Scripture:
My God, my God,
why have You forsaken me? -- Psalm 22: 1
He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. - Hebrews 2: 17
Consider:
My God, My God, Why have you forsaken Me: These were the anguished words of Jesus Christ from His Cross outside Jerusalem (Mark 15: 34). But the same inspired words expressed the anguish of the psalmist David's soul when he cried out to God one thousand years earlier (Psalm 22: 1). The same God who heard David's cry also heard the passionate cry of Christ, His beloved Son. When the Triune God --Father, Son, and Spirit, heard David's cry, did He already know the extent of the agony of the Cross as if He had already experienced it? If God is omniscient, it would seem so. Therefore, we might say that the "Passion of Christ," or "Passion of God," was not simply real on "Passion Week." God's passion for fallen mankind remained as an intense expression of His love from eternity past to the entry of sin in the Garden of Eden and onward through Christ's birth, death, and resurrection as a sacrifice for our sin.
My God, My God, Why have you forsaken Me: These were the anguished words of Jesus Christ from His Cross outside Jerusalem (Mark 15: 34). But the same inspired words expressed the anguish of the psalmist David's soul when he cried out to God one thousand years earlier (Psalm 22: 1). The same God who heard David's cry also heard the passionate cry of Christ, His beloved Son. When the Triune God --Father, Son, and Spirit, heard David's cry, did He already know the extent of the agony of the Cross as if He had already experienced it? If God is omniscient, it would seem so. Therefore, we might say that the "Passion of Christ," or "Passion of God," was not simply real on "Passion Week." God's passion for fallen mankind remained as an intense expression of His love from eternity past to the entry of sin in the Garden of Eden and onward through Christ's birth, death, and resurrection as a sacrifice for our sin.
God's passionate love for His creation and mankind is continuous and eternal. But, when the weight of human sin and consequential suffering fell upon the Son of God during the dark hours on His Cross, the eternal communion of Father, Son, and Spirit seemed to vanish for the Son. He [God the Father] made Him [the Son] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5: 21). Although He was God in human flesh, Jesus had lived in perfect communion with the Father. But when the burden of humanity's sin fell upon Jesus there on the Cross, instead of the perfect communion, He faced the wrathful judgment of the Father unleashed upon Him because of your sin and mine being heaped upon Him on the Cross?
Response:
How would God have you respond when you consider the fact that God foreknew that He would experience injustice, rejection, abuse, suffering, and death on a Roman cross, and yet press forward in loving passion toward that day? Can you speak from experience how unconfessed sin interrupts your communion with God? Remember...you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps...(1 Peter 2: 21).
More Meditations? Go HERE
How would God have you respond when you consider the fact that God foreknew that He would experience injustice, rejection, abuse, suffering, and death on a Roman cross, and yet press forward in loving passion toward that day? Can you speak from experience how unconfessed sin interrupts your communion with God? Remember...you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps...(1 Peter 2: 21).
More Meditations? Go HERE
