A common view held in Evangelical, Reformed Protestantism and Seventh Day Adventism is that Jesus in Matthew 27:46 was abandoned by the Father and feared the Cross, Jesus’ resopone of this abandonment being “My God My God, why hast thou forsaken me” (Matthew 27:46). This is blasphemy and heretical, since this divides the one Person of the Logos into two persons Human and Divine, undercutting the Hypostatic Union (i.e. the fact that the Human and Divine natures of the Logos are inseparable and non divisible). Also this necessitates a separation of essence between the Father and the Son which is polytheistic. If there is separation in Jesus’ humanity to the Father, there is separation of divinity (according the the Hypostatic Union).
I have quoted some Church Fathers that apologetically fight against the Nestorian Heresy below. Enjoy!
Others again are said in the manner of association and relation25772577 οἰκείωσις καὶ ἀναφορά., as, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me25782578 St. Matt. xxvii. 46.? and He hath made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin25792579 2 Cor. v. 21., and being made a curse for us25802580 Gal. iii. 13.; also, Then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him25812581 1 Cor. xv. 28. For neither as God nor as man25822582 Greg. Naz., Orat. 36. was He ever forsaken by the Father, nor did He become sin or a curse, nor did He require to be made subject to the Father. For as God He is equal to the Father and not opposed to Him nor subjected to Him; and as God, He was never at any time disobedient to His Begetter to make it necessary for Him to make Him subject25832583 Ibid.. Appropriating, then, our person and ranking Himself with us, He used these words. For we are bound in the fetters of sin and the curse as faithless and disobedient, and therefore forsaken.
Further, these words, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me22262226 St. Matt. xxvii. 46.? He said as making our personality His own22272227 Greg. Naz., Orat. 36; Cyril, De recta fide; Athanas., Contr. Arian., bk. iv.. For neither would God be regarded with us as His Father, unless one were to discriminate with subtle imaginings of the mind between that which is seen and that which is thought, nor was He ever forsaken by His divinity: nay, it was we who were forsaken and disregarded. So that it was as appropriating our personality that He offered these prayers2228
John Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 3, Concerning the Lord’s Prayer
49. There is still, the heretics say, another serious and far reaching confession of weakness, all the more so because it is in the mouth of the Lord Himself, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me11801180 St. Matt. xxvii. 46.? They construe this into the expression of a bitter complaint, that He was deserted and given over to weakness. But what a violent interpretation of an irreligious mind! how repugnant to the whole tenor of our Lord’s words! He hastened to the death, which was to glorify Him, and after which He was to sit on the right hand of power; with all those blessed expectations could He fear death, and therefore complain that His God had betrayed Him to its necessity, when it was the entrance to eternal blessedness?
26. “Forsake me not, O Lord; O my God, depart not from me” (ver. 21). Let us speak in Him, let us speak through Him (for He Himself intercedeth for us), and let us say, “Forsake me not, O Lord my God.” And yet He had said, “My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?”10131013 Matt. xxvii. 46. and He now says, “O My God, depart not from Me.” If He does not forsake the body, did He forsake the Head? Whose words then are these but the First Man’s? To show then that He carried about Him a true body of flesh derived from him, He says, “My God, My God why hast Thou forsaken Me?” God had not forsaken Him. If He does not forsake Thee, who believest in Him, could the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, One God, forsake Christ? But He had transferred to Himself the person of the First Man. We know by the words of an Apostle, that “our old man is crucified with Him.”10141014 Rom. vi. 6. We should not, however, be divested of our old nature, had He not been crucified “in weakness.” For it was to this end that He came that we may be renewed in Him, because it is by aspiration after Him, and by following the example of His suffering, that we are renewed. Therefore that was the cry of infirmity; that cry, I mean, in which it was said, “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Thence was it said in that passage above, “the words of mine offences.” As if He were saying, These words are transferred to My Person from that of the sinner.
Hidden then was the God of gods, and He gave forth words more out of compassion for us than out of His own majesty. For whence, unless assumed from us, were those words, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”16981698 Ps. xxii. 1; Matt. xxvii. 46. But when hath the Father forsaken the Son, or the Son the Father? Are not Father and Son one God? Whence then, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me,” save that in the Flesh of infirmity there was acknowledged the voice of a sinner? For as He took upon Him the likeness of the flesh of sin,16991699 Rom. viii. 3. why should He not take upon Him the voice of sin?
11. Why do I say this? “For mine enemies have spoken against me, and they that were keeping watch for My soul, have taken counsel together (ver. 10): saying, God hath forsaken Him, persecute Him, and seize Him, for there is no one to deliver Him” (ver. 11). This hath been said concerning Christ. For He that with the great power of Divinity, wherein He is equal to the Father, had raised to life dead persons, on a sudden in the hands of enemies became weak, and as if having no power, was seized. When would He have been seized, except they had first said in their heart, “God hath forsaken Him?” Whence there was that voice on the Cross, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” 31103110 Ps. xxii. 1. So then did God forsake Christ, though “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself,”31113111 2 Cor. v. 19. though Christ was also God, out of the Jews indeed according to the flesh, “Who is over all things, God blessed for ever,”31123112 Rom. ix. 5.—did God forsake Him? Far be it. But in our old man our voice it was, because our old man was crucified together with Him:31133113 Rom. vi. 6. and of that same our old man He had taken a Body, because Mary was of Adam. Therefore the very thing which they thought, from the Cross He said, “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?”31143114 Matt. xxvii. 46. Why do these men think Me left alone to their evil? What is, think Me forsaken in their evil? “For if they had known, the Lord of glory they had never crucified.31153115 1 Cor. ii. 8. Persecute and seize Him.” More familiarly however, brethren, let us take this of the members of Christ, and acknowledge our own voice in these words: because even He used such words in our person, not in His own power and majesty; but in that which He became for our sakes, not according to that which He was, who hath made us.
3. “Let my prayer be set forth in Thy sight as incense, and the lifting up of my hands an evening sacrifice” (ver. 2). That this is wont to be understood of the Head Himself, every Christian acknowledgeth. For when the day was now sinking towards evening, the Lord upon the Cross “laid down His life to take it again,”57655765 John x. 17. did not lose it against His will. Still we too are figured there. For what of Him hung upon the tree, save what He took of us? And how can it be that the Father should leave and abandon His only begotten Son, especially when He is one God with Him? Yet, fixing our weakness upon the Cross, where, as the Apostle saith, “our old man is crucified with Him,”57665766 Rom. vi. 6. He cried out in the voice of that our “old man,” “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?”57675767 Ps. xxii. 1; Matt. xxvii. 46. That then is the “evening sacrifice,” the Passion of the Lord, the Cross of the Lord, the offering of a salutary Victim, the whole burnt offering acceptable to God. That “evening sacrifice” produced, in His Resurrection, a morning offering. Prayer then, purely directed from a faithful heart, riseth like incense from a hallowed altar. Nought is more delightful than the odour of the Lord: such odour let all have who believe.
The conclusion from the Fathers is that Matthew 27:46 is not Jesus being abandoned from the Father but rather a beautiful picture of what it means for our “old man” to be crucified with Christ. The words “My God My God, why hast thou forsaken me” is Christ speaking for us, wretched sinners and rebels of God. Jesus offering up this prayer in behalf of us further shows how beautiful Jesus is!
May the God of Us have mercy and grant us eternal life, healing us daily to prefect us, making captive every thought in perfect obedience to Him. Amen!
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