There's been a mood set in our corporate singing this evening. The hymns were carefully selected by Greg. We're considering the forsaken Christ tonight. And the words of the Lord Jesus Christ that are recorded in Matthew chapter 27 and verse 46 are the fourth of seven sayings that Jesus spoke from the cross. And it is the word of anguish. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabatanai.
That is my God, my God. Why have you forsaken me? And that's a question that demands consideration. So tonight, as we think about the forsaken Christ, I have three questions that I want to raise and answer in our preparation for participation at the Lord's table. Number one, who forsook Jesus? Number two, what does it mean to be forsaken? And number three, why did God the Father forsake Christ? Who forsook Jesus? There are quite a few correct answers to that question.
Let's begin with the government. The government forsook Christ as an innocent man. He should have been deemed innocent. And yet the government bent to the pressure of the Roman government. Pilate knew that Jesus had done nothing wrong.
He said, so I find no fault in this man. And yet Jesus was charged with rebellion against the Roman government because he defied Caesar's lordship. And on that basis, the Roman government deemed him a candidate for crucifixion. And again, Pilate knew different.
It was all a sham. But Jesus was forsaken by his government. He was forsaken, number two, by those he came to save.
John chapter 1 verse 10 says, He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them he gave the power to be children of God, as many as believe upon his name. The very ones, the Jews that he came to save, forsook him. The fickleness of it all, as he rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and they sang Hosanna, Hosanna to the king, only to find out that he wasn't the savior king that they were expecting. They turned on him and railed against him and joined their voices together, crucify him, crucify him. So he was forsaken by his own people. He was forsaken, thirdly, by the men, the band of men that he had poured his life into, invested for three years. He trained them, ministered with them, delegated responsibility to them, ate with them, slept with them, and spent three years of his life with them, and yet, in that hour of desperate need, even they forsook him.
And from a human perspective, that seems to be the most painful, you know? Those that he taught, those that he lived with, those that he shared life with at his arrest the night before, betrayed by one of his own, Mark tells us that they all deserted him and fled. So in his death, Jesus was abandoned, forsaken by his closest friends. And on the cross, Jesus died alone. So, forsaken by the human instruments of justice, forsaken by those he'd come to save, forsaken by his friends, it's hard to imagine a more desolate scene. And if we stop there, we fail to grasp the true nature of the forsakenness of Christ that he experienced on the cross that gives rise to the words that he uttered that we're looking at here in Matthew chapter 27.
Think with me. When human justice failed him, Jesus was silent. When his people mocked him, he did not reply.
Even in response to Peter's denial of him, there was only a look to Peter. But Jesus was also forsaken by God himself, and it was that that drew the words of the Lord Jesus from the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
David of old said, I once was young and now I am old. I've not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed pecking bread. And yet, the righteous one, Jehovah said, Cano himself was forsaken.
Think with me about what Arthur Pink says. He wrote a wonderful book on the seven sayings of Christ. He says this in his book on page 66, quote, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
These are words of deepest mystery. Of old, the Lord Jesus forsook not his people. Again and again, he was their refuge in trouble. When Israel were in cruel bondage, they cried unto God and he heard them. When they stood helpless before the Red Sea, he came to their aid and delivered them from their enemies.
When the three Hebrews were cast into the fiery furnace, the Lord was with them. But here at the cross, there ascends a more plaintive and agonizing cry than ever went up from the land of Egypt. Yet was there no response.
Here was a situation far more alarming than the Red Sea crisis. Enemies more relentless beset this one. Yet was there no deliverance. Here was a fire that burned infinitely fiercer than Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, but there was no one by his side to comfort. He is abandoned by God. Forsaken.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Many have sought to rescue God from the scandal of the cross. They think it is unworthy of his character, that it's inconsistent with his love for Christ. But the Bible will not let us do that. The cross was God's idea.
It was his set purpose and plan from before the foundation of the world. On the cross, Jesus Christ was actually forsaken by God the Father. Listen to these verses of scripture from Acts chapter 2 verse 23. Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death, whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that he should be held by it. Galatians 3 13. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Christ slain before the foundations of the world.
Mystery of mysteries. Let's think for a moment about what does it mean to be forsaken. What does it mean to be forsaken? Well, to be forsaken is to be abandoned. It's what Paul says Demas did to him in 2 Timothy 4.10. That is, Demas forsook Paul.
Paul goes on to say that everyone forsook him at his first trial and defense. It's hard for us to identify with our Savior in these words. There are things that he experienced in association with his death that we can identify with. His physical agony we can appreciate because we have all felt pain. Even his emotional grief we can sympathize with because we too have known human injustice.
And we've all known people who have betrayed us, friendships that have been lost. But to be utterly forsaken by God is to know the judicial stroke from eternal justice. We sang this evening these words, stricken, smitten, and afflicted.
See him dying on the tree. Tis the Christ by man rejected. Yes, my soul, tis he, tis he. Tis the long-expected prophet, David's son, yet David's Lord. By his Son, God now has spoken.
Tis the true and faithful word. The second stanza. Tell me, ye who hear him groaning, was there ever grief like his? Friends, through fear, his cause disowning. Foes insulting his distress. Many hands were raised to wound him.
None would interpose to save. But the deepest stroke that pierced him was the stroke that justice gave. Yes, forsaken. God forsaking Christ on the cross is not merely the absence of God's favor and blessing, though it is that. It is also the positive infliction of God's wrath for sin. He who knew no sin became sin for us. That's hard for us to imagine. He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might receive the righteousness of God through him.
An imputation. Our sin imputed to Christ. His righteousness imputed to us. But on the cross our sin, on Christ our substitute, as he satisfied divine justice. Christ endured the wrath of God that sin deserves. God's wrath at this point was not personal anger. God the Father was not angry with Jesus. In fact, God the Father was never more pleased with Jesus than when he was dying in the place of sinners on the cross because he was an obedient son. He came to do the Father's will, even to the death of the cross. But God was angry at sin and Jesus bore that anger, that wrath. Christ experienced a judicial wrath that he satisfied in the place of sinners. Again, this is from A.W.
Pink. He says this, The tragedy of Calvary must be viewed from at least four different viewpoints. At the cross man did a work. He displayed his depravity by taking the perfect one and with wicked hands, nailing him to the tree. At the cross Satan did a work.
He manifested his insatiable enmity against the woman's seed by bruising his heel. At the cross the Lord Jesus did a work. He died the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God. And at the cross God did a work. He exhibited his holiness and satisfied his justice by pouring out his wrath on the one who was made sin for us. Why was this necessary?
Well, there are a couple of reasons. The first that comes to my mind is the awfulness of sin and the wages that sin demands. The awfulness of sin. You cannot look to the sinless spotless Son of God on the cross of Calvary and not be moved by the awfulness of sin. He's there because of sin.
Not because of his sin, but because of the sin that he took upon himself of his people. Another reason is the holiness of God and the inflexible justice of Almighty God. And I don't think that we, it's hard for us to understand a thrice holy God, but there are descriptive words in our Bible that helps frame some understanding.
Listen to this expression of this. There's seven, so holy is God that, listen to these seven statements concerning the holiness of God. What pen, what human pen is able to fit to write about the unsullied holiness of God? So holy is God that mortal man cannot look upon him in his essential being and live. So holy is God that the very heavens are not clean in his sight.
So holy is God that even the seraphim veil their faces before him. So holy is God that when Abraham stood before him he cried, I am but dust and ashes, Genesis 18-27. So holy is God when Job came into his presence he said, wherefore I abhor myself, Job 42-6. So holy is God that when Isaiah had a vision of his glory he exclaimed, woe is me, for I am undone, for mine eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. So holy is God that when Daniel beheld him in theophantic manifestation he declared, there remaineth no strength in me, for my calmliness was turned in me into corruption, Daniel 10.8. So holy is God that we are told he is of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on iniquity, Habakkuk 1.13. And it was because the Savior was bearing our sins that the thrice holy God would not and could not look on him and turned his face from him and forsook him.
Yes, our God is holy. So just in brief review, why was Jesus forsaken? Well, because of the awfulness of sin and its wages.
Number two, because of the absolute holiness of God and the inflexible justice of God. That great chapter in Isaiah 53, the Lord hath laid on him, what, the iniquity of us all. It's beyond human comprehension how the wrath of God that was due to all the sins of all the people who will ever believe on Jesus is compressed and condensed in three hours and Christ bears all of that wrath in himself. The whole universe responded to it.
We read it here in Matthew 27. Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. Then behold, the veil in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom and the earth quaked and the rocks were split and the graves were opened. All of creation was revolting at this scene.
It's arresting, it's shocking, isn't it? So I think in part I've answered the question, why did God forsake Christ? But a simple answer is as profound as it is simple. Christ was forsaken by God so that we who have put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ never will be.
That's why. We deserve to be forsaken because of our sin. But Jesus was our sin bearer and he was forsaken in our stead. If you don't get anything out of the sermon tonight, please understand this. What a blessing, what a promise from the gospel. You know sometimes we hold on to promises, they're precious to us, we find great comfort in them, but sometimes we divorce them from the work of Christ and the gospel. Example, Jesus said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. And we say praise the Lord for that.
He'll be with me to the very last breath I breathe. That promise is rooted in what Jesus is doing here in Matthew 27. The reason you won't be forsaken is because Jesus was forsaken in your place.
And that promise was secured because of what he did. Now we see the love of God and the justice of God revealed here at Calvary. The sinless Son of God bears our sins and then God pours out the wrath that our sins deserve and Jesus the Son endures it so that we who deserve that wrath might never encounter it.
It's amazing. We have an amazing gospel. The hymns that we love to sing here reinforce what we're talking about here tonight. His robes for mine. His robes for mine, a wonderful exchange. Clothed in my sin, Christ suffered neath God's rage. Draped in his righteousness, I'm justified. That is declared right before God. In Christ I live, for in my place he died.
His robes for mine, what cause have I for dread? God's daunting law, Christ mastered in my stead. Faultless, I stand with righteous works not mine, saved by my Lord's vicarious death and life. His robes for mine, God's justice is appeased. Jesus is crushed and thus the Father's pleased. Christ drank God's wrath on sin, then cried, "'Tis done, sin's wages paid, propitiation won.
And to our point tonight, the last stanza. His robes for mine, such anguish none can know. Christ, God's beloved, condemned as though his foe. He, as though I, accursed and left alone.
I, as though he, embraced and welcomed home." And then the refrain, I cling to Christ and marvel at the cost. Jesus forsaken. God estranged from God.
There's a mystery for you. Bought by such love, my life is not my own, my praise, my all shall be for Christ alone. And then one other hymn, but I don't have it with me.
That's all right. Too many notes not needed for this message. What blessings our Savior has secured for us. Forgiveness of sins, cleansing from our sins, guilt removed, our names written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
Behold what manner of love is this, that God should call us sons and daughters of God. We who were estranged, we who were enemies, have been brought nigh by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's a sober reality.
It's a sober truth. God is a God of inflexible justice. He cannot turn a blind eye to sin. Sin has wages and wages have got to be paid. And the cost was great to secure the sin of one sinner, let alone myriads upon myriads upon myriads of sinners. And part of this was done in public view. And part of what God did in this divine exchange was done under the cloud of darkness. Darkness came upon the land at high noon because of what was transpiring here.
So we're just around the fringes of great mystery. But I want us to be impressed again by what Christ has done for his people. He willingly went to the cross of Calvary, knowing what that would mean, agonized in Gethsemane, Lord, if it would be possible, let this cup, this cup of wrath pass from me.
Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. And we see God's wrath toward sinners being extinguished in the person of Jesus as he hung on the cross. Eli, Eli, lama sabatanai, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus didn't ask that question because he didn't know the answer.
Jesus knew why he was forsaken by God. Jesus asked that question for your and my benefit. We need to ponder that. We need to dwell upon that. We need to think upon that.
We need to meditate upon that. We need to consider whether what he was doing, being forsaken, was he doing that for you? Have you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ?
That's how you know that he was taking your place. You've embraced the sinner substitute by faith. You're living for him who died for you. What an awful thing to be cast from God's presence, to be forsaken forever and ever and ever. That's what awaits every rebellious sinner who fails to repent and trust Jesus. But for those of us who have cast ourselves upon the mercy of the Lord, how thankful we are that God's wrath has been extinguished toward our sin in the person of his Son, and Jesus was forsaken so that you and I never will be.
Let's pray. Father, we're a bit overwhelmed as we think about this passage and what Jesus has done for us, as we think about the awfulness of sin and the wages that it demands, and we think about your holiness and your inflexible justice that always satisfied in your Son on the cross of Calvary. How can we not love him? How can we not adore him? How can we not want to serve him and live for him in this life? Deepen our appreciation for our Savior and deepen our resolve to live for him who died for us. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
