"My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?"

I don't know Bible very well. I have only a general understanding of its themes and have only studied it as an outsider with an interest in scriptures.

This one quote nags at me though. It appears in Matthew 27:45-46, but also earlier in Psalm 22:1

Pretty much, these are Jesus' last words, right?

I can't help but feel as if there is a mistranslation or something here. Is anyone aware of any alternate translations that make more sense? (Please curtail any jokes and cite a source.)

It sounds to me like Jesus had a change of heart right at the end there. I know there are many explanations that reconcile the use of the word "forsaken" and such. I'd like to hear some.

I just don't see why Jesus would need to appear vulnerable and human right there when it mattered the most that he inspire and encourage us instead.

Really, what is the lesson to be learned in these words?

Thanks for your input, I appreciate your replies.

reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha

I can think of two lines of answer which might be made.

One standard Christian answer is that quoting the first line is an indirect way of referring to the whole Psalm, which ends in a promise of deliverance. So the Psalm as a whole is a declaration of faith.

However, the book I was reading on the night I became a Christian proposed that at the moment of his death, the sense of unity which Christ had with his Father was temporarily broken by the fact that he was taking on himself the sins of the world at large. For the effect of sin is separation from God. So that is what he felt.
I well remember that page of the book, because I think it was decisive.

reply to post by DISRAELI


The second answer makes sense.

reply to post by AfterInfinity

I don't know how standard that answer is, but I know it had a big impact on me at the time.

reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha


Jesus was pushed to the point where even he lost all hope...

Goes to show that he was in fact human... not God in the flesh.

reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha


I am going to quote from the Bible. So, if anyone thinks i am bible bashing (as before) please, again, The Bible is my source

Jesus was quoting Psalm 22 (Psalm of David)

Psalm 22 was written about 1000 years before Christ was born. Jesus is pointing to the scriptures to substantiate His messianic mission.

16: For dogs have surrounded Me;
The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me.
They pierced My hands and My feet;
17: I can count all My bones.
They look and stare at Me.
18: They divide My garments among them,
And for My clothing they cast lots

2 Cor. 5:21 says, "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

It is possible that at some moment on the cross, when Jesus became sin on our behalf, that God the Father, in a sense, turned His back upon the Son. In Habakkuk 1:13 says that God is too pure to look upon evil. Therefore, it is possible that when Jesus bore our sins in His body on the cross (1 Pet. 2:24), that the Father, spiritually, turned away. At that time, the Son may have cried out.

reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha


This was Aramaic, but in the Hebrew, forsaken is from the root to bind. The pictographs are of the shepherd's staff and water. This would represent God's relationship to the Son, just as the Son's relationship is to us. God is the Shepherd (Lord) leading the Son of God in the wilderness. The Son in the wilderness is the Shepherd of mankind. The Lexicon states it this way: "The Shepherd always carried his staff for guiding, leading and protecting the flock. The flock was bound to the shepherd, as the staff was a sign of his authority over the sheep. The yoke was a staff laid across the shoulders of the oxen. The oxen were then tied to the yokes at the neck, binding the two together for plowing or pulling a cart. A people bound together. A wound bound with bandages."

What was Christ bound to by Mary? Mary was from the house of David was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Read my last thread where I point out that it was likely the seed (Y chromosome) from Adam. Eve was the (X) chromosome. Christ was the Son of God, first and last. 1 Corinthians 15 calls Him the first and last Adam. With this binding of a Holy Spirit, nothing could harm Him. When that Spirit departed, Jesus was left to the sins of humanity as the unblemished lamb. Why? The heel crushes the head. You can read more of my threads to see why Christ paid your penalty. Not only did the error come from Adam, the solution also comes from the same source. All of it was for us so that we could learn to use free will and find love. The demonstration of the Son was love for us.

He did for this for us.

Isaiah 53

Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

---He come back again soon, not to bear sin, but to save those who value his work on the cross to show us love. We must love others as a demonstration that we understand the point. Unfortunately, too many people today still spit on Christ. Keep in mind, the bearing of sin is finished. Today, it is time for us to see what He has done for us. Those who miss the message will be saying, "God, why have you forsaken me?" What will He say? "Be gone for I never knew you." We must come to know Christ now while there is time. When that Spirit departs, believe me, we will know. For those who are saved, it remains faithful. Faith is trust in God, but it is also God's trust in us. We demonstrate this by mirroring God's grace to others.

Luke 22:42 "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."

There seems to be an underlying theme in all the gospels. That is, Jesus wasn't exactly thrilled about being the messiah. It seems he felt like he was a slave to his destiny, as we all do at some time or another.

The way I see it (and this is just pure conjecture, but it makes sense to me), the moment that he cried out "Why have you forsaken me?" would've been the moment he learned that even after all his suffering, he would have to suffer more. Three days in "hell," perhaps. Or maybe learning that he would have to reply his life over and over throughout eternity. Maybe he had just learned that the work as Jesus was done, and that he had to incarnate as a new soul to complete the messianic journey. Those are just ideas. The only way you can know for sure is to actually talk to Jesus.

Originally posted by DISRAELI
reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha

 

I can think of two lines of answer which might be made.

One standard Christian answer is that quoting the first line is an indirect way of referring to the whole Psalm, which ends in a promise of deliverance. So the Psalm as a whole is a declaration of faith.

However, the book I was reading on the night I became a Christian proposed that at the moment of his death, the sense of unity which Christ had with his Father was temporarily broken by the fact that he was taking on himself the sins of the world at large. For the effect of sin is separation from God. So that is what he felt.
I well remember that page of the book, because I think it was decisive.

I kinda agree. Exhausted body that is in it's final stage of shuting down and the body cannot send the signals in the brain so that Jesus can't feel the light from above.

Originally posted by Akragon
reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha

 

Jesus was pushed to the point where even he lost all hope...

Goes to show that he was in fact human... not God in the flesh.

Semantics. If we say god is an awareness and Jesus is an awareness then the only difference is the size of the awareness. But you are right there is a lot of differance between an ant and a human and the ones who are at the same size above humans as we are to an ant.

And Jesus said he was one with god not god itself, no matter how religion have tried to idolize him and disrupt the message.

Originally posted by GodIsRelative
Luke 22:42 "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."

There seems to be an underlying theme in all the gospels. That is, Jesus wasn't exactly thrilled about being the messiah. It seems he felt like he was a slave to his destiny, as we all do at some time or another.

The way I see it (and this is just pure conjecture, but it makes sense to me), the moment that he cried out "Why have you forsaken me?" would've been the moment he learned that even after all his suffering, he would have to suffer more. Three days in "hell," perhaps. Or maybe learning that he would have to reply his life over and over throughout eternity. Maybe he had just learned that the work as Jesus was done, and that he had to incarnate as a new soul to complete the messianic journey. Those are just ideas. The only way you can know for sure is to actually talk to Jesus.

Wherever he is I hope he is feeling the light and are having a lot of lovely childish souls keeping him company being goofy and laughing.

reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha

I can't help but feel as if there is a mistranslation or something here.

I managed to find another place in the Bible where you can find the same Greek word (ἐγκαταλείπω), in that particular form (V-AAI-2P), as what you see here in Matthew and Mark translated as "forsaken".
Ezekiel 24:21
Say to the people of Israel, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am about to desecrate my sanctuary–the stronghold in which you take pride, the delight of your eyes, the object of your affection. The sons and daughters you left behind will fall by the sword.
(2011 NIV)
This would be the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) version of course, rather than the Masoretic (or so-called Hebrew) text.

Going back to Psalms 22:1, I would look at the Greek version in order to attempt a translation.
You would have to look at the key part of the phrase and put that in front, so it would look a lot different in normal language than the way it was written.

The reputation of my evil deeds has placed me far from salvation, so God, my God, pay attention to me . . ."

and so on into the next verse where the character in this scenario goes about spelling out in a dialog, what his God was requested to listen to.

Now of course Jesus would have been reciting it in the order as it is written, so you get a sort of prelude rather than the core message, which is as I just mentioned, a description of his current condition of being considered a sinner.

The reason that I would come up with this unusual translation would be my study of the use of the word Logos in the Greek Old Testament, and how it relates to the other word, Transgressions, and how, no matter where it falls in the verse in the original, it always become the primary subject of the sentence in an English translation.
That the word for Left is in the second person could be problematic for my claim, where it might be better expected to be in the third person to fit with my scheme.

Here is an example of a verse with the same word, also in the Aorist, Active, Indicative, Plural, as in Psalms 22:1, except in the third person,
Psalm 38:10
My heart pounds, my strength fails me; even the light has gone from my eyes.
(2011 NIV)

reply to post by KaelemJames

It is possible that at some moment on the cross, when Jesus became sin on our behalf, that God the Father, in a sense, turned His back upon the Son.

I would say that Jesus was "made sin" that entire day.
Jesus took upon himself the visage of "sin", meaning the "sinner" himself, and all the consequences; the humiliation, suffering, and death.

In Habakkuk 1:13 says that God is too pure to look upon evil. Therefore, it is possible that when Jesus bore our sins in His body on the cross (1 Pet. 2:24), that the Father, spiritually, turned away. At that time, the Son may have cried out.

I would say the opposite is true (see my translation in my last post), that Jesus was saying, "Look at me!".
This is how we are saved, (rather than the idea that his blood somehow "paid" for sins) that Jesus, in this state of being "sin", asked God to look at him, and He did.

*of course the above is only my opinion.

reply to post by GodIsRelative

There seems to be an underlying theme in all the gospels. That is, Jesus wasn't exactly thrilled about being the messiah. It seems he felt like he was a slave to his destiny, as we all do at some time or another.

Jesus was, and is, the Messiah, but he was reluctant to have it proclaimed during his lifetime because he knew people had the wrong idea of what that title meant. (see the commentary on that in Mark, by Adela Yarbro Collins)
I think that bit in Luke that you quoted was put in there to show that it really was necessary for Jesus to suffer. There really wasn't any other way. And that he really did suffer, and wasn't just doing a walk-through.

reply to post by jmdewey60


I agree. I was only demonstrating that Jesus had his own internal fears and pains going on. It's not really possible for us to do anything more than speculate about what he was feeling or thinking.

Originally posted by DISRAELI
reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha

 

I can think of two lines of answer which might be made.

One standard Christian answer is that quoting the first line is an indirect way of referring to the whole Psalm, which ends in a promise of deliverance. So the Psalm as a whole is a declaration of faith.

However, the book I was reading on the night I became a Christian proposed that at the moment of his death, the sense of unity which Christ had with his Father was temporarily broken by the fact that he was taking on himself the sins of the world at large. For the effect of sin is separation from God. So that is what he felt.
I well remember that page of the book, because I think it was decisive.

So when he took the sins of the world he was removed from the trinity?
So he no longer was god but just a human.

Also if God cannot tolerate being connected to His "alleged" son when he had sins, how has God taken the Sins to save the world.

God seems to be completely away from anything to do with the christian narrative.

reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha

That's when he experienced the separation from God as the very embodiment of sin and evil, although blameless.

The transfer of spiritual wealth took place at that moment, and then, all was well, and the Great Work completed.

Originally posted by Akragon
reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha

 

Jesus was pushed to the point where even he lost all hope...

Goes to show that he was in fact human... not God in the flesh.

Oh dear. You knew him, yet you deny him. How sad. So close and yet so far..

Originally posted by NewAgeMan

Originally posted by Akragon
reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha

 

Jesus was pushed to the point where even he lost all hope...

Goes to show that he was in fact human... not God in the flesh.

Oh dear. You knew him, yet you deny him. How sad. So close and yet so far..

No silly... I deny what was written into his story...

Read HIS words, and you will see where im coming from.... Read the narration and come to the Christian conclusion...