He is Forsaken by God

It was in the dark hour when the Messiah bore the sins of the world. In His last three hours of crucifixion the world was coved with darkness, and Jesus was facing the darkest situation as He bore all the sins of this world. He was sinless and yet was made sin for us that man might be reconciled with God and that man might have direct access to God. Truly the suffering Jesus bore on our behalf was indescribable agony.

When Jesus Christ was being hung on the cross, He felt the loneliness. He was alone bearing the sins of the world. The multitudes that had seen the miracles He performed, the sick that had received healing from Him and His own disciples, had all forsaken Him, and left Him alone to be spat upon and smitten. The agonies of Jesus were great and indescribable when His own Father forsook Him. As Lockyer said, “It was heart-rending enough for Jesus to have disciples forsake Him and flee; but to be forsaken by His own Father was surely the crown of His anguish.” God the Father forsook Him not in the sense that He stopped loving His Son but rather because He was the sin-bearer. Lockyer again commented, "The face of God was turned, not so much from His Son in whom He always delighted, but from what His Son was bearing, namely, the sin of a lost world, for He was of purer eyes than to look upon iniquity. “God made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin.” Thus, it was more from Christ as the sin-bearer than from His actual Son that the Father hid His face. The strange enigma of God-forsakenness can only be understood in the light of Christ’s mediatorial office."

Matthew knew that God the Father forsaking His Son (Matt. 27:46) was surely the fulfillment of what the Psalmist had prophesied when He said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?” (Ps. 22:1). It was the cry of Jesus Christ on the cross when He bore all the sins of the world.