So then, gaze at the heavenly picture of Christ, who descended into hell [I Pet. 3:19] for your sake and was forsaken by God as one eternally damned when he spoke the words on the cross, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani!" — "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" [Matt. 27:46]. In that picture your hell is defeated and your uncertain election is made sure. (Luther's Works, Vol. 42, Eds. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), 105.)
[On the cross Christ] prepared himself as a threefold picture for us, to be held before the eyes of our faith against the three evil pictures with which the evil spirit and our nature would assail us to rob us of this faith. He is the living and immortal image against death, which he suffered, yet by his resurrection from the dead he vanquished death in his life. He is the image of the grace of God against sin, which he assumed, and yet overcame by his perfect obedience. He is the heavenly image, the one who was forsaken by God as damned, yet he conquered hell through his omnipotent love, thereby proving that he is the dearest Son, who gives this to us all if we but believe. (Luther's Works, Vol. 42, Eds. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), 95–115.)
For even Christ suffered damnation and dereliction to a greater degree than all the saints. And his sufferings were not, as some imagine, easy for him. For he really and truly offered himself for us to eternal damnation to God the Father. And in his human nature, he behaved in no other way than as a man eternally damned to hell. Because he loved God in this way, God at once raised him from death and hell and thus devoured hell. (Lectures On Romans, Trans. and Ed. Wilhelm Pauck, (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1961, 2006), 263.)
The passion is threefold: 1. it cries out, because Christ is deserted by God. This is the greatest type of affliction - to feel the wrath of God and to be terrified before God, as if God were to abandon and condemn. These greatest sufferings of hell are often described in the psalms (See Psalm 6[:6-8]). Nevertheless, Christ was without sin, and yet he was a victim for our sins, just as Paul says, "he was made a curse for us," [Gal 3:15] and the scriptures testify that he bore those sufferings, Isaiah 53[:4]: "we esteemed him stricken by God." Again: He will count his own soul as sin, or for sin. And in 2 Cor 5[:21]: "God made him sin who knew no sin," i.e. Christ felt the wrath of God, as though he were scorned and condemned like sin. And he bore this wrath without sin, Heb 5[:4], and there was no one besides him. (Psalm 22: An Introduction by Martin Luther)
And yet, that we may not let so rich a verse as this first pass by entirely without some remarks, I will say a few words about this "being forsaken of God." — This we cannot understand better than by shewing first, what God is! God then, is life, light, wisdom, truth, righteousness, goodness, power, joy, glory, peace, blessedness, and all good! And therefore to be left of God, is to be involved in death, darkness, ignorance, lies, sin, malice, weakness, sorrow, confusion, dismay, desperation, damnation, and all evil. What, then, follows from this? Shall we make Christ, ignorant, a liar, a sinner, a bad person, in despair, and damned? This, as I observed before, is to come to conclusions that produce something difficult and abstruse to make it appear a something wonderful, like the characters above-mentioned. But do thou consider things thus. — It is granted by all that in Christ there were at the same time the greatest joy and the greatest sorrow, the greatest weakness and the greatest power, the greatest glory and the greatest confusion; and so also there were the greatest peace and the greatest trouble; and again, the greatest life and the greatest death: and all this is sufficiently shewn by the present verse: where Christ says, that he was forsaken of God, and yet calls God his God. For no one can say "My God, my God," who is wholly forsaken of God . . . What then shall we say here? Shall we not say that Christ at the same time was (as he stood in our stead) the most righteous person and the greatest sinner, of the greatest lies and the greatest truth, of the greatest glorying and the greatest desperation, the most truly blessed and the most utterly damned? For if we say not these things, I know not how he could be forsaken of God . . . And, as the striking of the Lord with which he strikes for sin is not only death, but also the dread and horror of a distressed conscience, which feels eternal wrath, and feels as if it were utterly forsaken to all eternity and cast off from the face of God, (as David confesses. Psalm xxxi. 22, "I said in my excess, I am cut off from before thine eyes;") — as this is the case, I say, it of necessity and evidently follows, that Christ himself suffered the dread and horror of a distressed conscience that tasted eternal wrath . . . But still, we do not by all these observations say that Christ did not suffer in a different way from us, and that he was not tortured and dismayed in soul differently from us, or different from what the damned feel in their dread of, and a fleeing from, God. For Christ even in his own eyes was like unto one forsaken, cursed, a sinner, a blasphemer, and one damned, though without sin. Because, it was not a matter of play, or jest, or hypocrisy, when he said, "Thou hast forsaken me:" for he then felt himself really forsaken in all things, even as a sinner is forsaken after he has sinned: though he was not in reality left as a sinner, because he was like the sinner before the commission of his sin. — All that Christ suffered he suffered indeed: there was truth in it all: nor are we to lessen or make void the meaning and force of the words of God. (Complete Commentary On The First Twenty-Two Psalms, Pages 359-365)
Here, therefore, we see that Christ suffered all the punishment properly due to sin, and tasted death and hell . . . And when he here mentions the praises of others, and not his own, he thereby shews how much he is like unto the accursed and the damned. And this is the very thing that increases his complaint and his grief, — that Israel, being so many times saved, praised the Lord, while he was utterly forsaken, and was in danger of never praising God at all, but of cursing him only. (Complete Commentary On The First Twenty-Two Psalms, Pages 372-373)
All the prophets well forsaw in the Spirit, that Christ, by imputation, would become the greatest sinner upon the face of the earth, and a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world; would be no more considered an innocent person and without sin, or the Son of God in glory, but a notorious sinner, and so be for awhile forsaken (Psal. viii.), and have lying upon his neck the sins of all mankind; the sins of St Paul who was a blasphemer of God, and a persecutor of his church; St Peter’s sins that denied Christ; David’s sins, who was an adulterer and a murderer, through whom the name of the Lord among the heathen was blasphemed. Therefore the law, which Moses gave to be executed upon all malefactors and murderers in general, took hold on Christ, finding him with and among sinners and murderers, though in his own person innocent. This manner of picturing Christ to us, the sophists, robbers of God, obscure and falsify; for they will not that Christ was made a curse for us, to the end he might deliver us from the curse of the law, nor that he has anything to do with sin and poor sinners; though for their sakes alone was he made man and died, but they set before us merely Christ’s examples, which they say we ought to imitate and follow; and thus they not only steal from Christ his proper name and title, but also make of him a severe and angry judge, a fearful and horrible tyrant, full of wrath against poor sinners, and bent on condemning them. (Table Talk, Page 73)
On Psalm 31:32 (I had said in my alarm, "I am cut off from your sight."), Luther commented:
This excess of mind is improperly interpreted as referring to Christ's death; it refers rather to that amazement into which, according to Hilary, Book 9, Christ was put when he cried in the supreme exultation of suffering: "Why hast Thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46). And this is what it means to be thrust away from God. (Luther's Works, Lectures On The Psalms, Page 144)
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Getting The Cross Right
1. A Concern About The Way Pastor Kevin DeYoung Writes About The Cross In His New Daily Doctrine Book
2. The Bible Says The Father Turned His Face Away From Jesus On The Cross
4. More Thoughts On Being God-Forsaken
5. The Sufferings Of The LORD Jesus Christ On The Cross
6. Forsaken: A Very Unhelpful Chapter On The Cross
7. Did The Father Turn His Away From Jesus On That Cross?
8. A Satanic Reading Of Psalm 22 That Should Be Forsaken
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