I think Sproul incorrect, but that doesn't mean Jesus wasn't abandoned.
I also think what we have throughout the gospels is the apostles' record as they were directed to report it and NONE of them recorded all that Jesus said. None of them reported all Jesus said when he summoned them. None of them recorded all that was said in his sermon on the mount. None of them recorded all that was said when he entered Jerusalem. None of them recorded all that Jesus said to the Pharisees or the apostles the day before he was arrested. I doubt lay of them recorded all that he said on the cross and I might well speculate Jesus said a lot the last day of his earthly life. That, last sentence is, of course, speculation but the rest is not.
I therefore suspect that Jesus may well have been quoting Psalm 22 and I have no reason to think he was quoting just one verse and quoting just one verse without the whole in his mind. Jesus knows his word more than any may will ever know it
and Jesus knows his words' significance more than any will ever comprehend it. In fact, I would venture to say what the apostles were inspired to write was likely not fully fathomed by them as they wrote it. They were carried along as the Spirit inspired, not as their memory or intellect guided. For that reason the quoting of Psalm 22 verse 1 is an indication the whole was held in mind and its entirety was being asserted. Jesus does not proof-text
.
Psalm 22:1-31
"My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer; and by night, but I have no rest. Yet You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel. In You our fathers trusted; They trusted and You delivered them. To You they cried out and were delivered; In You they trusted and were not disappointed. But I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the people. All who see me sneer at me; they separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying, 'Commit yourself to the LORD; let Him deliver him; Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.' Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb; You made me trust when upon my mother's breasts. Upon You I was cast from birth; You have been my God from my mother's womb. Be not far from me, for trouble is near; For there is none to help. Many bulls have surrounded me; Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. They open wide their mouth at me, As a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And my tongue cleaves to my jaws; And You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me; They divide my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots. But You, O LORD, be not far off; O You my help, hasten to my assistance. Deliver my soul from the sword, My only life from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth; From the horns of the wild oxen You answer me. I will tell of Your name to my brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will praise You. You who fear the LORD, praise Him; All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, And stand in awe of Him, all you descendants of Israel. For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard. From You comes my praise in the great assembly; I shall pay my vows before those who fear Him. The afflicted will eat and be satisfied; Those who seek Him will praise the LORD. Let your heart live forever! All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, And all the families of the nations will worship before You. For the kingdom is the LORD'S And He rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth will eat and worship, All those who go down to the dust will bow before Him, Even he who cannot keep his soul alive. Posterity will serve Him; It will be told of the Lord to the coming generation. They will come and will declare His righteousness to a people who will be born, that He has performed it."
Jesus was not removing one verse from its text and context. In knowing he was forsaken he also knew the words of his groaning were far from his deliverance. He'd be in the grave three days, after all. Jesus also knew, being forsaken he could trust his Father and not be disappointed. Jesus knew if he committed his life to his Father he would be rescued; he knew his Father delighted him. Jesus knew, being abhorred and afflicted, with everyone hiding their gaze from his mutilated mass of torn flesh that God would not hide His face and that Jesus' name would be praised in the assembly.
So for Jesus his being forsaken is unique.
This is the same Jesus who had told his disciples he would be killed. He would die and, like Jonah, be in the belly of the earth three days and then raised. Someone would have to show me the verse reporting Jesus suddenly forgot ALL his knowledge before I'd believe Jesus does not know the whole of the psalm on the cross, or is not in the "mood." Jesus knows the oath promised David, that his Father foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Messiah, that he would not be abandoned to Hades, nor would his flesh see corruption. Jesus knows he was foreknown as the perfect, blemish-free sacrifice revealed in those last times. His being there in the beginning as the logos of God that is God did not vanish from his being on the cross. Jesus is the only one i humanity who has every truly known who and what he
is.
I would also venture to say the physical and psychological abuse while significant, was insignificant in comparison..... the whole of humanity's sin poured out on him. Were I to try and sneak a video of a beheading, or that of a traffic accident resulting in decapitation and dismemberment many would wretch in horror at the few viewings possible before the video was removed and I was banned. The fact is the horrors of that video would pale in comparison to the depths of depraved piled on Jesus. Every time any human ever murdered someone, every time someone sodomized a child, every moment of combat in which one soldier disemboweled another and his opponents' entrails poured onto the victor, the stench of dried detritus at day's end, every sadistic moment of torture, every mocking laugh of every ridiculing episode, every cry of despair over a still born or defective child.................... ALL of it poured on Jesus.
And we presume to postulate whether or not Jesus was actually forsaken by his Father.
Jesus paid for every word posted in this thread.
It's okay, though, because Jesus does not know only the psalm in its entirety; he knows all that is written and how every word and every connection between each and every word bears witness to him, about him, for him. He knows it
pleased his Father to crush him. His Father was delighted to do so. It pleased Jesus to please his Father and that pleasure is not mutually exclusive of the horror experienced bearing all humanity's sin, or the physical and psychological pain of torture and mockery. If his Father did abandon him it was not the same abandonment committed by his disciples.
A huge problem occurs the moment we concede Jesus' divinity, especially in regard to his omniscience.
If does, in fact, know his own word, the word that testifies to and about him then he must also believe it. We cannot say, "
Well in that moment of exceeding distress unimaginable by any of us he forgot some of it, or the despair so enormous it is understandable that he might not trust ALL of the scriptures he knows declare the end from the beginning." We cannot say that because the moment we do Jesus ceases to be the Messiah. He becomes a sinner. In becoming a sinner all possibility of salvation is lost. If any of that is the case, then Jesus is neither Lord or Savior and
everyone here remains lost in sin.
Romans 14:23
....whatever is not from faith is sin.
Whatever that abandonment was, it was not a lack of faith in the promises of his Father, including His promise not to abandon him to the grave and have his body see decay.
1 Corinthians 15:19
If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
If
Jesus hoped in Christ in this life only, then he is also to be pitied most of all.
