2012 Lenten Reflection Series
While prayerfully considering Why Does God Suffer?, I came across advance material from Thomas H. McCall’s Forsaken: The Trinity and the Cross, and Why It Matters (InterVarsity, May 2012). With the excerpt, InterVarsity Press Academic posted two questions on G+:
- Was Jesus forsaken on the Cross?
- What are the implications of the answer?
Below’s an edited version of what I shared.
Was Jesus forsaken on the Cross? Yes, but it’s important to define how Jesus was forsaken on the cross. I appreciated what Thomas H. McCall shared from Peter Lombard:
His answer is simple and straightforward: the Father abandoned the Son to this death, at the hands of these sinful people, on this cross, “So let us profess that God abandoned that man to death in some way, because for a time he exposed him to the power of his persecutors; God did not defend him by displaying his power so that he would not die. The Godhead severed itself because it took away its protection, but did not dissolve the union; it separated outwardly so that it was not there to defend him, but it was not absent inwardly in regard to the union†between Father, Son and Holy Spirit (46). [Read more…] about Was Jesus Forsaken?