When Jesus said “My God my God, why have you abandoned / forsaken me.” According to the definition of of those 2 words, was there a spiritual separation between God the Father and God the Son, as Jesus suffered the due punishment of our sins, which is separation from God.
Jesus was quoting from Psalm 22:2. Jesus is the answer to David’s Prayer.
I do not believe that Jesus actually thought that God had forsaken nor abandoned Him.
Some Protestants believe that God looked upon Jesus with wrath and disgust, because Jesus was covered in our sin, but as Dr. Scott Hahn points out, the opposite is true. God looked upon His obedient Son with total love. Yes, our sins are what nailed our Savior to the cross (forgive us Father, for we know not what we do), but it was God’s love that Christ reveals to us in the Cross.
Great question! Maybe someone else has another perspective that I have not touched on. There is so much depth revealed in Sacred Scripture and I love it!
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I think Jesus was comforting us and showing us that our feelings of abandonment are understood by God.
Jesus did not feel forsaken. As said, it is the first line of Psalm 22, a VICTORY PSALM. In times of stress of excitement, it was common/ to recite the Psalms in the ancient world. Even in agony, facing death, Jesus was looking at the triumph beyond the nails.
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If Jesus was true God and True man couldn’t he have had human feelings of abandonment even just temporarily? Did Jesus want to fully experience the range of human emotions ?
He certainly could have. I’m actually doing a Bible Study on the YouVersion App titled, “The 7 Last Words of Christ” with Jim Caviezel. I’m sure this one will be one of them.
Will you be announcing when the bible study starts? Would love to hear it!
The thought that even Christ felt abandoned BUT was then comforted by the Father is in turn comforting to me. Thank you!
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I am not conducting a Bible study, I was just asking the question.
I don’t have my Catechism with me right now, but in the back there is a concordance where you can look up Scripture verses and it tells you everywhere in the Catechism that references that verse. It is really quite handy.
Here is the link to the Study/Devotional that I was referring to: The 7 Last Words of Christ With Jim Caviezel
Anyone can join in if they would like. The app tries to get you to do it daily, but I am doing 1 each week, but it is fine if you get ahead of me : )
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Good morning. This past Lent I shared each day on my podcast Lenten Reflections. I read for 7 of the 40 days of Lent the reflections from Venerable Fulton Sheen on the Seven Last Words of Christ. His reflection on The 4th Word (My God, My God) may be the best of all. You can which you can find his writings here The Seven Last Words, by Venerable Fulton John Sheen
Peace to you.
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Its was not a seperation but a plan. Gods plan .the holy spirits plan for Jesus to be the victim of the fact of not following the laws in his time… The courts he went thru showed that they’re were not Judging him while the last one heard the taunting of the people whom were shouting curcify him over and over. The plan was to show the law was there for a reason . .the very laws they the peolle broke by following him and seeing the wonders he performed. THE LAWS that the father God had laid down.
Which world wide now days by the laws that God wrote in the ten comandments Jesushad broken.
The people caused his death via thier own sins and the Laws were already written. a
AMERICA THE LAND OF THE BRAVE HAS GOT THE NEW WORLD BY THIER TRUE COLORS AND FAITHS.
Jesus completely detached from everyone going to and on the cross he had to make the sacrifice completely alone he even gave his mother to the apostle John.The shepherd was stuck and the sheep were scattered. When Jesus cried out even the father remained silent for our sake.You should think about that silence from the father it was because of us.The father would of loved to have responded to Jesus but could not due to our sins.It was the greatest act of love for us that ever has or ever will happen again.
Thank you Cade-One. Beautiful answer! the only thin I cannot embrace is the idea that the only way in which we could be relived of responsibility to pay for our sins is through the suffering of Jesus. Jesus would heal someone, and walk away, saying, “keep this to yourself and sin no more.” Jesus relieved the man from the price being paid for being sinful. All the Jesus wants of us is to open our hearts to God. Jesus does not suffer like we do because we are inside this material bags of skin and bones. Jesus can heal, walk on water, move mountains, and move from one continent to another without an airplane (if he wants to). To think that he endured horrific pain as the price of our sins, is a terrible idea. One who accepts this has to be filled with terrible feelings of unworthiness and guilt. Jesus is not wanting this. Jesus says, “Rejoice!” “Rejoice,… and sin no more.” Jesus does not have to pay for our sinfulness. Our sinfulness is completely forgiven if and when we completely give our hearts to God. There is only one sin. Wanting anything aside from God’s pleasure. All sin arises from that one sin. This was the teaching of Jesus, by his example, when he said, “Not my will, but Thy will be done, my Lord.” Jesus showed by his example what is means to be a loving servant of God…that with every thought, word and deed, we seek only God’s pleasure. Jesus does not suffer. Jesus rejoices in God’s company eternally, whether here on earth, or with God in heaven. But he does different things…to invest faith in our little hearts. Otherwise, we wouldn’t believe. So he walked away from the tomb… to make the point…that we are eternal spirit souls…that cannot be destroyed when the body drops. The crucifixion was not to create guilt in our hearts…but to create faith.
Jesus dictated His commentary on that question of His to Maria Valtorta on July 14th, 1946. He said the following:
"V. ‘My God, why have You abandoned Me?’
The Father sometimes seems to abandon. He is only hidden to increase expiation and grant greater forgiveness.
Can man complain about this wrathfully—he who has abandoned God on numberless occasions? And should he despair because God is testing him?
How many things you placed in your hearts that were not God! How often you were unresponsive to Him! With how many things you rejected Him and drove Him away. You filled your hearts with everything. You then set ironwork on your hearts and bolted them shut because you were afraid that God, on entering, might disturb your indolent quietism and purify his temple by throwing out the usurpers. As long as you were happy, what did you care about possessing God? You would say, ‘I already have everything because I deserved to.’ And when you were not happy, didn’t you ever flee from God by making Him the cause of all your misfortune?
Oh, unjust children who drink poison and enter into labyrinths and plunge into precipices and lairs of serpents and other beasts and then say, ‘God is to blame,’ if God were not a Father, and a holy Father, what should He say in reply to your complaints about the painful hours when you forgot Him in the happy ones? Oh, unjust children filled with sins who would demand to be treated as the Son of God was not treated in the hour of the holocaust, tell Me: who was the most abandoned one? Isn’t it the Christ, the Innocent One, He who, to save, accepted utter abandonment by God after having loved Him actively at all times? And don’t you bear the name of ‘Christians’? And isn’t it your duty to save at least yourselves?
In turbid, self-complacent indolence fearing disturbance from accepting the Active One, there is no salvation. Imitate Christ, then, by casting forth this cry at the time of most intense anguish. But make the note of the cry one of meekness and humility, not a tone of blasphemy and reproach. 'Why have You abandoned me—You that know that without You I can do nothing? Come, O Father, come to save me, to give me strength to save myself because the grip of death is horrendous and the Adversary cunningly augments its power over me and hisses that You no longer love me. Make Yourself heard, O Father, not because of my merits, but precisely because I am a nonentity with no merits who is unable to overcome when alone and now understands that life was work for Heaven."
'Woe to those who are alone,’ it was said. Woe to those who are alone at the hour of death, alone with themselves against Satan and the flesh! But do not fear. If you call the Father, He will come. And this humble invocation of Him will make amends for your blameworthy indifference towards God, false worship, and disordered self-love, which make you indolent." (The Notebooks: 1945-1950)
Peace to all,
Forsaken/Abandoned and Just for 3 lonely long nights, becoming again for all, is The “Gift”, OMNILogically.
OMNILogically, His separation was only 3 nights in the Tomb of Jerusalem.
Jesus was Virgin Born both Immortal and Incorruptible, but had to from Baptism go through death and resurrection to become again, Glorified and transfigured through the Second Coming Nature Holy Spirit and Body becoming One Holy Family one God in being for all mankind. This is the never before on earth ever properly understood, rationally until the OMNILogical God and is the Faith of Abraham expressed in logic.
His separation was only temporary from the Holy Family but with Him through immortal flesh lift behind for all from the cross as the Paraclete, The Advocate becoming again through His Transfiguration as all mankind becomes again One Holy Spirit Family One God in being, OMNILogically. His separation was only for 3 nights in the Tomb of Jerusalem. And Through Jesus Death and His descension Jesus empties the Chasm of the Bosom of Abraham and with all in the flesh crossing over to the the Chasm of Hell with all and busting down gates and tearing down walls destroying death forever resurrection spirit with life, Both Natures becoming again in One Holy Family One God in being in all.
The First “Flesh” Nature felt abandoned from death riding into the Tomb of Jerusalem, anointed and greeted with palms, “Hosanna”, He knew, just like Isaac, but no sacrifical lamb will save The Christ, Jesus is the Eternal Priestly Authority and the New Living Sacrifice, when The First Born Christ of all creation says, “Let’s do this Dad” in some form of Arabic. Jesus knew for resurrection becoming from the Second Nature “Holy Spirit” Incorruption becoming again is for all back from where He Came, One Holy Spirit Family One God in being through both natures. Through His Death and resurrection The Body rejoins through the power of The Holy Spirit Family One God in being by His Conception, OMNILogically.
Peace always,
Stephen
Spiritual literature informs us that there is no such thing as death. The real being, the real person is the soul inside the material body. The material body is “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”. It comes from the dead material nature, and returns to the earth when the eternally living soul departs. We are not these material bodies. We are eternal spirit souls. We never die. We simply depart from these bodies which are filled with countless sufferings from the time of our birth. All of the saints of the different traditions, who have the realization, by God’s grace, that “I am not this body”, show their complete indifference to the material comforts that we all strive for. It is not that they are being artificially austere. It is that they are absorbed in spiritual bliss that frees them from bodily concerns of hunger and thirst, heat and cold, etc.
What to speak of Jesus who has the power to walk on the water, and command the storm over the water to cease, to heal the sick and blind simply by his touch or by his command. To think he suffered like one of us by being crucified makes no sense. How would you and respond with iron spikes hammered through our hand and feet? Would our hearts be filled only with compassion for the perpetrators? Is this humanly possible? But rather than expressing unimaginable pain, Jesus is praying to our Eternal Father to forgive those who are hammering the nails. Is he praying like this artificially. No. He is filled with boundless compassion and love. How can he be so loving at a time like this? Because he is not of this world. To think that Jesus suffered this indescribable pain so that we could be forgiven of our sins…this is a great mistake. Jesus, as he himself showed when praying for those who nailed him to the cross, is always filled with boundless love and compassion, a love and compassion that can never be dented by material affliction. He abides in spiritual bliss. He comes down from the cross and walks away from it all. It is all for strengthening our faith in his message and in his spiritual power. We are relieved of our sins when we make for Jesus, a sitting place for him in our hearts. It is his light that penetrates the darkness within us, thereby removing our sinful nature. It is not that we continue to sin while thinking that Jesus has paid the price. It is accepting his association and his love that removes all impurity from our hearts. Do we tell a child that he is evil and sinful, but that Jesus had to endure unspeakable pain so that the child can be made acceptable to God? Do we fill the child’s heart with this kind of guilt? No. We tell him that Jesus loves him, and that by drawing close to Jesus, all of his childish self-centeredness will evaporate, so that he can demonstrate the beauty of the heart of Jesus in his life. Jesus did not die. Jesus showed us that we are eternal spirit souls who are, like Jesus, in this world, but not of this world. This is my conviction. Jesus does not want us to hang our heads in shame. Jesus says “rejoice!”
To think that someone dies, you or me, is to think “I am this material body. I am this material form.” But we are not these material forms. We are eternal spirit souls. This is the A,B,C of all spiritual teachings. The spirit lives eternally without need of a material body. And the body lives not for a second without the real person, the spirit soul, inside. It is nothing more that a few shovels full of earth from the front yard, and about 80% water. But because we identify with it as me, our while life is about how to comfort it, how to enjoy it sensually, how to decorate and cloth it. But those who, by spiritual strength, come closer to Jesus, and to God, they demonstrate a proportional indifference to the things that the materialist persues. Because by the strength of their faith, they understand that “I am not this material body. I am an eternal spirit soul. My real relationship is not with the temporal things of this world, but with God and His son.”
Peace to all,
So true Peter1, what become again is from the Spirit through the created souls of all for the flesh, the Body to become again through two natures, spirit and life in One Holy Spirit Family One God in being.
Peace always,
Stephen