The Bible teaches that there is only one God (Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 43:10,44:6-8,45:6; James 2:19). Yet, God is three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who are one in a divine and mysterious unity.
One might question: How could God, in His unified Trinity, turn His back and abandon Himself? In the context of the Trinity, the phrase 'turned His back' in reference to God can only be metaphorical. After all, God is omnipresent and spiritual. The only person of the Trinity with a literal 'back' is Jesus. This understanding reaffirms the unity and constancy of the Trinity, providing a sense of comfort and security in our faith.
The primary proof text used for this theory is;
"And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46; see Psalm 22:1)
The word "forsaken" (Gk: 'egkataleipódoes') does not mean to abandon in a context where God removes His presence (see Psalm 9:9-10,37:28-29,71:10-11). The words used relate to the writer's feeling that God seems to be letting one of His people fall into the hands of His enemies for His purposes until He deems it time to rescue them.
The fact is that this theory is not supported in the Bible. It's quite the opposite. God did not turn His back on Jesus, nor will He turn His back on us. Jesus could not have been separated from the divine Godhead because only God could pay the perfect price. If that were possible, it would have negated the divinity of Jesus. As Scripture says, "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!" (Psalm 139:7-8 ESV)
On the Cross, Jesus quoted the first verse of the Messianic Psalm 22. In doing so, He not only became the once and for all sin-bearer and final sacrifice but also fulfilled a prophecy that had been foretold by King David. This emphasis on the prophetic nature of Jesus' words can inspire a sense of enlightenment and inspiration in the audience, strengthening their faith in the divine plan.
The misconception that God abandoned Jesus on the Cross is based on a Western cultural understanding and not on what the people of Jesus' day would have understood in the context of what He said within their culture.
When Jesus quoted Psalm 22, He used a common teaching method known as 'Remez,' that every Jew and Rabbi would understand. The word 'Remez' comes from a family of Semitic languages that includes Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, and other ancient languages such as Phoenician and Akkadian and means 'hint' or a recalling to the mind something that everyone would know and understand without needing further explanation. It is a kind of mental shorthand used to memorize Scripture.
The Gospels use 'Remez' words and phrases over 300 times. For example, the words "daily bread" in the Lord's Prayer are a 'Remez' back to the daily Manna in the wilderness (Matthew 6:11).
When a Rabbi would say the first line of a well-known Scripture verse, every Jew would immediately understand the context to declare God Almighty's perfect power, love, and total control, over what was happening. The Jews understood that Jesus was saying His crucifixion fulfilled that Messianic Prophecy. When Jesus spoke His last words on the Cross, "It is Finished," He also quoted the last words of Psalm 22, "He has done it!" (John 19:30; Psalm 22:31 ESV). Jesus used two 'Remez' references to the first and last phrases of Psalm 22, which suggests He intended a 'Remez' understanding of His last words by referencing the Psalm twice.
The simple truth is that God has NEVER "hidden his face from him…" turned His back on Jesus, nor was He ever forsaken (Psalm 22:24). Jesus made it clear that the Father and the Holy Spirit were in perfect and total control and right there with Him, never forsaking Him, or turning their back on Him, loving and nurturing Him till His last human breath.
First Century Jews understood that Psalms 22, 23, and 24 were "the shepherd Psalms" of David and were viewed as a united whole. In His last words, Jesus invoked the totality of those Psalms as His final prayer statement and identified Himself as the Messiah in how He would die (Psalm 22), stated His hope and trust in the ever-present Father (Psalm 23), and envisioned His triumphant return to Heaven (Psalm 24) in this progression of the Good Shepherd (Psalm 22), the Great Shepherd (Psalm 23) and the Chief Shepherd (Psalm 24).
The proof that the Father did not turn his back on Jesus is contained in Psalm 22:24, which says, "Neither has He turned His face from Him." Jesus affirmed His confidence that "…nor has He hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard." Jesus reassured the disciples, "an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me" (John 19:13 ESV). The Psalm does not end death but the resurrection of Jesus, who would rise from the dead and declare to them what the Lord has done in the great congregation.
Looking upon sin and evil does not contradict God's Holy nature. He went face to face with satan, who is evil incarnate (See Job). What the Holy God cannot do is look favorably upon sin. God never turned His back on Adam and Eve after they sinned; they turned their back on Him. God responded by looking for them (Genesis 3:9). That is the beginning of the story of redemption, which would result in God, the Son, becoming human flesh and coming down from Heaven to seek and save the lost and then dying in their place as the once and for all final sacrifice for sin.
The Father did not forsake Jesus but delivered Him from the grave. Not only did He deliver Him, but all who would receive Jesus as Lord and Savior and become Born-Again. If God, the Father, and the Holy Spirit turned away from Jesus on the Cross, then sin is more powerful than the unity of the Triune God. The eternal fact is that the Triune God is too strong to be split by anything! The Trinity shared in the sufferings of the Cross because they are united in action and participate in all divine acts such as creation, redemption, Pentecost, and the consummation of time. The Holy Spirit never operates independently from the Father and the Son. When Jesus died on the Cross, the Holy Spirit and the Father participated in the suffering with Him. Jesus was never alone!
God does not avoid sinners. The first Adam sinned, and yet God did not forsake him. Cain sinned, and God did not forsake him. The truth is that God has never forsaken His people because of their sins, so why would He do so with Jesus? There is no way (and no verse saying) that God abandoned the last Adam (Jesus) after walking to the Cross perfectly (1 Corinthians 15:45). God did not forsake Jesus. He proved that three days and nights later when He raised Him from the dead.
DRINKING THE CUP OF GOD’S WRATH?
The Bible does not say that "the cup" Jesus would drink from was the wrath God would pour out on the Cross or that it would be appeased. God's wrath against sin was not satisfied on the Cross. The Father did not punish Jesus on the Cross for the sins of humanity. Jesus became the sin-bearer and delivered those who would repent of their sin and receive Him as Lord and Savior from the wrath still to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10). The Father received this sacrifice and accepted it (Isaiah 53:10-12). Jesus described His death as a ransom and not the way God would take out His wrath. His death was the payment to redeem us from the enemy (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45).
The Cross is not an experience for Jesus alone (John 14:8-11). The Father and the Holy Spirit were with Him and never rejected Him. God did not pour out His wrath or turn His back on Himself (John 8:29; 16:32). God, the Father, did not break His relationship with God, the Son, on the Cross, to punish Jesus. It is fallen human beings who rejected Him (Isaiah 53:3-5).
"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the Spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience - among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." (Ephesians 2:1-7 ESV)
Jesus said the Father would be with Him in His suffering (John 16:32). Contrary to much humanistic teaching on the subject, God's wrath is not some divine child abuse or an angry, vindictive temper tantrum of a deity who didn't get their way so that fire and brimstone must be poured out as punishment on a wicked world. Instead, it is God's reaction and resistance to sin.
The Cross was not about human sacrifice to God but His sacrifice to humanity. It is the focal point of everything and the lens through which all else can be seen because it is the wisdom and power of the Triune God, who is love (John 3:16; 1 John 14:8). It is the centerpiece of His plan for all creation because it glorifies Jesus and reveals what true endless love is (John 12:23).
The Cross was the highest and ultimate revelation of love that God took the shame and corrupting power of death into Himself and did away with it. When people look at Jesus on the Cross, they see God, the Father, in Jesus revealing His merciful love and pouring out forgiveness on the entire world for their salvation (Zechariah 12:10; 1 John 3:16; 2 Corinthians 5:18; Colossians 2:9; Hebrews 1:3). There is no hope for anyone apart from the Cross. The ultimate magnitude of God's love is manifested in the Cross, where Jesus experienced the effects of sin on behalf of everyone who has, is now, or will ever live in this world.
Together, the Triune God endured the Cross, despising its shame, so that Jesus could once again sit down at the right hand of the Father in Heaven, and humanity could be offered eternal life by repenting of their sins and receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior. It is fallen human beings who rejected Him (Isaiah 53:3-5).
Jesus said, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him" because it is by grace alone, they are saved through the faith of Jesus alone, and not by any work they could do because it is a gift of God" (John 6:44; Galatians 2:17; Ephesians 2:8 ESV).
WITHOUT BLOOD, THERE IS NO FORGIVENESS OF SINS
“For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. … And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” (Hebrews 9:13-14, 17-22 ESV)
In the Jewish world, sacrifices were not substitutes but offerings of something valuable to restore a person’s relationship with God. They were offered only for sins for which the punishment was not death. The shedding of blood is not about punishing the animal but about providing blood, which has the power to “purify.”
The Triune God did not hate the world or have wrath toward humanity that needed to be satisfied because they owed God a debt of honor that only Jesus could fulfill. God, the Father, did not punish God, the Son, Jesus, but offered Him in order to gain the world and then redeemed Him from death on the Cross. As Jesus died, it was the love of God that was magnified and not His wrath!
Jesus’ death was absolutely critical for salvation, but it was not because the Triune God needed to punish someone. It was because Jesus’ blood was the only offering that could be made to restore our relationship with God.
The death of Jesus was a ransom. The Bible does not say that the righteous God had wrath toward sinful humanity that only Jesus could satisfy because He so hated the world that he killed his only Son. The Bible clearly says that “God so loved the world that he GAVE his one and only Son.” (John 3:16; Romans 5:8; 8:31-32; Ephesians 2:1-7; 1 John 4:10 – emphasis mine)
Jesus died to deliver “us from the wrath to come” because it will be satisfied only when “sudden destruction will come upon [the disobedient] as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape” (1 Thessalonians 1:10; 5:3)
Those who become Born-Again are delivered from the wrath to come by being instantly transformed into “children of light, children of day” because they are objects of God’s mercy and receive “eternal life,” while those who reject Jesus will receive “wrath and fury” (Romans 2:7-8; 9:22-23). God “has not destined” them “for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with him” (1 Thessalonians 5:5, 9-10 – see also Matthew 3:7; Luke 3:7).
God, the Father, did not transfer His wrath to Jesus, God the Son, on the Cross as a place of punishment. The crucifixion was a Roman “rulers of this age” punishment and not a divine punishment (1 Corinthians 2:6-10). Jesus willingly chose to be handed over to die as the final sacrifice for sin and not to be punished because He is love.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 ESV)
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” (Romans 3:23-25 ESV)
“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32 ESV)
“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10 ESV)
The role of the Father and Holy Spirit was to give up the Son and not to punish Him. Jesus described His death as a propitiation, or removal of any barriers, to our relationship with the Triune God as a ransom payment to redeem us from the enemy and not as an opportunity to pour out His wrath (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45; Romans 3:25; 1 John 2:2; 4:10). God’s wrath is not found in any of the verses that speak about the Cross. Instead, we repeatedly see God’s love for us.
The wages of sin is death because human mortality is a product of sin (Romans 5:12-19; 6:23). God did not punish Jesus for our sins on the Cross. When Jesus willingly went to the Cross, He committed an “act of righteousness” or “obedience” that was more powerful than Adam’s act of disobedience, and “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:1-4 ESV).
When Jesus died, the Born-Again Christian died to sin and now experiences the gift of life because the “old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing” and “set free from sin” (Romans 6:6-7;23 ESV). Jesus put sin to death in those who become Born-Again by repenting of their sins and receiving Jesus as their Lord and Savior (John 3:3,7,16-18).
CONCLUSION
The misguided teaching that 'God" somehow turned His back on Himself impugns His character and nature, which is clearly revealed in Scripture. In the verses below, please note that I have replaced the words "charity/love" with the name of Jesus, God the Son.
Jesus suffers long
Jesus is kind
Jesus envies not
Jesus does not boast of Himself
Jesus is not puffed up
Jesus does not behave Himself unseemly
Jesus seeks not His own
Jesus is not easily provoked
Jesus thinks no evil
Jesus rejoices not in iniquity
Jesus rejoices in the truth
Jesus bears all things
Jesus believes all things
Jesus hopes all things
Jesus endures all things
Jesus never fails (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a)
When we see God for who He actually is - LOVE incarnate - we can truly understand and "rely on the love He has for us" because "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him" (1 John 4:16 NIV).
Jesus redeemed humanity from the curse of the law. He voluntarily and systematically took the entire curse of EVERY sin, sickness, disease, perversion, and pain upon His body. He paid the FULL and FINAL penalty for every person to be born on this planet (See Isaiah 53). Jesus was not made perfect by His suffering on the Cross because He was already the perfect sacrifice before He went to the Cross.
The lesson learned is that the Triune God will never forsake nor abandon you, no matter what. God is with you because He loves you and is ready at a moment's notice to enter into every life circumstance to work it out for your best (Romans 8:28). God never turned His back on Jesus, and He will never turn His back on you!
