So this is getting interesting. Psalm 22 says that the God has not hidden his face from the’afflicted one’ As far as I can tell (and please tell me if I am wrong) the only place it really talks about God turning away from Jesus is this “Eloi Eloi…” bit.

Another reason of why this is more likely to be a quote of Psalm 22:1 is that Jesus always refereed to God as “Abba Farther” and never as “My God” making the phrasing different to what Jesus usually would say.

What are peoples thoughts on this? I think this could become a difficult and big thing, which scares me a little and makes me skeptical of this interpretation. However, as I am sure you are, I would rather struggle with the truth than be satisfied with untruth.

But back to the original discussion, I suppose in my philosophy I equate sin (the condition, as opposed to behavioural sins) with evil and do not believe either exist. They are the absence of God/good.

Jesus’ words, if meant, are a statement that God forsook him: abandoned, deserted, even renounced him.

But that would mean God’s removal, not just in a sort of spiritual/metaphysical way, but materially. If ‘In the beginning God’ then the universe has a fundamental God foundation (panentheism). Christ is God. If God withdrew I would expect Jesus to physically disappear (a sort of anihilationism)!

Having clearly tied myself in a knot here I may need to give this more thought. For openers, is Christ rent from the Godhead? Or just from the Father? Is he, at that moment, no longer completely God/completely man, but simply a man? I’m speculating now … I’ll have to come back to you …

:0S

Firstly, I think there is a tendency to examine the cross as an isolated or separate occurrence as a conclusion to the gospel. However, Jesus’ death was prophesied way back at the beginning in Genesis 3:

“So the LORD God said to the serpent…From now on, you and the woman will be enemies, and your offspring and her offspring will be enemies. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Gen 3:14). This is prophetic of Jesus’ victory over Satan on the cross. Bear with me…

Humans were originally in perfect and right relationship with God because there was no sin. Sin was the consequence of Eve disobeying God by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. “If you eat of it’s fruit, you will surely die.” (Gen 2:17). Adam and Eve ate, but did not physically die. Therefore, God must have been referring to a spiritual death; in other words they have become separated from God.

God is a Holy God. A person who has sin in their life and comes into close contact with the glory and presence of God will die. We see this when God refuses to let the Israelites come near to the Holy Mountain (Ex 19:12), with Moses when God refuses to show him his face, when one of David’s men touches the Ark of the Covenant, and many other examples. Because of His nature, out of love, it was necessary for him to drive Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. To prevent them from also eating of the tree of life, and from being in his immediate presence, which would result in their death while being out of right relationship with him. He had their best interests at heart - in Gen 3:21 He even makes clothing for them in spite of their sin to cover their shame. This is a loving God.

God knew that somebody had to pay the price to restore human relationship with himself permanently. Yearly animal sacrifices were only a temporary covering for sin (Romans 8:3). Instead, God sent Jesus to REMOVE our sin: “Adam’s one sin brought condemnation upon everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness makes all people right in God’s sight and gives them life.” (Romans 5:19).

Now to the actual ‘Good Friday’ bit: So Jesus died that we could become righteous, without having performed righteousness. How? In the same way that Jesus became sin without having performed sin. When he took on our sin, it was for the first time in history that the Son was separated from the Father. In the same way that God had to distance himself from Adam and Eve, it was out of love that God had to turn his face away to protect his Son in order to fulfil the very scripture of Genesis 3.

No. God is not powerless against sin. Who do you think God is? It would have taken nothing for him to end Jesus’ suffering. Nothing but the cost of losing relationship and eternity with us. It would have been at the expense of you and me. “For God SO loved the world…” (John 3:16).

No. God did not ‘abandon’ Jesus because there was ‘too much sin’. It was the fact that there was any sin at all that necessitated God to be separated and distant. Even if Jesus were to die for the sin of one person, this would make him as equally separate from God, equally unable to withstand the glory of God. But yes Jesus did have to suffer, just as he did at other points in his life and as we do in ours.

However, as a result Jesus defeated sin (Romans 6:10). There is now no amount of sin that can separate us from God for those who are in Christ Jesus, “Now [present tense] there is NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the power of the life-giving spirit has freed you through Jesus Christ from the power of sin that leads to death.” (Romans 8:1)

“So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God – all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God.” Romans 5:11

I think this is a very very good post. (probably cos people like stuff they agree with) You’ve taken one of those things people seem to always mention and then you’ve actually made sense of it and you’ve taught me sometime new and very important.

The cross is such a difficult subject, so keep the conversation going…

peace

Jesus is God incarnate, in human form. Fully God and fully human. Now God is good and perfect and so does not commit sin and doesn’t have that blemish on his spirit. Now when Jesus took on our sin at the cross, God the Father had to completly seperate himself from God the Son because God could not have sin attached to him in that way.

I agree that God would never leave us and I don’t think he left Jesus on the cross in that sense but in a worse way God had to tear himself apart in order for his victory over sin and death to be complete.

Some have said that seeing that much sin hurts God and he has to turn his face. He can’t look at it. But if you love someone, you’d want to help and support them. This is idea of God turning his back on Jesus just seems out of character.

As for God’s relationship to sin, I will have to give you an intellectual shrug of the shoulders. Did God create sin? Don’t know. I don’t think God is ‘allergic’ to sin. If God is all powerful then sin would/does he have a weakness? Was that the extent of the Superman metaphor? Because I don’t like that either…

Seems to me that if, in the beginning, there was only God, then in creation there must be a binary of God - not God. It’s the latter we call sin, so at a metaphysical level you can’t have something (God) where there’s nothing (no God/sin). If that’s true, Christ became nothing for us (2 Cor 5:21?) forcing God to depart. What d’ya think?