Why did Jesus say, “Father, why have you abandoned me?” on the cross if Jesus is the father too?
There are two questions that arise here: firstly, why did Jesus say, “Why have you abandoned me?”
When Jesus said these words he didn’t mean that he was no longer part of the Triune Godhead or that God had left him on his own. Instead, he was referring to the intense agony he was feeling as he carried the sin of the world on his back in sacrifice. He was experiencing what can only be defined as the judgment of God on sin. Of course, it wasn’t his sin but ours that brought him to this place. For further study I’d urge you to read a blog entry written by Joel Beeke entitled My God My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me? at http://www.ligonier.org/blog/christ-forsaken/
The second question we want to address is, “how can God abandon himself?”
In answering this question we must go back to the divine nature of God. God is one divine being in three eternally existing persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God does not take on different forms at different times. He is always Father, Son and Spirit. Jesus, the second member of the Trinity, calls out to the Father, the first member of the trinity. While they are one God, they are three distinct beings who interact with one another.
Should we consider the God of the Jews to be the same God we worship as Christians?
We mentioned in the sermon on Sunday that many people believe that all people worship the same God just in different ways. That prompted the statement that Christians and Jews do not worship the same God. Let’s make some clarification: First of all we are not saying that God isn’t the God of the Jews. He is. They are his chosen people. Furthermore, we are not saying that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are different. They clearly are the same. What we are saying is: “If Jews deny that Jesus is God, the second member of the trinity, then they are no longer worshiping the God described in the Bible.
