Liberating you from bad ideas about God
I saw this “Jesus facepalm” over at Greg Boyd’s blog and thought it was funny…. enjoy!
I also agree with what Greg said on his blog… Jesus doesn’t do this, but sometimes it would be understandable. The way we mess up over and over, and walk straight into sin fully knowing what we are doing…
So thank Jesus for His unconditional and infinite forgiveness today!
A reader recently sent a a series of questions about the experience of Jesus on the cross. I have answered most of the questions in previous posts (since the list below). In this post I will address the question about what Jesus meant when He said, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
Here is the question the reader originally submitted:
I am a believer, but I am troubled by an atheist’s questions. I was talking to an atheist the other day, and he said that God doesn’t know what it’s like to lose a son because he knew all along that Jesus would rise in three days, so he only lost him for the weekend! He also questioned that if God is Jesus, why did he beg to be saved from the cross when he was in the garden? Also, shouldn’t Jesus already have known he would rise again in three days? Why did he ask God, “Why have you forsaken me?” Wouldn’t he know that he’s only going to be dead three days?
Since this is such a complex set of questions, I am answering them in four posts:
The first three posts covered most of the issues, but there are two main questions left.
First, why did Jesus beg to be saved from the cross when He was in the garden? Second, why did He ask God, “Why have You forsaken Me?”?
That first unanswered question I have already attempted to answer in a previous post where I talked about the phrase, “Let this cup pass from me.” Though my interpretation of that statement by Jesus in the garden is somewhat controversial, it seems to make the most sense out of the context, and Jesus’ attitude leading up to the cross. I do not think Jesus was praying for a way out of the pain and suffering; His love for humanity was too great for that. No, I think Jesus was praying for strength to face the pain and suffering He knew He was about to bear.
So I am not going to write anything more about that here.
Let us focus instead on the statement of Jesus from the cross where He cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
This question from Jesus on the cross is found in Matthew 27:46-47 (and in Mark 15:34), and is a quotation from Psalm 22:1. It is asked by Jesus as He suffers on the cross, and faces the sin of the world being poured out upon Him.
The main point of the question above is that since both Jesus and God the Father knew that God would raise Jesus from the dead (Matt 12:40), in what sense what Jesus forsaken by God?
In other words, if being forsaken means to be abandoned, rejected, despised, how could Jesus say, “Why have you forsaken me?” when He knew that He would be raised from the dead, and therefore, not ultimately forsaken, that is, not really abandoned, rejected, or despised?
The answer, I think, lies in understanding to some degree the eternal relationship that has existed between God the Father and God the Son. Understanding this relationship, and the cry of Jesus from the cross, leads to a shocking idea (for me, anyway) about the experience of Jesus on the cross.
Since God the Father and God the Son have existed in an eternal relationship, they had never been separated by anything for any length of time in any way, shape, or form. Nothing had ever come between them the way of will, desires, intentions, thoughts, or purposes.
We humans have a difficult time grasping this, since we don’t know what it is like to live in such a relationship at all, let alone for all eternity. All of relationships, even those that are the most loving, have areas of discord and misunderstanding.
But God the Father and God the Son (along with God the Holy Spirit) always lived in a perfect relationship and perfect unity.
Yet when Jesus went to the cross, He took the sins of all people, throughout all time, upon Himself. He bore our sins in His own body (1 Pet 2:24). He who knew no sin, became sin for us (2 Cor 5:21). He became a curse for us (Gal 3:13).
I believe that from the perspective of Jesus on the cross, it seemed that God had “abandoned” Him to sin.
Though sin cannot damage or pollute God in any way, sin does cause a separation between Himself and the sinner. It appears that when Jesus took the sin of all people upon Himself, a separation came between Him and God that had never before existed.
So when Jesus cried out, “Why have you forsaken me?” it was because He was experiencing a brokenness in His relationship with God the Father that they had never before experienced. Yes, He knew that God had not finally and ultimately forsaken Him, and He knew that He would be raised again in three days, but the cry of Jesus from the cross is not about those things, but about the separation from God He experienced for the very time in all eternity.
This experience of separation from God elicited the cry of Jesus, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” He had never experienced this separation before, and though He knew that He would be reunited with God in a short while, the pain and agony of the separation was caused this cry of despair from Jesus.
But had God truly forsaken Jesus? I don’t think so. I don’t think God did forsake Jesus any more than God forsakes us. Jesus was not a God-forsaken God.
I might be going out too far on a theological limb here, but there is a part of me that thinks it is only here on the cross where Jesus finally experienced the pain and turmoil of what it is like to be a sinful human being separated from God. Though Jesus came as a human being to rescue us from our sinful plight and in so doing, experienced almost everything He could as a human, He never really experienced the fearful and agonizing predicament of being separated from God by sin.
It was only when He took our sin upon Himself on the cross, it was only when the crushing despair of being separated from God came upon Him, that He finally felt what we humans have lived with since we were born. The pain and anguish we feel every day, the suffering of being separated from God that has so numbed our souls, the despair and fear that drives us to live as we do, was felt for the very first time by Jesus on the cross when sin came upon Him.
His cry, “My God, my God, Why have You forsaken Me?” is not the cry of the God-forsaken God, but is the heart cry of every single human being on earth. It is the cry we have been voicing since the beginning when we fell into sin.
And finally, God came to earth in Jesus Christ to experience this separation for Himself. And when He did, the suffering is so great, He cries out, “My God, my God, Why have you forsaken me?”
Do you see? This is not just the cry of Jesus on the cross. This is the cry of every single person on earth.
It is our pain, our fear, our hurt, our despair, finally being given a voice. It is the cry of God fully entering into our broken condition and fully experiencing the sense of separation from God that sin causes, and crying out in anguish and despair over this sense of loss, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”
When we feel that God is ignoring us, or has abandoned us, Jesus knows what we feel, and He cries out to God on our behalf, “Why have You forsaken Me?”
When we experience fear in the night about our future, Jesus knows what we feel, and He cries out to God on our behalf, “Why have You forsaken Me?”
When bad things happen in this world, and we wonder what God is doing about them (if anything), Jesus knows what we feel, and He cries out to God on our behalf, “Why have You forsaken Me?”
When we feel despised and rejected, abused and slandered, misunderstood and forgotten, and we wonder why God seems to be doing nothing to protect and defend us, Jesus knows what we feel, and He cries out to God on our behalf, “Why have You forsaken Me?”
The separation from God that Jesus experienced on the cross is the separation from God that humans experience every day. Certainly, since He is God and since He bore every sin of every person, He experienced this separation to an infinite degree. But still, the cry of Jesus from the cross, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” is not just the cry of Jesus, but is our cry.
It is the cry of every single human being on earth. Jesus was giving voice to our pain and anguish.
Do you feel abandoned by God? Jesus knows what that feels like. Do you feel forsaken, neglected, forgotten, and overlooked? Jesus knows what that feels like. Do you feel like God has turned His back? Jesus knows what that feels like.
But here is the thing…
The original question was “How can Jesus say ‘Why have you forsaken me?’ when God did not actually forsake Him?”
Yes. And just as Jesus felt what we all feel to be forsaken, so also, none of us have been forsaken, just as Jesus Himself was not.
Though you may feel abandoned by God, you are no more abandoned than was Jesus. Though you may feel forsaken, forgotten, neglected, and overlooked, these things are no more true of you than they were of Jesus. Though you may feel unloved, this is no more true of you than it was for Jesus.
Though Jesus cried out, “Why have you forsaken me?” He was NOT forsaken. And neither are we.
This is a feeling that Jesus experienced, which is a feeling we ALL experience.
And this feeling does not come because we are forsaken, but because of sin. Sin has separated us from God; it has not separated God from us. This is why God had to reconcile the world to Himself (1 Cor 5:19). He didn’t need to reconcile Himself to the world, for He never left or abandoned us.
Though we may feel forsaken, we are not forsaken any more than Jesus was forsaken.
God did not forsake Jesus, and God does not forsake us. The presence of sin in our lives makes us feel like we are forsaken, like God has abandoned us, forgotten us, or left us alone to suffer and die, when in fact, God is right there all the time, holding us, loving us, and crying with us over our pain.
It is sin that makes us feel separated from God, and this is the feeling Jesus expressed on the cross, and is one reason Jesus went to the cross – to take our sin and bear it away into death so that we can see that God has not left us, has not abandoned us, and has not forsaken us, but has fully entered into our pain, our suffering, and even into our sin, so that He might show us how much He loves and cares for us. This truth is explained in more detail in my new book, The Atonement of God.
I am not sure if this answers the reader’s question, but it does help explain what Jesus meant when He said, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” It also helps us understand that on the cross, Jesus understood the feeling of being a sinful human being, and it is for this reason that we can trust His promise that He will never leave us nor forsake us (Heb 13:5).
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What are your three greatest sins? Do you know?
If you had to tell someone right now about your three greatest weaknesses, your three greatest sins, what would you say?
This is not a hypothetical question. I once got asked this very question in an interview. During the interview, they asked me what I thought were my 3 greatest strengths. I told them that I thought I was analytical, creative, and a disciplined student of Scripture. (The interview was for a ministry position).
We talked about some of these strengths of mine for a few minutes, then they asked what I thought were my three greatest sins.
Gulp!
I have done some doozies in my life, but I barely knew the two people who were interviewing me, and there was no way I was going to share some of the worst things I have ever done!
So I asked for some clarification. I said, “Do you really want to know the three greatest sins I have ever committed?”
They clarified that no, they didn’t really want the dirty little secrets or the deepest, darkest betrayals. Instead, when they wanted to know my three greatest sins, what they really wanted was three areas of my life in which I constantly struggled with sin.
Frankly, that was easy. I think that if someone is in a growing relationship with Jesus, they are pretty in tune to the areas in which they constantly struggle. This interview of mine was years and years ago, but I am pretty sure the greatest sins I struggled with then are the same sins I struggle with today. I deal with pride, judgmentalism, and selfishness. I think I am better than I am. I am critical of other people not being better than they are. And I primarily think of myself and my needs.
There are numerous other areas of sin as well, but these are some that I constantly struggle with.
Oh… I didn’t get the job… maybe I was too honest about my sins.
A few years ago, however, I was interviewing a man for a position at the place where I did get a job. He and I were having a decent conversation, and I decided to ask him the questions which I had been asked. I asked him about his greatest strengths. He had many that he could list. Then I asked him about his three greatest sins or his three greatest areas of weakness. Here is what he said:
I just about broke out laughing! These weren’t sins! These were just three more good things.
But I now knew at least two of his greatest sins: pride and lying. Ha! Of course, maybe I am just saying that because of my own pride and judgmentalism.
Anyway…. if you have the courage (or you can leave an anonymous comment), write about some of your greatest strengths and weaknesses in the comments below. But remember, I am not a priest, so I cannot offer forgiveness! Only God does that.
Have you ever heard someone say that God cannot look upon sin? I have, and a reader recently sent in this question:
It has been told to me that God cannot look upon evil, so why does the beginning of the book of Job portray God and satan conversing?
I have written about this before as part of the book I am writing on the goodness of God and the problem of violent portrayals of God in the Old Testament. Regarding this question of whether or not God can look upon sin or be near evil, I wrote this:
Sometimes we get this crooked view of God where He cannot look upon sin or be near sin because sin would somehow taint His holiness. Such a view gives sin way too much power and gives God way too little.
God is not like a pristine white couch upon which no one can sit for fear of it getting soiled. No, sin cannot be in the presence of God because whenever God draws near to sin, the raging inferno of His love and holiness washes all sin away. God can no more be tainted by sin than the ocean could be dyed red with a single drop of food coloring.
This is why God takes all sin upon Himself in Jesus and in the Old Testament.
Sin crushes, enslaves, and destroys humanity, but it vanishes away into nothingness at the smallest touch of God’s blazing holiness.
This idea that God cannot look upon sin or see evil probably comes from Habakkuk 1:13. In one translation, for example, it says this:
Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong (NIV).
Ironically, the text then goes on to say that God does in fact tolerate wickedness and evil. Habakkuk is a book where the prophet asks numerous questions to God such as this one. The prophet Habakkuk looks around him at what is going on in the world and has trouble reconciling it with what He knows about God, and so He asks a whole series of challenging questions about God’s behavior and actions. Habakkuk 1:13 is one of those questions… the first one actually.
Habakkuk does not believe that God cannot actually see evil. No, Habakkuk knows that God sees everything that goes on in the world. From the very beginning, God saw that Adam and had sinned, and He saw when Cain killed His brother Abel, and He saw when the people on the earth became so wicked that a flood was going to destroy them all. We could go on and on throughout the Bible to see that God both knows the evil that is going on in the world, and He sees it. God sees every bit of evil in this world.
So to say that God cannot look upon sin is not accurate biblically, and is not what Habakkuk 1:13 teaches. Instead, it seems that what Habakkuk is saying is that God, by not seeming to do anything about evil, appears to be looking upon evil with approval. But we know that God does not look upon evil in approval; He disapproves it. So how then is it that the treacherous seem to be in God’s favor, and the wicked seem to win at everything? This is what Habakkuk is asking.
And if we look around in the world, we often have the same question. Why do the wicked prosper? Why do the treacherous thrive? (Jeremiah 12:1). Job asked a similar question as well in Job 21:7.
Which brings us back to the specific question that was sent in. Obviously, if God cannot look upon sin or evil then God should not have been able to look upon satan, or even allow satan to enter His presence. But according to Job 1, God does both.
This dilemma goes away when we realize that it is not true that God cannot look upon sin and evil.
In fact, far from averting His gaze or blinding His eyes to all the sin and evil that goes on in the world, God dives right into the thick of it. He finds the vilest places, the most terrible times, and the evilest situations, and jumps in there.
Why?
Because He loves us too much to leave us in the darkness of sin, and because the light shines brightest in the darkest of areas.
Look at it this way: To say that God cannot look upon sin or be in the presence of evil is to deny that Jesus was fully God. Did Jesus come to this earth? Of course! Did He ignore sin and keep Himself away from all who were sinners! Far from it! Rather, He sought out the sinners. He hung around the prostitutes and tax collectors. He laid hands on the lepers and showed love to adulterers.
And on the cross, Jesus took our sin upon Himself. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says He became sin for us! He took the curse upon Himself (Galatians 3:13).
And if Jesus reveals God to us, then we can assume that God also likes to hang out with sinners and show love to the wicked. To say that God cannot look upon sin is to say that sin can defeat and defile God; that sin is more powerful than the righteous holiness of God! May it never be! God is not so weak and powerless!
So when satan comes into the presence of God in Job 1, God is not threatened by satan. God sees satan, talks with satan, and even agrees to let satan have his way with Job (which I actually have some major problems with, but that is a topic for a different post).
So don’t say God cannot look upon sin.
Instead, be grateful and thankful that God can look upon sin, and in fact, looks upon it every second of every day, and not just looks upon it, but decides to do something about it.
It is only because God can look upon sin that He sent His son Jesus Christ to do something about sin, and it is only because God can be near sin that He is able to be with each one of us in the midst of our sin and filth.
God loves us so much, He is willing to walk with us and be near us through the worst of our sins.
In the flood of Genesis 6-8, did God really send water to kill every living thing on earth? We have been considering the issue of the violence of the flood for several posts now, and will continue to do so for several more. This post briefly introduces the context of the flood in Genesis 6-8.
Though this is the most common view of these chapters, there are numerous clues left by the text itself, by the surrounding context, and by other passages in Scripture which indicate that something else is going on in the flood account. The truths of Genesis 6-8 (and especially 6:7, 13, 17; 7:23) can be understood differently when we grasp the Scriptural and cultural contexts in which these texts were written, what other Old Testament authors had to say about the flood, and also what the Apostle Peter writes about it in his second letter. This section will look at the surrounding context of Genesis 6-8, and subsequent sections will consider other biblical passages that deal with the flood.
Our understanding of Genesis 6-8 depends in large part on how we understand Genesis 1–11 as a whole, and especially Genesis 1:1-2, 6-10, and 6:1-12. There are numerous questions and issues surrounding the opening chapter of Genesis that will shed light and guide our understanding of Genesis 6-8.
We first need to ask questions about the water in Genesis 1:2. Where did these waters come from? Were they part of what was created in Genesis 1:1, or is 1:1 more of a summary/title for chapter 1? If the latter (as many Bible scholars believe), then the text doesn’t really tell us where the waters came from, only that they existed. And either way, how should the waters be understood? Are they referring to literal liquid water or is the water a literary symbol for something else?
