Matt 27:46 My God, My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me? Means The Obvious – Jesus Was Forsaken

Asking “why hast thou forsaken me?” is the equivalent of asserting – “You have forsaken me. Why?” Was Jesus’ assertion wrong? If yes, what else was He wrong about? Wasn’t Jesus God (John 20:28ff)? How can God be wrong?

If Jack asks a friend John “why did you forsake me?” – doesn’t that mean one of three things?:

Jack is lying

Jack is mistaken

Jack was forsaken

Which was it for Jesus?

Many connect this with Jesus’ Substitutionary Death, but it doesn’t have to be. Some believe in Substitution but don’t believe Jesus was forsaken, and I assume vice-versa

But what does that mean – Jesus was forsaken? First, I don’t have to know the answer to that question to know Jesus was forsaken. I don’t know how God is going to raise up a body burned to a crisp, but I still believe it. And I don’t care that much if we disagree on how Jesus was forsaken, but I do care when someone denies He was forsaken, because the Bible says straight up He was.

But physically, Jesus was forsaken in that the Father didn’t deliver Jesus from His gruesome death (with good reason – our salvation) – Matt 27:43 (just three verses previous) – “He trusted in God; let him deliver him now”:

Isa 53:10 it pleased the Lord to bruise him – allowed him to be smitten (v.4), didn’t rescue Him

Acts 2:23 Jesus was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God – His plan

Rom 8:32 God spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us – allowed with a purpose

Heb 5:7 Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that (because, ptd) he feared – this sounds like the garden of Gethsemane to me

So in this sense, “forsaken” in Matt 27:46 means the same as in Psalms 22:1 – not delivered presently to safety from his enemies. Jesus deserved to be physically rescued from the cross, but wasn’t = forsaken.

objection?: Jesus would never forsake a righteous man. This argument ignores a super important point we all agree on – what happened at the cross to Jesus (torture, forsaken, crucifixion) was not because of anything He did, but because of what we did.

bottom line: Jesus was actually forsaken is the plain meaning of Matt 27:46

our Response: actually Jesus could have rescued himself – John 10:18, Matt 27:42 (“He Could Have Called Ten Thousand Angels”), so in a sense Jesus forsook (denied) himself for us. And isn’t that what Luke 14:33 and Matt 16:24-26 are calling on us to do in return – deny/forsake ourself for Jesus?

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