1. What are Lord meant when he said my God my God why have you forsaken me.
As I'm sure you're already aware he was quoting Psalm 22. It was a common Jewish custom to quote an extended piece of scripture by quoting the first line or two. so when he says my God my God why have you forsaken me he means to invoke the entire sense of the whole Psalm. a Psalm which explicitly says that God did not turn his face from him.
Psalm 22:24 "For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; and he has not hid his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him."
I think there is a sense were you can say that God the Father forsake the Son, that is by allowing his creatures to crucify him. But not in a sense of turning his back on the Son.
2. Why God the Father could not have turned his back on the Son.
Our God is a triune God, three in persons but one in essence. Even in the incarnation our Lord through his divine nature still shared in the beatific vision. Meaning that he saw God the Father face to face. This is essential because if there was ever a moment where God the Father turned his back on God the son, God would cease to be a triune God. This is something we know cannot happen God is God by nature and he does not have the ability to go against his own nature.
even in the incarnation our Lord still shared in the beatific vision where he sees the father face to face.
3. Jesus as our high priest.
Jesus is our high priest who offers himself on the cross to God the father on our behalf. And in John 10:17 our Lord tells us that the Father loves him for it.
“For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again."
but if God the father had turned his back on the Son or or turned his face from him it would have been a sign that God the Father rejected the sacrifice being offered. And we would all still be dead in our sin.
Amos 5:22 "Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them, and the peace offerings of your fatted beasts I will not look upon."
4. Why it was not necessary that God the Father pour out his wrath on the Son.
How could God the Father put on the Son his punishment for our sins when the punishment for sin is everlasting separation from God. Not only can God not be separated from himself but if it was the true punishment for our sins he would be forever separated.
But what does sin specifically do? It separates us from God, it brakes our relationship we have with him.
Isaiah 59:2, says, "but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear."
The wrath and torment of hell is just a natural consequence of dying separated from God. Because in this life whether we know it or not we still feel his presence. But in the next life when he finally grants us our wish and withdraws his presence from us, as a creature who is made for communion with God this will be the most agonizing torment imaginable.
So what does Christ saving work on the cross do? It restores that relationship so we can once again be called sons and daughters of God.
Romans 8:14–17
"For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, "Abba! Father!"
it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”
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