Victor Publishing, 1989.
Bible Knowledge Commentary. CD-ROM. Colorado Springs: Cook Communications Ministries, 2000.
Cook, Wirt. “Prayers of Christ on the Cross.” Living in Trust. Curtis A. Cates, ed. Memphis: Memphis School of Preaching, 1993, 51-63.
Pulpit Commentary. CD-ROM. Seattle: Biblesoft, 2006.
Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament. CD-ROM. Seattle: Biblesoft, 2006.
