Did God Turn Away?

We've all experienced it: You’re watching a television show and it goes to commercial, and the first commercial you see is that of starving children in a 3^rd world country.  They show children sitting on the ground, living in grass huts, and rummaging through garbage trying to find something to eat.  It breaks your heart.  You think about giving money, but the thought enters your mind: “If I knew they’d really get the money, I’d give.”  You watch it for a few more seconds, and then, after you've taken all you can withstand, you turn the channel – you just can’t bear to see the misery.

Did God “Turn The Channel” During The Crucifixion?

My question, especially as we near the Easter season, is this: Did God react the same way when Jesus was on the cross?  We've heard it said over and over again that God “ couldn't bear to see His Son”, so He turned away.  It’s the picture of a heartbroken God who can’t bear to see what is happening to His Son.  Even Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).  Did He turn away?  Did He refuse to look at the cross?  In what sense was Jesus forsaken by the Father?

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Well, in one sense, there is a divine mystery that one can never fully understand or explain.  Martin Luther once studied Matthew 27:45-50 for a long time, even going into seclusion and refusing to eat.  After much study, he came forth and said, “God forsaken by God – who can understand it.” 

While there is a mystery surrounding that cry, we must understand what it is not.  It is not a cry that marks the complete abandonment of God’s presence from the cross – that He was so overwhelmed by the sight of His Son that he turned away. 

God was very present when Jesus was dying on the cross.  “In what sense was the Father present while Jesus was on the cross?” one might ask.  The Father was present with Jesus on the cross in the same way He will be present with unbelievers in Hell; He was present in judgment.  People are of the opinion that God is not present in Hell.  They are wrong; Hell is the undiluted, perfect exhibition of God’s wrath against sin.  Those in Hell will forever experience the holiness of God through His wrath that is poured out upon sin.  In the same manner, Jesus, when He was on the cross, experienced God’s wrath against sin.  The one who had heard the Father say, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17), now feels the hatred of God due sin and the wrath of God upon sin. 

We will never truly appreciate the price Jesus paid for our atonement until we realize this hard, yet Biblical truth: What the Father did to Jesus while He was on the cross was far worse than what the Roman soldiers did to Jesus!  Isaiah 53:4 says that the Jehovah’s Servant (Jesus) was “smitten by God”; Isaiah 53:10-11 says, “Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.  Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.”

Those who know Christ should rejoice forevermore because God’s wrath due our sin has been completely exhausted!  It was completely poured out upon Jesus.  My sins have already had God’s justice poured out upon them.  He cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” so that we may cling to the promise: “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).