Did God impute our sins to Christ. I've read a couple articles that say yes and no and explain why. When I first became a Christian I was taught that Jesus did take on our sin and the reason Jesus asked God why he had forsaken him was because God being a holy God couldn't look upon sin. After the last year of studying all the topics I could find that were related to this such as penal substitution theory and several more I have come to a much clearer understanding of Psalm 22 and the Cross.
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The question shocks us-so much so that it may seem wrong-headed from the start. Those of us who believe in the faithfulness and justice of God might be tempted to think that whoever asks such a question is fundamentally mistaken, and indeed that the question itself demonstrates a flawed understanding of God. "Don't you know? God doesn't forsake anyone! You must have forsaken God."
What's striking to me in Psalm 22 is all the physical and mental anguish the psalmist is going through the thing that was most important of all to him was the feeling of God being distant and abandoning him. But that last part of God being distant seems to change the further you read into the psalm. God seems to be closer to him. I think God was always there it just took him a while to realize it. That's the most important thing.. to be close to God. I like what Jesus said "I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 Jesus is telling us that no matter what we go through he will be with us. He will never leave us nor forsake us.
When I hear This question “My God my God why have you forsaken me” Coming from King David, I could reconcile myself to him asking this question, Considering his involvement was Bathsheba and the demise of her husband.
But this question, of course, does not come from someone who has been unfaithful and committed murder. It comes from the lips of none other than Jesus Christ. It comes from the only one who has been utterly faithful. It comes from the one of whom the Father said, "This is my beloved son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased" (Mt 3:17). It comes from the one who is the eternal Logos (Jn 1:1), the second person of the Trinity. So In this case these words hit me like a thunderbolt. My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me? Why? Why have you forsaken me? Why have you forsaken me? Why have you forsaken me?
A good friend of mine told me this in In answer to my statement: "When I first became a Christian I was taught that Jesus did take on our sin and the reason Jesus asked God why he had forsaken him was because God being a holy God couldn't look upon sin."
I was taught the same thing and took it as the "gospel " truth no questions asked and assumed it must be "biblical". But to my surprise as I began questioning that assertion and looking at Scripture, I began to see a few holes in that assumption that God cannot look upon sin. Now here is why below.
1-Who did God reason within heaven over Job? satan himself was in His presence making a deal with the Lord.
2- Jesus is God Incarnate and who did He spend time with during His weakest point in the wilderness? satan once again
3- Jesus deliberately goes after the sinner and the straying sheep as their Shepherd. He ate with sinners, He died for sinners.
So the notion God cannot look upon sin or allow sin in His presence is not only a fallacy, it's a LIE as we can see above and in many other places such as revelation where we see Satan once again in heaven and then being cast down.
What my Friend shared with me helped a lot and encouraged me to dig deeper into this topic.
I learned that many devout Christians understand this as nothing less than a scream of total desperation, and they do not hesitate to take this cry as anything less than an expression of a complete and total rupture in the life of the triune God. Which is something that's impossible and cannot happen.
But it is very common, especially among conservative evangelical Christians who strongly defend the necessity and sufficiency of Christ's atoning work, to hear statements such as the following:
The Father rejected the Son. As he exhausted his wrath upon the Son, the Father completely abandoned the Son. The Father hid his face from the Son. Jesus "became sin." Therefore, the Father's wrath was poured out on Jesus. The Father turned away from the Son. The physical pain Christ suffered in his passion was nothing in comparison to the spiritual and relational pain that Christ endured as he was separated from his Father. I do not believe Jesus can be separated from the father even for one millisecond.
Then there is God cursed Jesus with damnation. The eternal communion between the Father and the Son was ruptured on that fateful day. The Trinity was broken. Many preachers-especially in the sermons of those who believe that Jesus Christ was our substitute in the sense that he paid the penalty for our sins-make such solemn pronouncements. (PSA)
But such claims raise some interesting, and very important, questions. Is such a view of Christ's abandonment really necessary for a robust view of the gospel? Is it even consistent with the good news?
Jesus seems to be quoting from Psalm 22, which begins with apparent despair but ends in confidence and hope: could this be important? Must we say that the Father-Son relationship was ruptured? Indeed, can we even say that the Trinity was broken-or or are there troubling implications of such a claim?
I'm not even close to finishing my deep dive into this topic. The above post is a description of how I became interested in this topic. More will be revealed.
? The Holy Spirit Who inspired Bible writers as Peter made a mistake?
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