Posted on 03/19/2015 6:54:07 AM PDT by pgyanke
There has been an less-than-productive discussion on this thread regarding the last words of Christ on the Cross. It could be because it started with the suggestion--right in the title--that Catholics don't understand Jesus. Not a great way to initiate dialogue and ecumenism.
I would like to take a different approach here. I would like to hear my Protestant brethren explain these words of Christ from the Cross:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
What does it mean? Why did He say it?
Except that Jesus IS God.
I know What do you mean by ‘except that’? Except what?
Well said.
It’s a good question, the answer to which we may never know.
My gut tells me that while Jesus was God in the flesh, He was also a man (with emotions, and pain), and (most importantly) He was here to teach.
We cannot fully comprehend the Trinity, or God’s machinations - it’s *way* beyond our puny brains. What He said was the perfect thing to say at that moment, whether we understand it or not.
Lastly, try to not anthropomorphize God (which includes Christ, both preincarnate and otherwise). When you do, you change Him, and He does not change.
Though this is conventional thinking by evangelicals, I, and other theologically solid believers, believe it is in error.
The Father never left the Son - the proof is II Corin. 5:19, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself....”....the Father was with Him and in Him through the whole transaction of the cross.
What our Lord Jesus lost, for the first and only time in all eternity - which is why it was such a total shock that he would cry out with these words - was the SENSE and AWARENESS of His Father’s presence......due to His humanity taking on the sin(s) of the world.
The Father actually has no problem with sin causing Him to be separated from the sinner - else no sinner would ever be saved. His holiness is not touched by sin - it either consumes it or it is dealt with by the shed blood of the Lamb of God.
Else we who are yet sinners, saved by grace, could never enter His presence. Else we could not commune with Him until we are perfected.......
Wayne Jacobsen’s book, “He Loves Me” (one of the best books ever written on the love of God) addresses this matter much better than I ever could - I highly recommend it.
Maybe both...
Jesus may have been calling attention to the prophecy of the Psalm. He couldn’t have shouted out “Psalm 22” because they weren’t numbered then.
I never heard of any difference between Catholic and Protestant interpretations of this. Nothing posted here so far would suggest otherwise to me.
Psa 22 is a prophecy concerning the Messiah--one He was fulfilling at that time.
The entire Psalm 22 talks about His crucifixion.
Check out Psalm 22:13-18....that’s exactly what is happening to him on that cross.
At that moment. God turned His Face from Christ, because Christ became SIN (our sin from Eve’s tempation to the last sin ever committed by the last born human still in the future). He cannot look upon sin, so Christ being the 2nd of the Trinity could feel this separation from His Father. That pain must have been even more unbearable than the physical torment of crucifixion.
By bearing sin for us, we have a debt that we cannot ever pay back to Him. For that is grace to us that believe!!! I’m eternally grateful!!!
AMEN!
You are invited.
What were you taught about what Psalm 22 is about?
“God had to remove his presence from Jesus. “
It’s like saying I had to remove me from myself. It’s very important that His deity was intact. He could have avoided this fate if He wished but He did not.
As an LDS member, we reject all of the Creeds and our Christology is based on the event of God the Father and Jesus Christ side-by-side visiting our Prophet Joseph Smith in the spring of 1830.
Consequently, out belief is that Jesus Christ is a separate being and a literal son of God almighty. While Jesus Christ is a God, in the New Testament he reverences and humbles himself before God the Father.
Consequently, Christ’s statement at the cross is wholey consistent with our Christology.
Jesus Christ is our Lord, our Saviour, Our Redeemer, our Exemplar; however, Christ willingly subjects himself to the will of God the Father.
To claim to understand the full impact or meaning of that statement would be akin to claiming full understanding of the hypostatic union.
Being born and raised Jewish from birth to bar mitzvah to 9th grade confirmation, I was never taught anything about the New Testament.
Recently, I have started accompanying my Catholic girlfriend of one year to church -- not because I am Catholic -- but because I like the feeling I get from supporting her and being there to share her experience, even as an outsider.
Perhaps one of these days there will be a reading or homily about the 22nd psalm at her Church.
Wow my first ever inquisition. If I don't answer do I get a choice of the rack, screws, iron maiden?
From the Catholic Catechism:
Jesus did not experience reprobation as if he himself had sinned.But in the redeeming love that always united him to the Father, he assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin, to the point that he could say in our name from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Having thus established him in solidarity with us sinners, God “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all”, so that we might be “reconciled to God by the death of his Son”.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1O.HTM
I was actually pleased that you used the term “my Protestant brethren.” I’ve found that most Roman Catholic FReepers don’t consider Protestants to be members in full standing in God’s family.
“Being born and raised Jewish from birth to bar mitzvah to 9th grade confirmation, I was never taught anything about the New Testament.”
Hi Maceman, thanks for your response.
But that’s not an answer to my question. Psalm 22 is in the Old Testament.
My question isn’t rhetorical or evangelizing.
It’s straightforward. I’m not looking to argue, I’m just curious as to Jewish teaching on Psalm 22.
Thanks.
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