Jesus there on the cross felt in His human soul a disruption of His fellowship with God. The disruption was real, and the agony which Jesus experienced as a result of it in His totally pure and uncalloused human soul is beyond our ability to comprehend. In His question from the cross, Jesus was talking about His experiencing through His human nature the wrath of God against sin.
We are today going to consider the middle of the seven sayings of the cross. The fourth word from the cross is “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Of all the seven, this is both the most mysterious and the most revealing. Of all the seven, it is the clearest expression of the suffering which Jesus experienced in our place as the payment for our sins. Yet of all the seven, it is also the most difficult for us to understand. Thinking about this cry of abandonment reminds us that God’s ways are past our finding out. We can know God, but we can never fully comprehend Him with our creaturely minds. As we come to the essence of our Lord’s atoning suffering, even Jesus in His humanity cries out “why.” Jesus in His divinity understands all mysteries, but Jesus in His humanity on this occasion cried out, “why.”
As we consider today’s text, we will be approaching the limits of what we can understand. We must prayerfully seek to understand more and more of God’s truth. Yet we must also be prepared to acknowledge in humility when we have reached those truths which are beyond even the grasp of an angel’s mind.
In order to provide some context for the fourth saying, I want to look today also at two other sayings, the second and the sixth. The second saying from the cross, found in the gospel according to Luke, is “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). The fourth statement is in our text for today in the gospel according to Mark. It is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” The sixth statement is found in the gospel according to John. It is, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
We will look at these three sayings from the cross under the headings, Confidence, the Cry and Completion.
We will now consider the second saying from the cross under the heading Confidence. Jesus has been officially condemned as guilty by the Roman governor Pilate, even though Pilate also unofficially admitted that Jesus had done nothing worthy of death and was an innocent man. In God’s providence, that course of events fit perfectly with the spiritual reality. Jesus was indeed innocent of any crime, even sinless of any sin. Yet He was legally condemned for sins, not sins that He had committed, but our sins for which He voluntarily took responsibility. The Roman soldiers carried out the Roman sentence that resulted from the Roman condemnation. They nailed Jesus to a wooden cross, a tree of sorts. This also fit perfectly with the spiritual reality. According to the law of Moses, being hung on a tree is a sign of God’s curse. And Jesus was under God’s curse so that all who believe in Him might receive God’s blessing. So here we have Jesus condemned and cursed. Yet the second saying from the cross reveals to us that Jesus was optimistic even in these circumstances. He was optimistic because He was living by faith, faith in God’s revealed will, faith in the message of the Bible. That is why the writer to the Hebrews wrote in chapter twelve of his inspired letter that Jesus, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame. What joy? The joy of obeying His Heavenly Father. The joy of doing that work which was necessary for the salvation of those sinners whom the Father had sent Jesus to save. The joy of the anticipated exaltation with which Jesus knew that the Father would exalt Him after His work of humiliation was completed. Jesus had all these assurances because Jesus knew the Old Testament, the extent of the Scriptures in His day.
When the resurrected Jesus appeared to His twelve disciples in a closed room on the evening of the Sunday when Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus explained to them the Old Testament predictions of Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection.
And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day…Luke 24:45-46
This message of Scripture is the basis for the confidence that Jesus had when He said to the believing thief on the cross: “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” Speaking from the place of condemnation and curse, Jesus said with confidence that He would be in Paradise later that very day. Paradise is here a reference to heaven, the location of the New Jerusalem, that celestial holding place where the spirits of departed saints go to await the coming day of bodily resurrection. Jesus was not resurrected from the dead until Sunday, the third day after His death, but on Friday, the very day of His physical death, Jesus’ human spirit went to be with His Father in heaven. Jesus also spoke with confidence that the believing thief on the cross would also go to heaven that very day. Jesus died first, and Jesus’ human spirit was in heaven to greet the soul of the believing thief upon his arrival. Jesus knew when He spoke to the believing thief that He would complete His saving work upon the cross, the work which would be the basis for the thief’s salvation by grace through faith in Jesus.
Notice that Jesus said to the believing thief, “Assuredly, I say to you …” Some translations say, “Verily” and others say, “Truly.” The Greek word is a Greek spelling of the Hebrew word “Amen,” the same word that we say at the end of our prayers to express our confidence in the Lord to whom we are praying. As our Shorter Catechism says, “in testimony of our desire and assurance to be heard, we say, ‘Amen.’” Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you,” or “Verily, I say to you,” or “Amen, I say to you,” because Jesus was confident in the outcome of His ordeal of suffering because of the witness of Scripture.
Let’s now consider the fourth saying of the cross under the heading, the Cry. Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” When Jesus cried out those words, He was quoting the first verse of the twenty-second Psalm, which we call the Psalm of the Cross. This is one of the passages from which Jesus in His humanity had learned that the Messiah must suffer and die and that God would deliver the Messiah from death.
This question taken from the first verse of the twenty-second Psalm is such a mysterious question as it applies to Jesus. Jesus is fully divine, and surely God cannot forsake God. And also, Jesus here addressed God as His God. How could Jesus here say, “My God, My God,” if God had forsaken Jesus? Those are good questions about Jesus’ question, and I am going to begin by stating what Jesus’ question does not mean.
This question about being forsaken does not mean that there was ever any disruption in the sweet eternal fellowship of the Godhead, in the perfect communion between the three members of the Godhead: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The Great “I AM” does not change. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. No member of the Godhead is ever forsaken by any other member of the Godhead. That would be a most radical change in the very essence of God’s eternal being. Such is unthinkable.
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This is the work of God—that you believe in Christ Jesus. We freely choose to believe only because God has changed our nature by regeneration—new creation—such that our desires are now inclined toward God instead of toward sin. 

It is quite common for both Christians and non-Christians to point out their free will. But how free are we? Are we free to do anything? Why don’t believers use their free will to freely choose never to sin again? Why does no one do that? We do have free will—no disagreement here—but maybe it’s not that simple.
After explaining to Timothy how to teach and correct opponents, Paul then explains how God works:

God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. (2 Tim. 25-26)

Paul encourages Timothy by reminding him that he cannot convince a person into the kingdom of God. Before God acts, a person is held captive by the devil, and being held captive a person cannot, of his own free will, free himself from the snare of the devil by deciding for himself what is true. Like Timothy, we are to be kind teachers who correct with gentleness, remembering that it is God who may grant repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.
But what about free will?
Some Christians believe God only made it possible for humans to be saved—it’s up to us, exercising our free will, to choose the offered salvation; then God will regenerate us. Others believe humans are so blind, deaf, spiritually dead, and enslaved to sin that they are unable to turn to Christ Jesus unless God first regenerates them—God takes the initiative and a person freely responds.
There is disagreement, but part of the problem may be oversimplification—a tendency to believe there are only two alternatives—we are either completely free or we are completely determined. But what does Scripture teach us? Perhaps we need to go a little bit deeper into the nature of our choices—addressing both what we freely will and why we freely will as we do.
What is free will?
The will is the faculty of a person’s mind involved in choosing what a person desires. The human will is free in that it chooses voluntarily and is undetermined by anything other than itself.
Do humans have free will?
Yes, humans after the fall of Adam still have natural liberty, meaning they are not forced to choose either good or evil. Humans have the power of self-decision according to what pleases them, what they desire.
In other words, humans freely choose what they desire—their will is not forced by anything outside of themselves—what they most desire is what they freely choose. Consider for example, James 1:14 which speaks of how a person’s own desires affect his or her choices of will.
Does humanity’s fall into sin affect free will?
Sinful humans still retain their free will—they still freely choose according to what they desire, according to their sinful nature.
Scripture teaches us that the nature of fallen humans is that they are spiritually dead and incapable of any spiritual good toward salvation. Paul writes in Romans 8:7-8 that the carnal mind is hostile to God. The word of God does not say that the carnal mind is passive but rather that sinful unconverted persons have an active hostility (enmity) toward God.
Ephesians 2:1-3 (see also Col. 2:13) teaches that fallen humans are dead in their sin, carrying out the desires (i.e., will) of body and mind. They are by nature children of wrath. Elsewhere Scripture describes humanity’s condition as spiritual blindness and deafness (see Deut. 29:4; Matt. 13:13; John 12:40; Acts 28:26; 2 Cor. 4:4). God also describes the nature of fallen humans as being in slavery to sin and corruption (Rom. 6:17; Titus 3:3; 2 Pet. 2:19).
The unregenerate set their minds on fleshly things.
Returning to Romans 8, Paul writes that those who are in the flesh—those not regenerated by the Holy Spirit to be a new spiritual creature (see John 3:3; 2 Cor. 5:17; Tit. 3:5)—do not set their minds on spiritual things, but only on fleshly things. As a result, they have no ability to please God (Rom. 8:5-8). There are no righteous humans, there is no one who understands, and there is no one who seeks for God. No one does good—there is no fear of God in their eyes (Rom. 3:10-18 quoting Psalms 5, 14, 36, 53, 140; Isa. 59:7).
So what do sinful, unregenerate, unconverted, human beings desire—what do they freely will?
The unregenerate use their free will to choose what they desire: to sin.
Prior to the flood, God saw that every intention of the thoughts of a person’s heart was only evil continually (Gen. 6:5). Long after the flood the psalmist points out there are none who do good (Ps. 14). Isaiah 59 teaches how the sinful think only of iniquity. The heart of fallen humans is deceitful above everything (Jer. 17:5) The spiritually dead yield to the passions of the flesh and the sinful desires of the body (Eph. 2:1-3).
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When we’re sitting in our studies with a desperate, beloved child of God, too often the first words that come to our minds have a taproot in our flesh. Instead of drawing up fresh gospel water to soothe parched throats, we offer shots of the burning liquor of the law: “Do better. Try harder. Buckle down. White-knuckle it. Suck it up. Get to work.”
When I was a kid, nothing drove me crazier than rules inconsistently applied. When my older cousins got away with things that would have gotten me in a mountain of trouble, or when my siblings got access to privileges that I didn’t, it frustrated me to no end. I had what we might call a “strong sense of justice” (read: I was the fairness police). Now, while that instinct might have been a bit, say, keenly attuned, there was some reality to what I was feeling. It is tough to be a kid in a world where the rules seem to arbitrarily change.
Pastor, unless we are careful, we can do the same to the precious flock with which God has entrusted us.
Here’s what I mean.
The funny (or, not so funny) thing about human nature is that we’re deeply inconsistent. I need look no further than me to realize this. I speak from the pulpit about the need for holiness, and no later than that afternoon, I’ve fallen into sin. I disciple young believers in the importance of a daily regimen of scripture and go to bed that night with my Bible uncracked. I talk a good game about the importance of gospel-centeredness, but far too often, I’m a law-mind.
It’s that last one that can set us up to deeply injure members of our flock. When we’re preparing a sermon, we have the chance to sift our thoughts and curate our words. This allows us to ensure that what we preach has the gospel as its unshakeable core.
But when we’re sitting in our studies with a desperate, beloved child of God, too often the first words that come to our minds have a taproot in our flesh. Instead of drawing up fresh gospel water to soothe parched throats, we offer shots of the burning liquor of the law: “Do better. Try harder. Buckle down. White-knuckle it. Suck it up. Get to work.”
We ask our people to knock back four or six of these great tips to beat anxiety, sin, grief, financial worries, or marital struggles and send them on their way, staggering drunk on the homemade moonshine of get-your-act-together. We ask exasperated questions like, “Why do you still feel this way?” “How is it that you’re still struggling with this?” “What am I going to have to do to help you finally get past this?” Too often, we cram law-shaped words into gospel-shaped holes.
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