The events on the cross are mixed with rejoicing and sorrow. While it fills us with hope that our sin was paid for against God, we are heartbroken to see what Christ had to experience on our behalf. And the more we understand the depth of our sin and the perfection of Jesus Christ, the more we praise God and weep for the lengths Christ had to go in order to rescue us.
Christ in the Old Testament
My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
Far from my help are the words of my groaning. (Psalm 22:1)
The complete picture of Psalm 22 shows a man who is in great pain. It goes on to talk about how this person is surrounded by evildoers who despise him, he’s physically suffering, and he’s still able to praise God. All of this starts with the painful feeling that God has completely abandoned the narrator. But what could cause God to turn away from one of His own?
Fulfilled in the New Testament
Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabaktanei?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:45-46)
At the cross, Christ experienced something that has never happened before, and will never happen again. We know that Christ gave His life for us, and this sacrifice is what we trust in to save us from our sin. Yet Christ experienced much more than death on the cross.
“Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17:24)
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have always existed in perfect, unbroken fellowship together. Even before time began, the Trinity experienced a perfect, constant love for one another that we can only barely understand with our limited minds.
At the cross, we see Christ live out Psalm 22. Our Savior suffered many pains as He paid the price for all our crimes against God. Yet a pain we may never fully understand is that Christ had to experience a break in the perfect fellowship He had with the Father.
Every individual thing we deserve death for was put on Jesus Christ. God’s absolute hatred of sin was poured out on Christ, and He suffered everything we should. For the first time in eternity, the Father looked at His son as though He were guilty of spitting in God’s face every day. The Father looked at Christ like He should look at us.
The reality of our sin is more than we can understand. There’s no such thing as a harmless sin. We can never say something is “no big deal.” Every sin we choose to commit comes with a great price.
For many people in the world, a single sin comes with the price of eternal punishment. It comes with the price of God punishing them for their crime, regardless of how much good they do otherwise. When someone chooses sin, they choose to make themselves an enemy of God.
When we trust Christ for our salvation, we aren’t just getting a free pass from Hell. We realize that God’s anger must still be satisfied, and that it’s a price we cannot possibly pay on our own. We are asking Christ to save us from the wrath of God and the punishment for our sin by taking our place before God. We are asking Christ to be God’s enemy instead of us.
This is why the Father turned His face away from Christ. He looked at Jesus Christ as though He was guilty of every one of our sins. He punished Christ as though He’d spent His life lying, yelling at His kids, lusting, gossipping, and everything else we do. Christ was treated as a criminal in our place.
How can we possibly understand this? How can we possibly be worthy of such a sacrifice on Christ’s part? We can’t be, and that’s what God’s grace is all about. God offers an eternity with Him at the expense of Jesus Christ. We can do nothing to earn this, nor can we do anything to keep it. It’s purely the goodness of God that we have a hope for our futures.
Christ accepted being forsaken by the Father so that we could be accepted. That is our motivation for hating sin and loving Christ. The more we understand the price He paid, the more we want to pursue Him instead of the sins that He paid for.
