The Crushing Was the Forsaking: Psalm 22, Penal Substitution, and the Father's Love for the Son
Jared C. Wilson Blog | May 1, 2012
This line horrifies me. It calls into question the very nature of God. Is God the kind of God that turns his back on his Son? 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?Generally speaking, I appreciated Hsu's article for what it set out to do. It says a lot, and certainly should have said more -- a 6-page article on the prophetic grounding of the crucifixion that doesn't mention Isaiah 53 even in passing seems odd, to say the least, and no clear affirmation of the penal substitution view of the atonement is an effective denial, as many pointed out -- but this is its gist:
That's what's happening in Psalm 22. It starts out with the psalmist feeling forsaken and abandoned. "Why have you forsaken me? ... I cry out by day, but you do not answer." But he's not literally forsaken, any more than the other psalms mean that God was literally forgetting the psalmist forever. It's expressing how the psalmist felt at the time.This is a minority view, I believe, but it is one I defended (briefly) in my book Your Jesus is Too Safe. Consequently, it is the portion of that book that I still receive the most questions about.
But that's not the end of the story. Like the other psalms of lament, there's a pivot point. Several, in fact. Verse 9: "Yet you brought me out of the womb ... from my mother's womb you have been my God." Verse 19: "But you, Lord, do not be far from me. You are my strength; come quickly to help me." The psalm is not a psalm of forsakenness. It starts out that way, but it shifts to confidence in God's deliverance. Verse 22: "I will declare your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you." And here's the key verse, verse 24: "For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help."
Here is a direct refutation of the notion that the Father turned his face away from the Son. But the refutation is not as important as the pivot. Jesus is declaring: Right now, you are witnessing Psalm 22. I seem forsaken right now, but my death is not the end of the story. God has not despised my suffering. I will be vindicated. The Lord has heard my cry. Because death is not the end. Verse 30-31: "Future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!"
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.
Phil Johnson chalked Hsu's article a "stupefyingly inept" attack on penal substitution. I am not so sure. Daniel Wallace's fuller response is helpful, I think. Wallace writes:
To Hsu's question, "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?" Paul gives the decisive answer: "he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all---how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things?" (Romans 8.32 [NET]). It is precisely because Jesus has suffered in our place that God is now free to give us all things, to do good to us at all times.Yes and amen. I believe that as the cross is the center of Christ's atoning work, penal substitution is the center of the cross. (I have a chapter in a forthcoming book dedicated to the centrality of penal substitution in Christ's atoning work, surveying it as found in the biblical narrative from beginning to end.) So I don't believe one has to jettison or even minimize the doctrine to track with the view that the Father did not forsake the Son at the crucifixion---at least, not in the way it is often described.
There is so much more in the New Testament that reveals a righteous and holy God who loves sinners, but a God who cannot permit them in his presence without death of an innocent substitute, for "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin" (Hebrews 9.22).
As A. T. Robertson wrote long ago, "no one of the theories of the atonement states all the truth nor, indeed, do all of them together. The bottom of this ocean of truth has never been sounded by any man's plumb-line. There is more in the death of Christ for all of us than any of us has been able to fathom.... However, one must say that substitution is an essential element in any real atonement" (A. T. Robertson, The Minister and His Greek New Testament, 40-41).
I think we need to clarify what is meant by the Father's forsaking. Everyone assumes that the Father's forsaking of the Son is in his pouring out of his justified wrath upon the Son for the sin he is bearing on the cross. And with that, I agree. Thabiti Anyabwile ran a recent series on what it meant for the Father to forsake the Son on the cross; here are his major points:
1. The Father Allowed Jesus to Suffer Social AbandonmentI cannot say that Dr. Anyabwile agrees with my view; I will only say that I agree with his (as stated). And I would sum it up this way: The crushing was the forsaking.
2. The Father Allowed Jesus to Suffer Emotional Desertion
3. The Father Allowed the Son to Suffer Spiritual Wrath
For there is another caricature that pops its head up, one on the other side from "divine child abuse," and it is this: "God cannot look upon sinners." This is the way many speak of the Father's forsaking of Christ on the cross: That because God is perfectly holy, he can't look at sin, and so must depart, or "look away." He "abandoned" Christ on the cross, goes this view. I am not sure where it comes from exactly, but it is kindred spirits with the notion that "God is a gentleman." It posits God's holiness as more of a weak constitution, and I think, like the worst caricatures of free will theists, it makes God a cosmic pushover.
I do not see much strong biblical warrant for this understanding of the forsaking of Christ. Isaiah 59:2 casts God as unbending toward sin, not as one with delicate sensibilities about it. In Habakkuk 1:13 where we see the notion that God's eyes are too pure to look on sin at the same time says he is looking at it. (Both are the perspective of the disgruntled Habakkuk, anyway, not doctrinal declarations.) We have to be careful about what we say, and what we mean by what we say. If by "forsaken" we mean punished, tormented, even "cast out," we see this as God's active wrath on the Son. But if by "forsaken" we mean the Father abandoning or shrinking back from the Son because he "can't stand" to be there, we are on shaky biblical ground. That view has several other things going against it.
1. It casts sin as God's kryptonite, making sin more powerful than he. But holiness does not mean frailty or delicateness. The Father is no shrinking violet. When we say God cannot abide sin, we mean that it cannot exist in his presence. When the Father and sin exist in the same space, he will destroy it in furious vengeance, not run from the room mortified.
2. It posits a breach in the Trinity that is a doctrinal bridge too far. Christ did not begin as our substitute when he took to the cross, but was our sinless substitute all along, and indeed was bearing our sins through his sinless birth, his sinless temptation in the wilderness, and the rest of his sinless life. Christ's active obedience in his real, tempted, tiring life is the grounds for the perfect righteousness imputed to us when we trust him. He was at the beginning of his ministry the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). And during this time, the Father says "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). The way some describe the Father's forsaking of the Son sounds tantamount to hatred of him. But we must always maintain simultaneously, the Father's eternal love for the Son and the Father's timely killing of the Son in propitiating sacrifice. To say the Father poured his wrath upon his Son is not to say he was divorced from him. He was ever-present, abandoning him to suffering but not to excommunication from himself. John Calvin is instructive here:
Though the perception of the flesh would have led him to dread destruction, still in his heart faith remained firm, by which he beheld the presence of God, of whose absence he complains. We have explained elsewhere how the Divine nature gave way to the weakness of the flesh, so far as was necessary for our salvation, that Christ might accomplish all that was required of the Redeemer. We have likewise pointed out the distinction between the sentiment of nature and the knowledge of faith; and, there ore, the perception of God's estrangement from him, which Christ had, as suggested by natural feeling, did not hinder him from continuing to be assured by faith that God was reconciled to him. This is sufficiently evident from the two clauses of the complaint; for, before stating the temptation, he begins by saying that he betakes himself to God as his God, and thus by the shield of faith he courageously expels that appearance of forsaking which presented itself on the other side. In short, during this fearful torture his faith remained uninjured, so that, while he complained of being forsaken, he still relied on the aid of God as at hand.And in the Institutes:
[C]ertainly no abyss can be imagined more dreadful than to feel that you are abandoned and forsaken of God, and not heard when you invoke him, just as if he had conspired your destruction. To such a degree was Christ dejected, that in the depth of his agony he was forced to exclaim, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" The view taken by some, that he here expressed the opinion of others rather than his own conviction, is most improbable; for it is evident that the expression was wrung from the anguish of his inmost soul. We do not, however, insinuate that God was ever hostile to him or angry with him. How could he be angry with the beloved Son, with whom his soul was well pleased? or how could he have appeased the Father by his intercession for others if He were hostile to himself? But this we say, that he bore the weight of the divine anger, that, smitten and afflicted, he experienced all the signs of an angry and avenging God. (II.16.xi.)3. It blurs the lines between Christ as sinless sacrifice and Christ as sin-bearer. Following from point 2 above, whatever 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Galatians 3:13 mean, they cannot mean that the incarnate Son of God was a sinner, or else he could not have been our substitute. Our sin was laid upon him that our suffering for sin should be laid upon him, and in this he received the wrath of the Father but in his sinless divinity, at no point diminished, he maintained the love of the Father.
4. It fails to account for the context of Psalm 22. Jesus is quoting this song, and so the text of Psalm 22 should have the greatest bearing on our understanding of Christ's lament. You can feel forsaken and not be forsaken. (This is good pastoral encouragement, if anything.) For all of the weaknesses of Mr. Hsu's article, this is its strength: it seeks its understanding of Christ's words in their inspiration. And in that psalm, we see David's lament of forsakenness but his confessions of faith. That David felt forsaken does not mean he saw the disposition of the Father clearly. But as the song progresses we learn where his trust is found:
For he has not despised or abhorredThis is a messianic psalm, the prophecy of the penal work at the cross there in vivid detail, and we do it no dishonor to note that if God would not hide his face from David, he certainly would not from his only begotten Son. And on the flip side, because the Son took the place of the forsaken, we who trust in him can know that we will never be (2 Corinthians 4:9; Hebrews 13:5). The sacrifice of Christ was propitious.
the affliction of the afflicted,
and he has not hidden his face from him,
but has heard, when he cried to him.
-- Psalm 22:24
Comments:
May 3, 2012 at 03:40 PM
From one Jared to another, I thank you for your thoughts. I have been studying this topic with increased interest since I began preparing to speak on Matt 27:46 during our Good Friday service this year.
I personally find John Flavel's thoughts very helpful on the nature of being forsaken of God, he wrote: “Divine desertion generally considered, is God’s withdrawing himself from any, not as to his essence, that fills heaven and earth, and constantly remains the same; but it is the withdrawment of his favour, grace, and love: when these are gone, God is said to be gone.”
On one hand, God was obviously there with his Son in one very real sense. And at the same time, he abandoned his Son, in another very real sense, by withdrawing his "favour, grace, and love." So I don’t see any problem with classic definitions of the atonement that assert that God withdrew his “sight” or “gaze” or removed his “countenance” from his Son if you likewise assert that God was still there, still omnipresent, still God. I don’t believe this view is susceptible to the kryptonite analogy.
I’m not sure there is a pressing need to define “forsaken” as to mean only the experience of God’s wrath, aside from any notion abandonment. I believe that to be forsaken is (negatively) to be abandoned, while (positively) experiencing God’s wrath. I can’t imagine what God’s wrath is like without considering his actual abandonment being a part of it.
Additionally, I’m not sure that anyone outside of Hell will ever be able to fully comprehend what it is to be forsaken by God and therefore will not be able to perfectly articulate what it is that Christ actually experienced. But I believe we can affirm that he was abandoned without having to squirm at the charges of “cosmic child abuse,” or that he’s an “unloving God,” etc. Two quick thoughts on this:
a) Even unelect sinners are shown mercy through the outpouring of God's common grace and through his forbearance of their sins. They are not yet truly forsaken.
b) God is omnipresent, even in Hell (Ps 139:7-8, Pr 15:11)...contrary to the popular saying that “Hell is the absence of God.” How could he not be there? -his wrath is there. But we both would probably agree that his mercy is not; and so, in a very real sense, we can say with confidence that God has "forsaken/abondoned" those in Hell.
Psalm 22:
I’ve been struggling with this thought, and here it is: I don’t think it’s quite correct to assert that Psalm 22 is a messianic Psalm AND that Jesus was merely quoting the Psalm. I think it’s more accurate to say that David was prophetically quoting Jesus, rather than it is to say that Jesus was quoting David. Does that make sense?
In other words, I don’t believe that Jesus was actively contemplating that particular text and quoting it with the intention that he wanted to show those present (and us by extension) the full extent and exact nature of his suffering by pointing to David’s experience. I do believe that, while both David and Jesus had each uttered the very same words in reaction to what they both were experiencing at a particular moment in time, it was David’s abandonment that was perceived, while Christ’s was actual.
Why do I hold to this position? Because I think that affirming anything less (even if by doing so it seems to resolve a tension or answer a specific objection more satisfactorily) diminishes the degree of Jesus’ suffering by implying that our perceived abandonment by God from time to time is the same, in essence, as that which Jesus experienced on the cross. I believe they are analogous but distinct.
I do agree with you that there are some very important pastoral applications in this passage not to be overlooked: David felt abandoned, we feel that way at times; David clung to the promises of God and we must do likewise. This is the volitional aspect of our faith and is a great example of why it needs to be so much more than experiential. I think this is the major application of David’s cry.
I believe the major application of Jesus’ cry is to point us to the truth of penal substitution – that he bore the punishment in his body, for our sins, and that it was a very real abandonment by the Father – something that we may never understand, and by the grace of God, something we will never experience.
Thanks again for your thoughts!
Jared
May 2, 2012 at 11:44 PM
I thank you for this post! I am fairly sure I hold the so-called "minority" view with you and John Calvin, insofar as it means: the Father did not *fully* forsake his Son such that he actually *couldn't* look upon him. I get bugged when people quote Habbakuk 1:13 as if God can't look on sin *at all* rather than he can't look on it *with approval.* I love this quote from you: "When the Father and sin exist in the same space, he will destroy it in furious vengeance, not run from the room mortified." Amen! So as this relates to the crucifixion, no, the skies were not darkened so that the Father wouldn't have to look upon his sinful Son and burn his eyes out (as if God exists somewhere in outer space and sees everything on earth from a telescope!). Rather, it was a physical representation of the spiritual turmoil in Christ's soul as he took our place.
And I think I also agree with you and Calvin when you state that there was a sense in which God, even while pouring out his wrath on him, still loved him and was "well pleased" with him. Yet I would rather pull a David Platt and say, "God hates and loves sinners" with respect to the cross - i.e., "God hated and loved his Son while he was our substitute" - than say with you, it wasn't "tantamount to hatred of him." I think in a very real sense it was that. The text you referenced from 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Galatians 3:13 and other texts like 1 Peter 2:24 do state very plainly that on the cross, the Son of God became sin, became a curse, and "bore our sins in his body." Meaning that as Christ's alien righteousness is imputed to us and we are viewed with love and pleasure, so our sins were imputed to Christ and he was viewed with wrath and displeasure (this seems to me to be the plain reading of 2 Cor 5:21). Given the tension that this double-sided imputation places on Christ and his relation to the Father, I would sleep better at night saying that at the Cross, God poured out his anger, fury, and hatred onto his Son in the place of and for the sins of his people - and yet, during this act he still delighted in his Son. Even Calvin said both, "[Jesus] bore the weight of the divine anger" and, "How could [God] be angry with his beloved Son, with whom his soul was well pleased?" And I think that question can be answered in a helpful way. God can't be angry with his beloved Son, but he can be angry at the sins of man that are imputed *to* the divine Son. And as we are reckoned righteous, he was reckoned guilty, such that the Son himself really was under the anger of God. With regard to the imputation, Christ was hated at Calvary. But with regard to his divine nature, Christ was loved at Calvary. That is probably how I would put it, and I do not know how much it differs from your view.
May 2, 2012 at 05:00 PM
Tertullian's _Against Praxeas_ seems to track with you (and Calvin) on this point:
But this [i.e. Christ's cry] was the voice of flesh and soul, that is to say, of man--not of the Word and Spirit, that is to say, not of God; and it was uttered so as to prove the impassibility of God, who “forsook” His Son, so far as He handed over His human substance to the suffering of death. This verity the apostle also perceived, when he writes to this effect: “If the Father spared not His own Son.” This did Isaiah before him likewise perceive, when he declared: “And the Lord hath delivered Him up for our offenses.” In this manner He “forsook” Him, in not sparing Him; “forsook” Him, in delivering Him up. In all other respects the Father did not forsake the Son, for it was into His Father’s hands that the Son commended His spirit. (Chapter 30, "How the Son was Forsaken by the Father on the Cross")
May 2, 2012 at 04:29 PM
Thanks for writing this helpful piece. I always wondered, if sin was such a kryptonite to God, then how he was ever able to get anything done?
Also, does this mentality of God being unable to "look on" sin play out missionally in evangelical circles? Does this explain why we insulate ourselves from hurting and sinful people, since God (in some popular explanations) has to turn away and hide from them as well?
May 1, 2012 at 03:57 PM
Thanks for this brother. Some good work and some some good thinking here. The body is helped by your efforts and Christ is exalted. What else could a man of God want from his labors?
Ryan Phelps
May 3, 2012 at 11:28 AM
Hey Jared-
Really great stuff here. Thank you for tackling this issue.
What I’m trying to get a grasp of is not your argument, but rather what you’re arguing against. At the heart of your piece is determining the meaning behind “forsaken.” You lay out two options:
(a) Forsaking means punished, tormented ‘cast out.’ Or,
(b) Forsaking means abandoning the son because God can’t stand to be around sin.
1. So would you say that the second proposition is the “majority” view? In the bit of digging I did that didn’t seem to be the case. But I could easily be wrong.
2. More importantly, it seems that you’ve set up a false dilemma here and, by so doing, have left out what I’d say is the majority view. Your argument, at least how you set it up, is not against the idea of forsakenness as abandonment, but rather against the motive for it. And as far as that goes, I think you're right. But it doesn’t follow from this that there was no ontological abandonment at all. While we may not understand it, it is conceivable for God not to consider sin 'kryptonite' while maintaining the idea that He nevertheless “divorced” himself from his Son.
3. In your second point you do seem to argue against any ontological separation by saying that “It posits a breach in the Trinity that is a doctrinal bridge too far.” I hear you. But can you really let the tail of doctrine wag the dog of exegesis? I’m not saying we can understand fully (or even partially!) the nature of the ontological “divorce.” But I think it’s better to let the text speak for itself and lean into mystery thereafter. Says Carson, “If we ask what the ontological sense of the Father and the Son are here divided, the answer must be that we do not know because we are not told.”
4. It’s possible that Jesus assumed all of Psalm 22 by quoting its first verse, but this is not obvious. Blomberg notes that neither Jesus, nor Matthew, do this anywhere else in the book.
Thanks again for your contribution here.
Ryan