My God, My God. Why have you forsaken me?

I think this is a much better explanation than those that try to explain why God did abandon his son (which is kind of absurd to me).

I think this is a much better explanation than those that try to explain why God did abandon his son (which is kind of absurd to me). I tend to lean toward this understanding of the text.

There are also Aramaic speakers who say that "forsaken" is not a good English rendering of "Sabacthanai"; which they say means "kept or left behind for a purpose" ; in this case his last words are understood as declarative instead of interrogative. Kinda goes against western tradition; but tradition is only as valuable as it is valid.

Oh yes before I forget....let me ask:
Does God actually foresake Israel?

No. He delivers them.

Does God actually foresake ANYONE? EVER?

No He does not, this is impossible.

The point being that all of these absurd specious arguments regarding
Jesus reciting Psalm 22 on the cross are predicated upon a false assumption.
That being God can and will do the impossible by foresaking someone.

I'm trying to understand. If according to the Trinity Jesus is all God, how or why would Jesus think that He had forsaken Himself? Why would He even question the Father or even pray to himself? The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are supposed to be one being. If they are three different minds, how can they be one being? Someone please explain.

IMO If you believe Jesus was " God with us " then what was he teaching?? Maybe like an event in the future!

Hi believers,

For many years I wondered about these words that Jesus spoke. Why would God forsake His Son for doing exactly what he was supposed to do. I mean the old covenant is clear that Jesus had to die for our sin. So, he did. He brought glory to the Father through his steadfast love and obedience to all that his Father asked of him. Why would God forsake him for that?
....

There is a wide range of Christologies within the church universal. This is mine, which I am sure will be classified as heretical to many.

At the end of Augustus Caesar's reign he adopted Tiberius as his son, and for two years both Augustus and Tiberius jointly reigned as Caesar. What Tiberius decreed and ruled, Augustus validated and vice versa. So there was one imperium but two persons operating co-equally within that one imperium.

I would see my position as that of a kenotic social trinitarian. I think that God is one unanimous imperium of three co-equal persons, who are each ever-existing, omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, It is the distinct ego of each Person that makes them three distinct persons. It is their common ever-existence that makes them each Divine. It is their unanimity in decision-making that makes them one God/imperium. I see them as a Community of three Divine Persons. Hence, "social trinitarian".

I regard each person's distinct ego, their centre of consciousness from which they are aware of themself as "I" , as enduring through ; but each persons attributes can vary over time. they do not become a different ego/I when their attributes change. I consider that the Divine Son's ego/I gave up (emptied Himself of, Greek kenoO, hence kenosis) certain divine attributes when He incarnated to become human, yet remained the same ego/I, who had created the world with the Father and Holy Spirit. I regard Jesus prayer in John 17 to include His request to receive back the divine attributes given up to incarnate as human, attributes He had had with the Father before the world began.

Because the ever-existing Ego/I of the Son is distinct from the Father and Spirit, and lacked His surrendered omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, he relied on the Father and Spirit to work their divine attributes through Him. he Himself was not doing the works, but the Father in Him was doing the works. Holding this understanding of the relationship between Father, Son and Spirit means that the Father forsaking the Son, and the Son praying to the Father are not problematic at all.

The classical trinitarian model I do find problematic. being and essence are not biblical categories. They are philosophical categories. Imposing them into the Bible to squeeze scripture into a foreign philosophical construct is not at all helpful IMHO.

A t

A thoughtful response, and not heretical at all. I've been back and forth over the Trinity my entire 30 plus years of knowing Christ. Your post has given me even more to ponder. I'm so glad I don't have to pass a theology exam to get into Heaven.
Christ crucified. The hope of glory.

Ditto, although ego seems akin to being and essence not much different from emporium in terms of philosophical categories attempting to explain biblical concepts.

Christ told the disciples that the Comforter could not come until after He departed. I believe that was because the Comforter or Spirit embodied Christ fully. Much like I expect He will inhabit the Saints in these last days. Is the Spirit a distinct personality or the energy for lack of a better word that exists between the Father and the Son. I think either view is acceptable. But I really don't come down on one side or the other. One less thing to argue about.

There is a wide range of Christologies within the church universal. This is mine, which I am sure will be classified as heretical to many.

At the end of Augustus Caesar's reign he adopted Tiberius as his son, and for two years both Augustus and Tiberius jointly reigned as Caesar. What Tiberius decreed and ruled, Augustus validated and vice versa. So there was one imperium but two persons operating co-equally within that one imperium.

I would see my position as that of a kenotic social trinitarian. I think that God is one unanimous imperium of three co-equal persons, who are each ever-existing, omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, It is the distinct ego of each Person that makes them three distinct persons. It is their common ever-existence that makes them each Divine. It is their unanimity in decision-making that makes them one God/imperium. I see them as a Community of three Divine Persons. Hence, "social trinitarian".

I regard each person's distinct ego, their centre of consciousness from which they are aware of themself as "I" , as enduring through ; but each persons attributes can vary over time. they do not become a different ego/I when their attributes change. I consider that the Divine Son's ego/I gave up (emptied Himself of, Greek kenoO, hence kenosis) certain divine attributes when He incarnated to become human, yet remained the same ego/I, who had created the world with the Father and Holy Spirit. I regard Jesus prayer in John 17 to include His request to receive back the divine attributes given up to incarnate as human, attributes He had had with the Father before the world began.

Because the ever-existing Ego/I of the Son is distinct from the Father and Spirit, and lacked His surrendered omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, he relied on the Father and Spirit to work their divine attributes through Him. he Himself was not doing the works, but the Father in Him was doing the works. Holding this understanding of the relationship between Father, Son and Spirit means that the Father forsaking the Son, and the Son praying to the Father are not problematic at all.

The classical trinitarian model I do find problematic. being and essence are not biblical categories. They are philosophical categories. Imposing them into the Bible to squeeze scripture into a foreign philosophical construct is not at all helpful IMHO.

In this He would have felt.. I think.. in his humanity.. alone in it.

Perhaps Jesus' (God the Son) cry teaches us that God (the Father) designed reality so His presence (God the H.S.) is less than compelling, so that we experience God (the Father) as distant from us and “unknown” (ACTS 17:23).

Thus, even Jesus (God the Son) on the cross cried out “My God [the Father], why have you forsaken [taken God the Spirit from] me?” (MT 27:46, PS 51:11) We may feel distant from God (the Father) even though He is close or immanent, “for in Him [the H.S.] we live and move and have our being” (ACTS 17:28)

We might note also that Christ's (the Son) crucifixion was God's (the Father's) answer to Jesus' prayer in MT 26:42=MK 14:36=LK 22:42.

Psalm 22 is Messianic but also primarily about Israel - it is Israel about whom He sings, Israel who thinks herself abandoned but is not, ever.

as you said, they considered themselves forsaken, that He was far from her - though her God was right in front of them in the act of saving them.

Hi believers,

For many years I wondered about these words that Jesus spoke. Why would God forsake His Son for doing exactly what he was supposed to do. I mean the old covenant is clear that Jesus had to die for our sin. So, he did. He brought glory to the Father through his steadfast love and obedience to all that his Father asked of him. Why would God forsake him for that?

However, I have since come to an understanding that answers my ponderings. God did not forsake His Son. Jesus referred to himself as Rabbi. He said at one time, "You call me Rabbi and so it is." A Rabbi is a Jewish teacher. Jesus was a Jewish teacher to Israel. In the early beginning of his ministry in a gathering of Jewish believers in Nazareth, he read and proclaimed the words of the prophet Isaiah. He then told the people in attendance that this prophecy was being fulfilled in their very hearing. So, Jesus opened his ministry with likely the most powerful and accurate description of all that Messiah was supposed to do. Then he went out and did it.

As the end of his ministry, he also closed with one of the most powerful words of the Scriptures about how his death was going to happen. That passage begins, My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?

So, he began his ministry telling everyone from the Scriptures all that Messiah was going to do as he lived among us. He closed his ministry telling everyone from the Scriptures that they were witnessing the very death that had been prophesied by Isaiah, also. It's a practice that is referred to as 'remez'. Remez is a technique of using part of a Scripture passage to imply the fuller meaning of a teaching.

In Israel, in the days of Jesus, the Scriptures did not have chapter and verses as we have today to easily locate a passage that a preacher might be teaching on. In our day, our teachers just say, "turn in your bibles to the book of Acts chapter 3 vs 12- 18." Everyone opens their copy of the Scriptures to the book of Acts chapter 3 and verse 12. But in Jesus day there was no such way to identify where a teaching might be coming from in the Scriptures. So, it was a very common practice for the teacher to begin by quoting a particular passage and everyone would know where that passage was and be able to see where the teaching was in the Scriptures. This is what Jesus was doing for those chief priests and scribes and pharisees that were hanging around as he was dying for their sin. He was telling them as their Rabbi, "Go look and find this passage and read what it says about this death that you are right now in your life witnessing before your very eyes. In their very hearing would be how Jesus would have put it

So, I don't believe that God did forsake His Son. But I do believe that God caused to be written some hundreds of years before the event, those words found in psalm 22. I further believe that just as Jesus' purpose in quoting the words of Isaiah to that fellowship of Jewish believers in Nazareth when he began his ministry as a testimony to them to watch and see, that he also spoke the words of this psalm telling them to watch and see.

God bless you all,
Ted

Well, Israel is ultimately all who are saved per the apostle Paul.

ego and consciousness aren't Biblical terms either..

but aren't those terms together, equivalently expressed by His 'being'?

Did Jesus pray to receive His divine attributes back or His glory?

Does His glory not include His divine attributes? If I surrender my glory as a prince to visit my commoners appearing to be one of them, and I request the King to return me to my former glory, does the fact that I asked for my former glory mean that we can conclude that I did not give up any of my princely atttributes when I previously gave up my glory?

this implies He lacked faith...