Bible Musings...

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Psalm 22:1 NIV

Jesus speaking from the cross: From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?'--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Matthew 27:45-46 NIV

I had a friend who once asked me why I thought Jesus would have said this at the cross. Doesn't it sound bad? All this time God has been there with Jesus? Doesn't it sound like God's Holy Spirit just left Jesus? Isn't that what forsaken means?

Well, neither of us had a really good answer at the time, but looking at Psalms 22:1, Jesus spoke the exact words that were prophesied years ago. It's amazing how through the things he did, Jesus fulfilled prophesy in such detail.

I wonder if perhaps the Holy Spirit had been bearing with Jesus all through his ordeal, and when the Spirit saw that it was time for Jesus to die, He withdrew. Sensing the withdrawal, Jesus cried out, because God's spirit had indeed left him. I imagine that when Jesus "gave up his spirit" (Matthew 27:50) his spirit was reunited with the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps the following will provide support for this view: When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal (or corrupt); his days will be a hundred and twenty years." Genesis 6:3. Conten means to maintain or assert. The men before this time had been living about 900 years and according to this passage, the Holy Spirit must have been maintaining their life. But, when the sin of lustfulness entered them, the Holy Spirit did not maintain them as long.

Going back to Jesus' time. Perhaps as Jesus was dying, at that moment he took on the sins of the world and where there was sin, the Holy Spirit could not stick around. Hence, Jesus cried out when the Spirit left. Jesus had the full measure of the Holy Spirit through his life and he sinned not.

I think this is what I would tell my friend if I ever saw her again.