The Wors Of Anguish

Introduction:

We stand once again at the foot of the cross. It is now midday. For three hours the suffering body of Jesus has been exposed to the burning rays of the sun. His tortured mind has been subjected to the taunts of a ribald crowd and the assaults of the merciless powers of evil. The divine Sufferer has almost reached the point of exhaustion when a supernatural phenomenon takes place. The sun is at its zenith, yet darkness falls over the whole earth. Such darkness could not have been due to an eclipse, for it was at the time of full moon. It is a darkness that can be felt. We can imagine people returning to the city, wailing with fright, as they beat their breasts and say to one another, "Surely the judgment of God is about to fall upon us!" Suddenly a cry is heard through that midday midnight-the cry of the Son of God-"… My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46).

So with chastened spirits and subdued hearts, let us allow these words to burn into our souls and to stir us to a new love and surrender to the One who gave Himself for us. Consider, first of all, how this cry of anguish expresses:

I. The Faithfulness of the Son of God-"…My God, My God…" (Matthew 27:46). Something is happening there in the darkness which will never be comprehended by finite minds in time or eternity. .

 In the midst of the darkness God is dealing with His Son in a way that passes human comprehension. Here is:

 1) The Faithfulness of His Reciprocal Love. He would recall His own words: "Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again" (John 10:17), and He uses that term of personal affection, "My God, My God." His reciprocal love is unshaken and unshakable, even though God had to hide His face from Him.

2) The Faithfulness of His Responsive Trust-"…My God, My God…" (Matthew 27:46). The word Eloi means "the strength of God, as if to say, "O my God, I must trust Thee in the midst of anguish, agony and darkness." How like the words of Job before Him: "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him…" (Job 13:13). Had the faithfulness of the Son of God broken down, the substitutionary character of His death would have been invalidated. But with all the physical suffering at the hands of men, the mental suffering at the hands of Satan, and the spiritual suffering at the hand of God, He was unshakable in His love and trust.

 II. The Forsakenness of the Son of God-"…My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46). "I can understand the nation forsaking Me," He might have said, "for they never recognized in Me the Messiah." "He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him" (John 1:11). Again, "I can understand My own family forsaking Me," for "…even His brothers did not believe in Him" (John 7:5). "I can understand even My disciples forsaking Me, for all the disciples [had forsaken] Him and fled" (Matthew 26:56). "But O My God, why have YOU forsaken Me?" It is hard to understand the meaning of that word "forsaken," but in its true etymological connotation it means "dereliction," "separation," or "leaving entirely alone."

Why did God hide His face from Him and leave Him entirely alone? There is only one answer: because of SIN. In Psalm 22 where these words are quoted-"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?…" (Psalm 22:1)-we find they are followed by the words, "But You are holy, who inhabit the praises of Israel" (Psalm 22:3). In that moment the Lord Jesus was identifying Himself with:

 The Reality of Sin. Paul tells us: "…He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21). He did not merely take upon Him guilt, but sin in all its ugly reality. Our feeble minds reel at the thought of it. Imagine the purest character you have ever known being brought into the most loathsome surroundings. Cause that body to be brought into contact with all the disease, corruption and loathsomeness of sin in its outworking; and bring upon that spirit and soul the sense of guiltiness and culpability and awfulness of sin and you begin to understand what it meant for Jesus to be "made sin." Is it any wonder that He cried out. "…My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46); and later, "…I am a worm, and no man…" (Psalm 22:6). The word for "worm" there is cocus. It is the little worm that was crushed to produce the red dye for the coverings of the tabernacle and for the robes of the high priest. From it were extracted the crimson and scarlet, which symbolized sin in its essence. So Jesus was saying, "I am a crushed worm: I have become sin itself." John 3:14 says: "…as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up." Why was the serpent lifted up in the wilderness? It was a symbol of the very thing that was slaying the camp of Israel. The venom and poison of the snake were represented in that brazen serpent. So the Lord Jesus was identified with the reality of sin; and also with:

2) The Totality of Sin-"All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us ALL" (Isaiah 53:6). John the Baptist, pointing to Jesus said, "…Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). God focused on Him the sin of the whole world. We cannot imagine what that could mean. As a magnifying glass focuses the rays of the sun upon one point, so that it immediately burns with concentrated heat, so the misery, crime, pollution, corruption and guilt of all the human race, in its most concentrated form, was made to focus upon the head of the Son of God.

He was identified not only with the reality and totality of sin, but with:

3) The Fatality of Sin-"…The soul who sins shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4); and again: "…the wages of sin is death…" (Romans 6:23). It was not merely physical death which was sealed with those words, "…It is finished!…" (John 19:30), it was hell-alienation from God. In those three hours a whole eternity of hell was compressed into the experience of our Savior.

When two friends love each other dearly, the longer their friendship is unbroken, the more tragic and painful it is when the breach comes. Can you imagine, then, how terrible it must have been, in the experience of our Lord Jesus Christ, who had never known one moment of unbroken fellowship with His Father, to have Him hide His face from Him? No wonder we hear His cry of abandonment.

Praise God, however, there is a light which gleams from that darkness. In the word of anguish we have:

III. The Fulfillment of the Son of God-"…My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46). During those hours of separation and unspeakable anguish not a word passed from the lips of the Savior. But now He has emerged, the sun is about to break through again, and as He looks back on that shattering experience He says, "…why have You forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46). It was a completed act. He is about to make it official to a world of angels and principalities. The reverberations of the shout-"It is finished!"-(John 19:30) are being felt all over the world until this present hour. There was a fulfillment of all the love, grace and mercy of God in Christ for men and women like you and me. He was forsaken that we might never be forsaken. "…God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them… (2 Cor. 5:19). When the Savior was "made sin" for us (2 Cor. 5:21), the whole work of reconciliation was completed so that we might be:

1) Reinstated-"…God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them…" (2 Cor. 5:19). We are now made to appear before God in a favorable light, as if we had never sinned. What matchless grace and unbounded love for a loathsome sinner! God "…devises means, so that His banished ones are not expelled from Him" (2 Samuel 14:14). Because we have been clothed in His righteousness we can now sit down under His shadow "…with great delight…" (Song 2:3).

2) Recreated-"…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new" (2 Cor. 5:17). Praise God, we can know what it is to be clothed not only in righteousness, but created in righteousness, and so be "…partakers of the divine nature…" (2 Peter 1:4). Paul writes in Romans 8:15-"…you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, 'Abba, Father.               

Conclusion

Have you heard the confession of the faithfulness of the Son of God? Have you listened to the expression of His forsakenness? Have you appreciated something of the impression of His fulfillment? There can be only one reply to this word of anguish of the Savior and that is to gladly surrender our lives for His service; 

 God Bless You