What did Jesus mean when He said "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", when He was dying on the cross?

Question

I know what He meant I just want to see what others think.

Answer 1

In the movies, it always portrays Jesus looking up and addressing heaven. Some say that this is when Jesus absorbed all the sin of mankind and God had to look away--seeing that He cannot look upon sin. I am not saying that this is not what happened, but there is a better explanation--it is very Jewish.

Back then, they did not have multiple copies of the Tonakh. They kept one copy safely stored in an ark in the synagogue. So the students and priests, back then as well as today, would memorize the scriptures (they did this by singing it). Whenever they wanted to bring a chapter, or a Psalm to the attention of the students, they would not recite the entire chapter, they would say the first verse and the rest of the students would know the rest by memory.

When Jesus was on the cross, He employed this rabbinical device--He quoted the first verse. The Pharisees would hear this, then in their mind they would immediately do the "scripture shuffle" and find that this was the first verse of Psalm 22. They would then automatically recall the entire Psalm that would show that what was happening before them was prophetic--that Messiah had to die, be surrounded by accusing Gentiles scoffing, "he trusted in God, let Him deliver", He will have His hands and feet pierced causing His bones to come out of joint, that they would divide His garments, and at the end He will say "It is finished" (which is the Greek translation of the last verse).

So really, Jesus was alerting the Pharisees to what was happening and that all what they were seeing was planned from the foundations of the earth and that He was who He said He was--the Messiah, the subject and focus of Psalm 22.

Answer 2

Well, firstly, there are two other places where Jesus calls the Father "His God". But also, The Father also calls Jesus God and Lord in Hebrews 1:8-10. Is the Father above the Son? No. Is the Son above the Father (I'll get to John 14:28, don't worry)? No. Now, why did Jesus say this? It has to do with Jesus having a Father and Son relationship with God. Jesus is in a way, showing respect for the Father, by calling him "My God". He doesn't deny his own deity (John 8:58, John 17:5, Mark 2:28, Mark 12:35-37). "Another question I have is where in the Bible does Jesus actually say to worship him? " John 5:23 "so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him." Now, if Jesus were just a Prophet, Messenger, or something similar, how could he say to Honor him like the Father? To honor him as the Father, is to treat him as a EQUAL to the Father. A simple Prophet saying this, would be stoned to death as demanded by the Holy Torah. Now, for John 14:28: Let me ask you a question, is Jesus saying the Father is greater in essence OR authority? Authority, Jesus claims equality with the Father in John 5:23. "I mean no offence when I say this but in my opinion Christianity is a religion that claims to believe in one God yet split him into three parts and says that one part is greater than another." We believe each individual in the Trinity are equal, in essence. "God is so much greater than man, he is the almighty and can't be described as a human." Ughhh, we believe God became a man, we don't believe God is a man. "ALSO, who actually wrote the bible?" Many people, Prophets, Kings, Apostles, etc. "and can you be sure that it is the original revelation of God?" Yes. "Look how many variations of the bible there is, yes the message in all of them is the same but if it is so perfect why is there not one version that has been preserved?" 1. We have 8,000 original Greek manuscripts from the First and Second centuries, and 15,000 other manuscripts in different languages (Syriac, Armenian, Latin,Coptic, etc) that have been preserved. 2. Most of our translations are superb, and very well translated.

Answer 3

You'll get, I'm sure, several good answers, some about prophetic fulfillment, some about the sense of isolation Jesus was feeling. I think there's room for all those types of interpretations to validly exist side by side. But my favorite thought on the matter, the one that moves me still is this quote:

"When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God....but let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist."
-G.K. Chesterton

Answer 4

How do you know he said that?

Mark is the earliest Gospel and was written at least one generation after the putative cruci-fiction, and probably much later. (That would be like me writing a book today about Elvis and stating his last words.) Instead, the writer of Mark put the words of the 22 Psalm into Jesus mouth for religio-political reasons.

Matthew plagiarized Mark's earlier version word for word, so his wasn't an "independent" witness, just another hearsay source.

Two other Gospel's have 2 other versions. Luke has the "Father into your hands I commend my spirit", while John has the terse "It is finished".

So of the 3 different versions, which, if any, is the correct one? I have seen apologists try and say that he really said all of those things, but each Gospel only recorded part of the whole speech, but that is clearly post hoc rationalization. You can't say that the Bible is the infallible word of God, but that the main "witnesses" to the most important event in history didn't quite record things accurately right from the get go. That is a credibility issue.

Answer 5

In his last moments he was lucid,probably for the first time in his life. All his life he had been told,and was under the delusion that he was the son of God. But through his pain and suffering he gained momentarily a lucidity that stripped away all of those delusions,and so suddenly he was alone and had no idea why he was dying for something he could no longer see or feel. It had to be the most agonizing thing imaginable to be dying in the name of a delusion that was stripped away at the last moment,and knowing he was dying for nothing,and could have instead lived a happy life with a wife and children but instead it's all over. What a waste.

AD

Answer 6

“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?” (Matthew 27:46). This cry is a fulfillment of Psalm 22:1, one of many parallels between that psalm and the specific events of the crucifixion. It has been difficult to understand in what sense Jesus was “forsaken” by God. It is certain that God approved His work. It is certain that He was innocent. He had done nothing to forfeit the favor of God. As His own Son - holy, harmless, undefiled, and obedient - God still loved Him. In none of these senses could God have forsaken Him.



However, Isaiah tells us that “he bore our griefs and carried our sorrows; that he was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities; that the chastisement of our peace was laid upon him; that by his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4-5). He redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). He was made a sin-offering, and He died in our place, on our account, that He might bring us near to God. It was this, doubtless, which caused His intense sufferings. It was the manifestation of God’s hatred of sin, in some way which He has not explained, that Jesus experienced in that terrible hour. It was suffering endured by Him that was due to us, and suffering by which, and by which alone, we can be saved from eternal death.



In those awful moments, Jesus was expressing His feelings of abandonment as God placed the sins of the world on Him – and because of that had to “turn away” from Jesus. As Jesus was feeling that weight of sin, He was experiencing separation from God for the only time in all of eternity. It was at this time that 2 Corinthians 5:21 occurred, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus became sin for us, so He felt the loneliness and abandonment that sin always produces, except that in His case, it was not His sin – it was ours.

Recommended Resource: Why Believe in Jesus?: Who He Is, What He Did, and His Message for You Today by Tim LaHaye.

Answer 7

I'm glad you know what he meant. God the Father is Holy and couldn't look upon sin. When Jesus was dying he had the sins of the whole world on his shoulder. And God the Father turned his head for a moment, not to deny Jesus but the sin.

Answer 8

He was fulfilling a prophecy, but He was also expressing true remorse of the Father turning His back on Jesus since He became the sin of mankind that was facing God's wrath. Since Jesus has always been with the Father throughout eternity past, this was an additional agony He had to face in addition to the physical agony.

Answer 9

He was pointing out through psalms 22 that He was the Savior prophesied . For the most part eloi , eloi, lama sabachthani is Aramaic. That is why they thought he was crying out to Eli. Sabachthani is Aramaic for has thou fore- saken me. Not what rosebud up there said. Nice try however Rosie. GO SCHNEB GO

Answer 10

according to what i've heard, he said "aba, lama sabachtani" or something to that effect.

if that's what he said, and check your texts, people, then he didn't say what you all think.

first off, psalm 22 quotes eli eli, lama azavtani.

second, sabachtani is not a hebrew word. the closest word is "zavachtani" which as you linguists recognize, is nearly identical and means "slaughtered" so he was saying "why have you slaughtered me"

and anyone who read the rest of psalm 22 would laugh to think it had anything to do with jesus. the words, phrases and references are clearly not jesus based unless jesus is quite different from who you al think he is.