These words captured my thoughts this evening from your blog: “For Your Further Reflection”.
“I believe the only time Jesus Christ called out in loneliness was from the cross when the Father forsook Him and allowed Him to die as a sacrifice for the world. Without His presence, the most agonizing loneliness will afflict even the strongest person. No person should search for a solution for their loss, trauma & betrayal, without FIRST asking why are they experiencing separation from God?“
I would offer these thoughts for your further reflection and discussion if you choose to talk about them beyond my comments below.
In Western Christianity we have associated the idea that God was separated from Jesus on the cross because of what Jesus said when he spoke these words, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me.” In actuality, Jesus was quoting the first verse of Psalm 22, feeling the full weight of sin and the darkness of the human soul as a human being. Those in the audience, other than the Romans, would have known that he was quoting from that psalm. However, in verse 24 toward the end of the chapter we read, “For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.”
The Father did not turn His face away as that familiar song “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” expresses and which I no longer sing when we get to that phrase. Why? Because the separation of God from Jesus on the cross is not Biblical, no matter what any preacher has said. I give some passages of Scripture below to refute the separation concept that has become our Westernized way to do evangelism and denies the very essence of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost as ONE.
If God was IN Christ reconciling the world to Himself, how do we come up with the idea that God turned His face away? I have heard so many times over the years that God is too holy to look on sin. Really??? Take a look at this passage of Scripture.
The Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 from J.B. Phillips:
“All this is God’s doing, for he has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ; and he has made us agents of the reconciliation. God was in Christ personally reconciling the world to himself—not counting their sins against them—and has commissioned us with the message of reconciliation. We are now Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were appealing direct to you through us. As his personal representatives we say, “Make your peace with God.” For God caused Christ, who himself knew nothing of sin, actually to be sin for our sakes, so that in Christ we might be made good with the goodness of God.”
From this verse we read that Christ became sin for our sakes and that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. The Trinity has never been separated, not even at the cross in light of these verses.
Paul goes on to talk about this “separation” in Colossians 1 and really highlights who is doing the separating. It’s us!! Look at these verses of Colossians 1:15-23. It’s dynamic in its scope in that all things were created through Christ and for Christ and in Him all things hold together. Note verse 19 which states that “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and (in verse 20) through him to reconcile to himself all things…” Here’s the passage which is so beautiful!!! It’s the true Gospel or Good News!!!
The Supremacy of the Son of God
15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
When we feel alone and estranged from God in our minds, as Paul indicates, we are sensing alienation which to me is different from separation. Paul is saying we feel alienated in our minds, from our perspective.
Here’s one definition of alienation:
the feeling that you have no connection with the people around you or that you are not part of a group:
Separation is a “pulling apart” which is what the Latin root (separare) word means. If God is love, which the Bible writers indicate, then what Paul writes must be true that, “nothing can separate us from the love of God” in Romans 8:38-39. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
In reality, separation is a figment of our own imagination or better yet, a feeling of alienation which originates in our own minds.
David says this in Psalm 139:7-12
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
The topic of separation from God has had my attention for some time and I don’t have all the answers. I just know this area of my theology has been shaken to the core from reading these passages and from watching how God pursues us, comes looking for us. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
I welcome your response and “further reflections” my brother!!
Blessings,
Steve Yoder