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Being arguably as hoggish as I am humble, I devoured the whole pack. But I justify it on the grounds that my sepulcher needed a good whitewashing. Looks pretty good, too, don’t you think?

Hic. Burp. Cha-cha-cha.

--Rolley Hoggard

I gave you the whole package of breath mints, Rolley, with the thought in mind that this way you'd have enough for when (not "if"!) the time comes to give some back to me.

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For the breath mints.

(Which – thinking pastorally here for the sake of those in the audience whose heads routinely hemorrhage from scratching induced by my arcane metaphors -- is an arcane metaphor for precisely the corrective I’m attempting to apply in this very sentence).

On the other hand, Mr. Quod, on the other hand: that picture of me and Van Gogh having a friendly chat about the Five Points of Various Flower Stems was blatantly and shamelessly photoshopped, and I demand a public apology.

It wasn’t enough, was it, Lee, for you to snap me crowing (?) to my friend about his new hairdo. No, you had to go and make it look like I was some feathered monstrosity out of a Hitchcock movie. Attack duck indeed.

But the height of outrage was when in addition to all this you took it upon yourself to conveniently delete the picture caption. Well, folks here are entitled to know the truth (which, if Gina is her normal astute self, will upon this cue note that I once again managed to stay on topic, albeit by the hair of a billiard ball). Where was I? I remember.

Folks are entitled to know the truth: that the original caption proves I was merely having a friendly chat with Mr. Van Gogh, for it simply read, “Hey Vincent, can I have your ear for a second?”

So again, thank you for the breath mints. But, as you can see, I’d much rather have an ear of corn.

"attack-*duck*", maybe, but most people see that as qualitatively different:
http://images.askmen.com/sports/fanatic_100/pictures_100/142b_sports_fan.jpg

And if it was just you and me discussing this privately, Rolley my dearest and closest friend - maybe via email or something - I'd be delighted to hash out all the theological nuances. But we have to remember that others may read this, others who may not be as familiar with Deut. 31:6 and Heb. 13:5 as you and I are. Some nascent new Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens may read this and think "So God abandons people, huh? Well, *I* certainly feel abandoned by him, and I've felt that way for a lot longer than a Friday afternoon to a Sunday morning. This 'God' of theirs is horribly cruel!"

I wouldn't want to provide the fodder for such a horrible mistake on anyone's part.

So I think it's important to note that while your theological position has its strengths, it certainly isn't ironclad - as if it were to be followed by four more Points, perhaps with the acronym "THORN".

And since I know you so well, I'm sure you're horrified by the thought. You'd respond with all due haste that Jesus was forsaken precisely so we would never ever be. But I think you can see how, without that addendum, repeatedly emphasized in boldface, someone might give your words a less-than-careful reading and, in the depths of their emotional distress, come to an altogether incorrect conclusion.

In an open forum, we should always think not just theologically, but pastorally as well.

I have actually heard preachers say that following in the footsteps of Jesus means that at some point you will be forsaken. What they meant is "you will **feel** forsaken, but of course you won't be." But from such slips of the tongue are decades-long struggles made, particularly in the absence of emotionally supportive father figures.

I know your heart in this, my dear brother; you want the Father and Son and Spirit to be accurately portrayed to all. Unfortunately, your audience is made up largely ;-) of those damaged by sin, who therefore easily misunderstand. I still haven't found a point of theology on which I disagree with you, beloved "Aquinas"; even this time my whole motive was to provide an escape for those who might feel the need for one.

It would be great if we could discuss this further, somehow, but mutating the topic to "Was the Father being cruel by punishing the Son, and does this make the Christian God unworthy of human devotion?" But I have enough respect for the YOD that I'll only raise the possibility here, rather than pursuing it.

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The plot, perhaps in imitation of my often ill-advised head, thickens.

Lee, the whole sticking point for me on this (and btw, I agree with Gina that Al made a bunch of great points – but judging from your response I fear maybe I came across in holier-than-thou attack-dog mode?) – the sticking point for me on this question, i.e. “did God the Father in some real sense ‘forsake’ Christ or not?” is simply this set of assumptions:

1. Christ suffered, in our stead, the legal equivalent of the punishment we deserve (I assume there is no disagreement on that?)

2. This implies (if not logically necessitates?) that since our punishment is afflictive separation from God, Christ was, in some valid sense, actually separated from / abandoned by God, and didn’t merely “feel” that way.

3. Hence my thought (and certainly not original with me) that the abandonment of Christ was real, but blessedly bound by law to be only temporary since it exhaustively fulfilled the law’s requirement.

Or to go at it from another tack, let me ask:

1. Are people who perish in Hell (i.e., those who do not avail themselves of the atonement-based advocacy of Christ) really and truly “forsaken of God”, or do they only “feel” that way?

2. In other words, did Christ as our Substitute really suffer the punishment we all deserve, or only a reasonable facsimile of same? And if the latter, if He only “felt” abandoned, where is the moral equivalency the law demands? If the penalty to the people is actual abandonment by God, why is the penalty different for the Substitute? When Christ cried “tetelestai!”, was His payment for our sins discounted because He was the Son of God?

You’ve pondered this for decades – what is the fallacy, the fatal flaw in the above reasoning? (Or is your point that it is just not worth haggling over?)

Back to Al: I find it curious that there would be consternation on this question as it relates to the Trinity. I can’t speak for everyone who holds my view, but I myself am not at all suggesting that God the Father abandoned God the Son. I am, however, of the opinion that God the Father abandoned the MAN Christ Jesus. Christ had a dual nature. (He HAD to have a dual nature to be our Substitute, b/c God cannot die; but God “as Man” CAN die). I’m simply saying that it was Christ as Man, Christ as the Second Adam, who was forsaken by God, and that He really was forsaken. Nothing Al said persuades me differently.

Perhaps an illustration will muddy the waters even more.

When he subverted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the Devil made Truth to be our enemy. Before the fall, Truth testified we were without guilt. But after the fall, Truth had to testify we were guilty of a crime punishable by death.

But lo and behold, Truth is a Person – is God Himself (John 14:6).

And Truth need not be our enemy. Indeed, it was never the will and desire of Truth to be our enemy. That was solely the desire of the Devil. In grand demonstration of the fact that Truth never wanted us to be alienated, it was Truth Himself who found a way, at infinite personal cost to Himself, to make Truth our friend once again.

How? By Truth dying for our sakes so that it would no longer be true that we are guilty in the sight of God.

But now note this, b/c it is key to my point. In dying, Truth did not cease to exist; neither did Truth become Untruth. For the Truth that died was not God as essence, not God as the Second Person of the Trinity, but God as Man. It was the Truth About Man – that he is guilty -- that died when Christ died for us. But it was the Truth About Man – that his sins are atoned for through faith – that came to life when Christ arose. There is no separation in the Trinity by Christ’s dying (being truly forsaken by God) any more than there is separation in the Trinity by the Second Person of the Godhead becoming truly Man.

By being forsaken (truly dying) in our stead, Christ redeemed our forsakenness. Which means that when we truly die (are forsaken of Life Itself) ours will be like His forsakenness – merely temporary.

Am I making any sense? Or am I only making myself more obnoxious? I’m aware that just as we seldom smell our own bad breath, so we seldom see our own conceits, so help me out here, anyone.

In the meantime, until I hear back from someone who isn’t afraid to tell me I have “bad breath”, I fear I’d better drop this theological song of Elephop and Telephong.

This issue of the Father forsaking Jesus bothered me for decades. What does it mean to "forsake" someone? It's a slightly archaic word, and therefore easily misunderstood.

The dictionary definitions don't help much; in fact, they make things worse. They talk of abandoning, giving up, leaving altogether.

But isn't God in complete control of nature? Isn't it God, therefore, who keeps everyone's heart beating, from one instant to the next? If God had forsaken Jesus per the dictionary definition, wouldn't Jesus have died on the cross *at that very instant*, and not somewhat later?

So IMNSHO "forsaken" must mean something else, at least in this case. Another dictionary synonym is "renounce", as in giving up something that was once important to you. People speak of "renouncing their childhood religion", for example. But in those cases, the action is intended to be permanent, not temporary; someone may "renounce" their smoking habit or drinking habit, only to relapse into it, but this is seen as a personal failure. Are we trying to say that the Father went soft and caved in after three days?

One of the problems with theology is that it can easily become an intellectual exercise entirely divorced from the flesh-and-blood world of real people. It seems to me that this issue is one of those that God has intended to leave with us, to remind us that we're not as smart as we may think we are.

So what I take from this is that Al and Rolley can *both* be right. God can put someone in the position where they suffer mightily - whether by physical or mental pain, by the social rejection of others, by the loss of relationship with a child, by facing the potential of remaining single for life, by loneliness in the later stages of life, by impending death due to disease, or a hundred other reasons - leaving them feeling forsaken by Him. Are they *really* forsaken, though?

The answer, it seems to me, is both "yes" *and* "no". "Yes" in the sense that they certainly feel forsaken. "Yes" in the sense that God certainly *could* change their circumstances; He has the capacity to do anything whatsoever. But "no", since they are still alive, and even if they die, God is with their soul. "No" since God either directly through a spiritual connection or indirectly through His Word and the presence of other Christians can and does provide a measure of relief from suffering. I believe this was the primary thrust of Al Hsu's article; even in the depths of the forsakenness of the Cross, Jesus still found the hope of "Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!"

For me, the most important message is that in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus took His eyes off His own suffering, and thought of others. In the book of Job we see a man suffering mightily, who finally discovers "it's not all about me". In fact, as so many dramas remind us, my willingness to suffer and even die for the sake of others is what is important; it shows I have the right perspective on my relative significance versus letting my ego direct me.

Atheists I have known have had a very high view of their own importance, and a very low view of the importance of others. God, through the Cross, tells us that this is backward. But Satan says we should not lose our pride.

So, did the Father really forsake the Son, but only for three days, as you say, Rolley, or as Al says was Jesus really proclaiming that God doesn't abandon anyone, even if it looks like it? Does God forsake only briefly, or never? In the end, it doesn't really matter, because in both cases we feel exactly the same way. And in both cases the solution is the same: go through what God has set before you, finding all the comfort you can while not denying the reality of your situation, but turn your eyes from yourself to others, both those around you and those not even yet born, and suffer well. Follow the example of the One who showed us how it's done.

I think you have a point there, Rolley. His reasoning did strike me as a bit circular, though there were some good points in there.

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I luv ya Al, I really do. But (IMHO) there’s more to that cry than just “I’m fulfilling Psalm 22!”

There are other “messianic” Psalms to consider – Ps 16, for instance, and in particular verse 10: “You will not leave My soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.” The point is, the Man Christ Jesus really was – indeed had to be - forsaken; His was the cry of one who, for our sakes, really was abandoned by God – just not for very long (3 Jewish days).

To state that “Jesus is not saying that God has forsaken him. He's declaring the opposite. He's saying that God is with him, even in this time of seeming abandonment, and that God will vindicate him by raising him from the dead”, strikes me as very peculiar, as ultimately a minimization of Christ’s suffering, and by extension, ours.

It is, to me, analogous to telling a Christian woman who is about to become the victim of a rape-murder “God is with you” simply because “God will vindicate [her] by raising [her] from the dead.”

There’s a grain of truth in that, but goodness gracious it is wildly out of proportion. It almost completely misses the point of Christ’s cry. There’s a grand principle enshrined in these words of Christ.

The principle is that God’s triumph over the Devil must come at the cost of Man’s (i.e. Christ’s) abandonment to horrific suffering and death.

The first explicit mention of this principle is in Genesis (3:15), but it is illustrated throughout the Old Testament, most vividly in the Book of Job. Even as God gave Job into Satan’s hands, so God gave Christ into Satan’s hands – and more so, since Christ, unlike Job, was given up to death at the hands of the Devil (John 13:2).

“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me” is at once the cry of Man abandoned by God to the mercy of the Devil, and the voice of triumph over that same Devil; for it was by his horrible suffering and death that Man (Christ) conquered death and destroyed the works of the Devil. But the cry, as much as the suffering and death, was real. The Man Christ Jesus was abandoned by God to Sheol - He really was – but just not for long.

I know the author’s intentions are good, and he said a lot of excellent things, and I love him; and I sincerely hate to always come off as a critic of the best of the best. I really do. But.

This statement of his seemed to me to require a response: “Does God abandon those who cry out to him? How could God forsake the perfect God-man, the only one who has ever served him perfectly? Because if Jesus was truly forsaken by God, what's preventing God from forsaking any of us? How could we ever trust him to be good?”

Here’s how, my friend: God proved at Calvary that He hates our suffering more than we do by as much as a parent hates the suffering of his children or a husband that of his wife. He took our place! But if the Devil was to be destroyed, if eternal redemption was to be won, the principle had to be established that “Man must suffer horrifically”, otherwise Christ could not suffer. And if Christ did not suffer – well, you finish the sentence.

Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane showed that the cup of horrific suffering would have been excluded from human experience had it been possible. But it was not possible. Neither is the elimination of the suffering that we endure, even the variety that is “totally unfair” – at least not yet. The principle HAD to be established that “Man must suffer horrifically”.

But thanks to God’s instituting the principle that permitted even the Son of God (!) to suffer that which was “totally unfair”, the day is coming – is surely coming – when “there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Rev 21:4).

In the meantime, there is no need to conclude that because anyone is abandoned to suffering and death it is indicative of a God who does not care, or is unworthy of our trust. Quite the opposite. Christ sanctified our worst suffering. He redeemed it. He made even our worst experiences to be but short-lived nuisances “not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed in us”.

He who allows us to be led like sheep to the slaughter (Rom 8:36) does not do so but for one reason, motivated by breathtakingly great love: that in the temporary bruising of Man’s heel, the head of our mortal enemy may be eternally crushed.