Chapter 162—Forsaken by His Father
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Matthew 27:46
.
He [Jesus] was betrayed by a kiss into the hands of His enemies, and
hurried to the judgment hall of an earthly court.... The angelic host beheld
with wonder and with grief Him who had been the Majesty of heaven, and
who had worn the crown of glory, now wearing the crown of thorns, a
bleeding victim to the rage of an infuriated mob, fired to insane madness by
the wrath of Satan. Behold the patient Sufferer! Upon His head is the thorny
crown. His lifeblood flows from every lacerated vein....
Behold the oppressor and the oppressed! A vast multitude enclose the
Saviour of the world. Mockings and jeerings are mingled with the coarse
oaths of blasphemy.... Christ, the precious Son of God, was led forth, and
the cross was laid upon His shoulders.... Thronged by an immense crowd of
bitter enemies and unfeeling spectators, He is led away to the crucifixion....
He is nailed to the cross, and hangs suspended between the heavens and the
earth.... The glorious Redeemer of a lost world was suffering the penalty of
man’s transgression of the Father’s law. He was about to ransom His people
with His own blood....
Oh, was there ever suffering and sorrow like that endured by the dying
Saviour! It was the sense of His Father’s displeasure which made His cup so
bitter. It was not bodily suffering which so quickly ended the life of Christ
upon the cross. It was the crushing weight of the sins of the world, and a
sense of His Father’s wrath.... The fierce temptation that His own Father had
forever left Him caused that piercing cry from the cross: “My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me?”
In His dying agony, as He yields up His precious life, He has by faith
alone to trust in Him whom it has ever been His joy to obey.... Denied even
bright hope and confidence in the triumph which will be His in the future, He
cries with a loud voice: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (
Luke
23:46
). He is acquainted with the character of His Father, with His justice,
His mercy, and His great love, and in submission He drops into His hands.
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