If Jesus is God, why did he forsake himself?

compassion 4 humanity said:

I was talking religion with a friend of mine who isn't a Christian. We got on the subject of Jesus and God being the same personage. He mentioned Jesus dying on the cross while crying out, "Father, why have you forsaken me?" (The verse he was referring to is Matthew 27:46). Then he asked me: if Jesus is God, why did he forsake himself?

Basically, he was implying that Jesus can't be God because he thinks this verse suggests otherwise. I'm usually a good apologist, but I wasn't really sure how to reply. How would you respond to him?

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two things come to mind 1. where they are the same they are also different. Genesis is a good example of this where it says, let us make man in our image....the way I look at it is that God is too big to be limited even to our understanding of oneness which is why the trinity is so hard for people to grasp. 2. we often forsake ourselves. Every time we sin for example or eat junk food or do anything reckless we are forsaking ourselves to indulge in that activity. Even every broken promise. It is perfectly logical that God as one would forsake Himself as three in one.

compassion 4 humanity said:

I was talking religion with a friend of mine who isn't a Christian. We got on the subject of Jesus and God being the same personage. He mentioned Jesus dying on the cross while crying out, "Father, why have you forsaken me?" (The verse he was referring to is Matthew 27:46). Then he asked me: if Jesus is God, why did he forsake himself?

Basically, he was implying that Jesus can't be God because he thinks this verse suggests otherwise. I'm usually a good apologist, but I wasn't really sure how to reply. How would you respond to him?

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Are you the same person as your father? Yet you have his name and are of the same essence in the same family.

compassion 4 humanity said:

I was talking religion with a friend of mine who isn't a Christian. We got on the subject of Jesus and God being the same personage. He mentioned Jesus dying on the cross while crying out, "Father, why have you forsaken me?" (The verse he was referring to is Matthew 27:46). Then he asked me: if Jesus is God, why did he forsake himself?

Basically, he was implying that Jesus can't be God because he thinks this verse suggests otherwise. I'm usually a good apologist, but I wasn't really sure how to reply. How would you respond to him?

Click to expand...

God is a Spirit and while Jesus had the Spirit of God he was flesh and blood. The Spirit fled the flesh and blood.

compassion 4 humanity said:

I was talking religion with a friend of mine who isn't a Christian. We got on the subject of Jesus and God being the same personage. He mentioned Jesus dying on the cross while crying out, "Father, why have you forsaken me?" (The verse he was referring to is Matthew 27:46). Then he asked me: if Jesus is God, why did he forsake himself?

Basically, he was implying that Jesus can't be God because he thinks this verse suggests otherwise. I'm usually a good apologist, but I wasn't really sure how to reply. How would you respond to him?

Click to expand...

Jesus was quoting Psalm 22, to show His fulfillment of prophecy. The Father never abandoned the Son, for that would have meant the Trinity was destroyed and that did not happen. The Jews at the time would have recognized very quickly that Jesus was quoting Psalm 22, but because of His injuries, He was not able to quote all of Psalm 22.

Moreover, the person of the Son and the person of the Father (and the person of the Holy Spirit) are not the same person. They are the same being in 3 persons. Being and person are not the same thing.

The person claiming that Jesus and God [the Father] are the same person does not understand the Trinity, but believes in a unitarian [false] god.

Jesus is just quoting a Psalm to express anguish. He's not making a metaphysical statement.

compassion 4 humanity said:

I was talking religion with a friend of mine who isn't a Christian. We got on the subject of Jesus and God being the same personage. He mentioned Jesus dying on the cross while crying out, "Father, why have you forsaken me?" (The verse he was referring to is Matthew 27:46). Then he asked me: if Jesus is God, why did he forsake himself?

Basically, he was implying that Jesus can't be God because he thinks this verse suggests otherwise. I'm usually a good apologist, but I wasn't really sure how to reply. How would you respond to him?

Click to expand...

The enigmatic "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?", that's a quote from Psalm 22. It's a prayer and his enemies understood what it meant. "The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him." (Matt. 27:49). It's a prayer for deliverance.


He was also fulfilling prophecy.

Grace and peace,
Mark

God is indescribable. If you give a description of God that our carnal minds can understand...it is a false description. Any attempt to describe God to another....causes one to shape and mold a God in the image of your words.....and it likened to the golden calf created by Arron.

When you experience God.....see Him face to face....you realize that He cant be explained.....only known. So why not lead others to Know God, instead of creating a picture of Him, which could hinder ones desire to know from themselves?

compassion 4 humanity said:

I was talking religion with a friend of mine who isn't a Christian. We got on the subject of Jesus and God being the same personage. He mentioned Jesus dying on the cross while crying out, "Father, why have you forsaken me?" (The verse he was referring to is Matthew 27:46). Then he asked me: if Jesus is God, why did he forsake himself?

Basically, he was implying that Jesus can't be God because he thinks this verse suggests otherwise. I'm usually a good apologist, but I wasn't really sure how to reply. How would you respond to him?

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Because he was in your place so God could bruise him and pour his wrath on him so he does not have to pour his wrath on you if you accept your replacement .

compassion 4 humanity said:

I was talking religion with a friend of mine who isn't a Christian. We got on the subject of Jesus and God being the same personage. He mentioned Jesus dying on the cross while crying out, "Father, why have you forsaken me?" (The verse he was referring to is Matthew 27:46). Then he asked me: if Jesus is God, why did he forsake himself?

Basically, he was implying that Jesus can't be God because he thinks this verse suggests otherwise. I'm usually a good apologist, but I wasn't really sure how to reply. How would you respond to him?

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Jesus is God, but He's not the same PERSON as the Father, ... or the Holy Spirit.

You can think of Jesus as being in the God family ...

A_Thinker said:

Jesus is God, but He's not the same PERSON as the Father, ... or the Holy Spirit.

You can think of Jesus as being in the God family ...

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John 3:13
And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.

How can Jesus say it about himself that he is in heaven while talking to people on earth ?

also

Isaiah 9:6
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

That child born in Bethlehem was Everlasting Father too looks like .

This what theologians call the Covenant of Redemption. This is the plan of salvation that took place from eternity past between the God-head (Father, Son, Spirit). The extra-short-short version is that the Father would send the Son to die for the sins of His people, and the Son would be willing to do so. Titus 1:1-3, Hebrews 10:5-7; Philippians 2:5-11; Ephesians 5:1-2
This death for sin necessitated the Son to satisfy the Justice of God in order for believers to be rescued from the punishment for their sin, and to give them a holy standing in the court of Heaven. 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24

Matthew 24 10 said:

Isaiah 9:6
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

That child born in Bethlehem was Everlasting Father too looks like .

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... or He represented Him ...

John 6

38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

John 8

28 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing on My own, but speak exactly what the Father has taught Me.

compassion 4 humanity said:

I was talking religion with a friend of mine who isn't a Christian. We got on the subject of Jesus and God being the same personage. He mentioned Jesus dying on the cross while crying out, "Father, why have you forsaken me?" (The verse he was referring to is Matthew 27:46). Then he asked me: if Jesus is God, why did he forsake himself?

Basically, he was implying that Jesus can't be God because he thinks this verse suggests otherwise. I'm usually a good apologist, but I wasn't really sure how to reply. How would you respond to him?

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Orthodox doctrine says Jesus was fully God and fully man. Maybe your friend is leaving out the "fully man" part of the doctrine?

compassion 4 humanity said:

...How would you respond to him?

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My response would be, you do well, if you believe what the Bible tells and remain in truth. No need to twist what the Bible tells.

deleted.

It appears that Jesus died spiritually while alive upon the Cross. God the Father within Him (John 14:7-11) was a Spirit (John 4:23-24) and the Spirit of Jesus. It appears that immediately before Jesus said, "My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me." Jesus' Spirit left His body while His soul remained within His body, that is, if Oneness doctrine is true and also if He said, "Into thy hands I commend my Spirit" BEFORE saying, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" If He said the latter before the former, then God the Father forsook Him before He commended His Spirit (the third Person of the Trinity), to the Father in heaven outside of time and Omnipresent, also a Spirit (see John 4:23-24 and Ephesians 4:4). He may have also had a human spirit that was one with the Father up to the point of spiritual death.

compassion 4 humanity said:

I was talking religion with a friend of mine who isn't a Christian. We got on the subject of Jesus and God being the same personage. He mentioned Jesus dying on the cross while crying out, "Father, why have you forsaken me?" (The verse he was referring to is Matthew 27:46). Then he asked me: if Jesus is God, why did he forsake himself?

Basically, he was implying that Jesus can't be God because he thinks this verse suggests otherwise. I'm usually a good apologist, but I wasn't really sure how to reply. How would you respond to him?

Click to expand...

One God in Three Persons... not "one God in one Person"

One God -- Deut 6:5
Three Persons - Matthew 28:19

John 14:28 "28 You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I."

In my reflections of Christ's Passion on the cross. God the Son chose to empty Himself to become man. As man He chose to empty Himself of life. The experience of death is the final end of Christ's kenosis. He does feel separated from God. He say's twice " My God My God" He addresses the Father and the Holy Spirit. His cry is genuine but it is not despair. He attaches His experience of final kenosis to the Psalm as a sign of hope for those at the foot of the cross who are witnessing His death. Christ's experience of complete loss allows disembodied souls that exist in a state of abandonment to unite to Him since His soul bares their likeness of abandonment. In other words the experience of abandonment allowed Jesus' soul to reach the deepest recesses of Hades.

Oneness Pentecostals would say that Matthew 28:19 is referring to a singular God with a singular name but three differen titles. In John 14:28 the human aspect of Jesus would be saying that His Divine nature is greater than His human flesh.