My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me!

Matthew 27:46: And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

This sobering cry of our Saviour on the cross fulfilled the prophetic utterance of David in Psalm 22:1: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? Jesus did not just take our sin upon Himself, but He became sin for us. Isaiah 53:10 tells us that Jesus became our sin offering on the cross: Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

To understand the anguished cry of Jesus in His final moments, we must firstly understand that Jesus’ Father was the Holy Ghost (Matthew 1:18), and that in Him dwelt the fullness of the Father (John 3:34). When Jesus was baptized in the River Jordan and the Spirit of God descended upon Him like a dove, this was not Jesus receiving the Holy Ghost (for He was born with the fullness of It already), but was Jesus being anointed for His public ministry (Matthew 3:16-17).

In Gethsemane, it was the anointing that left Him. The prophet confirms this to us in the message “Adoption (May 18, 1960). So Jesus went to Calvary as a man; in other words, the communion that had existed so sweetly between the Father and the Son was now cut off, for the Father refused to talk to His Son anymore because He had become sin. This is an important concept to grasp. Jesus did not lose the Holy Ghost, for it is impossible to lose the Spirit that you are sealed by, but it is possible to grieve the Spirit (Ephesians 4:30). So the Father was grieved with the sin laid upon His Son and would not talk to Him, insomuch that Jesus screamed out in helpless agony.

The prophet of God had a similar experience in the early days of His ministry when He disobeyed the Angel of the LORD. This is recounted in the message “Experiences” (December 7, 1947). The prophet had the Holy Ghost, but for the first time in his life he learnt what it was like for a man to be utterly helpless and left all alone without God. The Holy Spirit was grieved with him, God would not speak to Him, and the Angel of the LORD had not appeared to Him for months. And yet what the prophet felt was only a small taste in comparison to the utter rejection and helplessness that Jesus felt as He hung on the cross, laden with our sin and forsaken by God and man.

It was the Son (the man/the flesh) that died on the cross. The Holy Spirit in Jesus did not die, for God is an eternal Spirit that cannot die, even as the Spirit of God does not die when a reborn believer goes to the grave. When Jesus died, He yielded up His human spirit (Matthew 27:50), but on Easter morning, the Holy Spirit that indwelt the Son swept over the body lying in the tomb, and quickened the Lord Jesus back to life again.