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

When it comes to the words of Jesus, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" we have been lead to believe that the Father turned His back on His own Son when Jesus was on the cross. This doctrine is supported by the phrase, "The Bible is clear that God cannot look upon sin!" The notion that God turned away from Jesus is purported by religion because of the question Jesus asked because they do not understand what really happened on the cross.

Did Jesus say that God forsook Him while He was on the cross? No. That is what He asked. There's a big difference between making an declaration and asking a question.

The question Jesus asked is found in Psalm 22, where the psalmist asks, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" In response to the first verse where the psalmist cries out the prophetic words, "Why have you forsaken me?" the answer is given in verse 24.  “For He (God the Father) has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; He has not hidden his face from Him but has listened to His cry for help.”

God the Father forsaking His own Son? Not hardly! God the Father was "in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself!" (2 Corinthians 5:19) Jesus didn't feel it at the time. It seemed like the Father had forsaken Him, but He hadn't! Nor will He ever forsake you. Because we feel or do not feel something does not mean what we feel or do not feel is real!

People, God can and does look upon sin, if He couldn’t He would not be omnipresent and He would forsake humanity totally. Some people act as if God is afraid of sin, but nothing could be further from the truth. In Christ Jesus, sin has been destroyed...finished...end of story. Through the finished work of the cross, sin has been defeated! God hates sin because of what it does to humanity, not because of what it does to Him for it can do nothing to Him.

So, on the cross Jesus took the sin of the humanity upon Himself. As a man who became sin for us (so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him), He felt forsaken, but He was not.  Jesus the the suffering man felt abandoned asked the question: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The answer from His Father was: "I haven't! I've not despised, disdained nor forsaken you. I'm here with you, in this moment, carrying you through this death to the glorious resurrection on the other side."

The truth also is that...God NEVER....NEVER forsakes you no matter how you feel or what you are going through...He is right there going through it with you!

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