R. C. goes on,
Thus, Paul relates the Cross to the blessed curse motif of the Old Covenant. The concept of curse is very strange to the Westernized Christian and is often a point of confusion to the contemporary reader.
To be cursed is to be from the presence of God, to be set outside the camp, to be cut off from His benefits. The greatest terror to the OT Jew was defilement whereby he would be pronounced "unclean" and driven out of the camp away from God's presence.
@Josheb (see abandonment?)
Adam and Eve suffered the curse to a degree when they were driven from the Garden of Eden. The scapegoat of the OT sacrificial system was driven out of the camp into the wilderness after the sins of the nation were symbolically imputed to it by the laying on of hands.
This "separation" from the presence of God was symbolized by the covenant sign of circumcision. The covenant in the OT was not made. Rather it was "cut." The word covenant or berith meaning "to cut." In the rite of circumcision, the Jews bore not only the mark of ethnic separation whereby they were separated to holiness and blessedness but also carried the sign of the curse where, by means of the rite, they declared, "May I be cut off from the presence of God and His benefits if I fail to keep the stipulations (the law) of the covenant.
On the cross, Jesus was cursed. That is, he represented the Jewish nation of covenant breakers who were exposed to the curse and took the full measure of the curse upon Himself. As the Lamb of God, the sin-bearer, he was cut off from the presence of God (abandoned
@Josheb ).
On the cross Jesus entered into the experience of forsakenness on our behalf. The darkness and earthquake that accompanied the event suggest the withdrawal of the "light of His countenance."
Thus, the anguish of Christ is not to be found primarily in the ghastly and tortuous pain of the physical method of execution, but rather it is located in the loss of the profound intimacy of relationship that the God-man Jesus enjoyed with God (as you were saying
@makesends ).
On the cross, God turned His back on Jesus and cut him off from all blessings, from all keeping, from all grace, and from all peace. Jesus did not die in the temple but was killed outside the Holy City at the hands of "unclean" Gentiles. Jesus was driven from the camp to experience the full horror of the unmitigated wrath of God.
No where in scripture is the reality of God's wrath more sharply manifested than in the forsaking of His Messiah. To be cursed by God is to be cut off from His presence and all His benefits.
The incarnate Christ who enjoyed intimate personal fellowship with the Father, such as no man had ever enjoyed, was suddenly and completely cut off. Once the sin of man was imputed to him, he became the virtual incarnation of evil. The load he carried was repugnant to the Father. God is too holy to even look at iniquity. God the Father turned His back upon the Son, cursing Him to the pit of hell while on the cross. He was the Son's "descent into hell." Here the fury of God raged against Him. His scream was the scream of the damned. For us.
Websters Dictionary 1828
Forsake
FORSA'KE,
verb transitive preterit tense forsook;
participle passive forsaken.
See Seek .]
1. To quit or leave entirely; to desert; to abandon; to depart from. Friends and flatterers
forsake us in adversity.
Forsake the foolish, and live.
Proverbs 9:6.
2. To
abandon; to renounce; to reject.
If his children
forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments -
Psalms 89:30.
Cease from anger, and
forsake wrath.
Psalms 37:8.
3. To leave; to withdraw from; to fail. In anger, the color forsakes the cheeks. In severe trials, let not fortitude
forsake you.
4. In scripture, God forsakes his people, when he withdraws his aid, or the light of his countenance.
