Matthew 27:46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" (which means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?").
What’s written below is what I think the words in the verse above mean and I am not completely sure.
Jesus was a sacrifice, the righteous for the unrighteous.
1 Peter 3:18 “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.”
John 16:32 "...You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me."
I think it means the Son while on the cross was not truly forsaken by the Father, but God the Father let Him be afflicted in such a way for the sake of sinners.
That is the kind of "forsaken" Jesus meant-I think. Letting HIm be afflicted this way for the sake of sinners.
That God the Father allowed this to happen to Him for our sake.
I also think "why have you forsaken me" (the kind of ‘forsaken’ I describe in this post-for them? For sinners). I think the statement is in reference to how great God's love is.
That it was God the Father's will to let the Son suffer so much for us because His love for us who were make in the likeness of God's Image is so great.
Jesus could not be threatened in that He would remain secure even in going through all that pain. God the Father and the Holy Spirit would help Him through this hard time and the devil could not get victory over him, but this was the only way to save us.
I think it means 'you have forsaken me for them', 'let me be afflicted like this to save them because you love is so great' (that God does this even for sinners). So the statement is about how great God's love is for us.
I think that is what the statement means.
Some people might think Jesus was complaining, but complaining is a sin and Jesus can't sin.
He won’t and He can’t sin. He was sinless and therefore a perfect sacrifice for sinners. He would have to
be sinless in order to be an atoning sacrifice for sinners.
So, that is one thing Jesus said toward the end that may be harder to for us to understand.
I am not 100% sure I am right, but it's the best I can do with those verses.
Of course Jesus the Son loves us so much as well-not just the Father. And the Father loves the Son.
John 15:9 "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
But I think in that statement Jesus is talking to the Father about His love for us and we are meant to read what He said.
The Bible talks about God the Father's love for us and the Son's love for us and that the Father and the Son the Holy Spirit are each one person of the Trinity-One God. Hard for our minds to grasp at times, but it’s true. Of course God is going to be deep. But God gave us the ability to understand to the degree that He wanted to us understand.
What Jesus said in Matthew 27:46 doesn't mean that the Son thinks the Father should not have forsaken Him for humans-for us
But since the Son is worth so much more than us and is so much greater than us.
For God the Father to "forsake him" (let this happen to Him) for our sake truly shows how great God the Father's love for lowly humans is. It doesn't mean that we are greater than Jesus. It means that God's love for us is great even though we are lowly created humans.
I don't think the word "forsake here" means 'forsake' with the typical meaning of this word because of Hebrews 13:5 “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” How much more would the Father never forsake the Son in the way this verse means forsake.
And God the Father raised the Son from the dead
So I think it does not mean forsake as in ‘abandon’; I think and does not mean forsake as in ‘leave and never return to.’ But I think word "forsake" as it was used by Jesus while on the cross meant to allow this to happen to Him, not for the Father to leave Him or abandon Him or stop helping Him. The Son went through all this pain while staying in the Father’s will in spite of all the pressure, and God the Father raised from the dead and exalted the Son to the highest place. God will reward us too, when we endure pain in order to do the Father's will in this world. God loves us, but he will not always spare us from pain. That doesn’t mean that every kind of painful thing (emotional or physical) that we go through in life was always part of God’s necessary plan for each of us, but we bound to go through some extra pains in order to complete God’s will here and we go through pain as just a part of being alive in this world after humans fell into sin. But we are also going to a place where there is no pain as long we "hold unto" what we have. Our faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
*Not so eloquent this time, but I hope you appreciate the content.
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