Mt. 27:46 - "Why have you forsaken me?"

   
     Jesus was not calling for Elijah as some thought. This was a cry of dereliction, feeling abandoned. He felt utterly forsaken and rejected by God in His sufferings.
     At the Passover meal Jesus introduced the "cup" to His disciples and established the Lord's Supper. He said, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Mt. 26:27-28).
     This was also the cup Jesus prayed for deliverance from in his Garden prayer: "Father if it be possible for this cup to pass from me. . ." (Mt. 26:39)
     Jesus began to drink that bitter cup in the Garden when He said "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death" (Mt. 26:38). As we saw earlier, it was not just fear of suffering that forced bloody sweat from His pores (Lk 2:44). He was in fact becoming the divine Substitute for every person.
     He was beginning to die the death that was ours. "God made him who had no sin to be a sin offering for us. . ." (2 Cor. 5:21).  "It was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, He will see His offspring. . ." (Isa. 53:10). "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified (declared innocent, exonerated) freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus" (Rom. 3:23-26).
     In the Garden He began to drink that cup of Divine Judgment (the sacrifice He had offered in heaven far back eternity), and now on the cross he was drinking it down to the last dregs for us (Ps. 75:8-9).
     "Upon Christ as our substitute and surety was laid the iniquity of us all. He was counted a transgressor, that He might redeem us from the condemnation of the law. The guilt of every descendant of Adam was pressing upon His heart. The wrath of God against sin, the terrible manifestation of His displeasure because of iniquity, filled the soul of His Son with consternation. All His life Christ had been publishing to a fallen world the good news of the Father's mercy and pardoning love. Salvation for the chief of sinners was His theme. But now with the terrible weight of guilt He bears, He cannot see the Father's reconciling face. The withdrawal of the divine countenance from the Savior in this hour of supreme anguish pierced His heart with a sorrow that can never be fully understood by man. So great was this agony that His physical pain was hardly felt" The Desire of Ages, p. 753).
     We can never understand this side of eternity what Jesus endured for us, but if we let Him, He will win our hearts.

I’m forgiven because You were forsaken,
I’m accepted, You were condemned.
I am alive and well, Your spirit is within me,
Because You died and rose again.

Amazing love,
How can it be
That You, my King, should die for me?
Amazing love,
I know it’s true.
It’s my joy to honor You,
In all I do, I honor You.

"Amazing Love" by Chris Tomlin

Michael Brownfield