Why would you think that God would not forsake His own Son?

Answer:

Yes, you ought to be ashamed for several reasons.

First, you disparage my character having never met me. "Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another" (James 4:11-12). I've been a member of the La Vista Church of Christ for over thirteen years, serving as a preacher here. I even served as an elder briefly, but a young woman who has never met me wants to imply that I'm neither a member nor a Christian because she doesn't understand something I wrote.

Second, I was curious about what article or answer had you so upset. While you said, "you said it makes you uncomfortable to think that God would forsake His own Son," I searched the entire site and I can't find these words or even that they are implied. I'm not surprised since it isn't my belief. There is one answer that addresses this topic on the web site: "Did God forsake Jesus on the cross?" I'm curious why you felt the need to misrepresent the information presented because lying is not typical Christ-like behavior.

Third, it is clear that you have forgotten Jesus' own words on this subject: "Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me" (John 16:32). Jesus was left to suffer a cruel death on the cross, but he stated that though the disciples would abandon him, he would not be alone.

Fourth, you appear to believe that Jesus became sinful on the cross and thus God abandoned him. The odd thing is that you neglected to show this was so stated by God. The Bible is clear that Jesus lived without sin. "Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth" (I Peter 2:22). "For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). That is why the Hebrews writer goes further to state that Jesus was undefiled. "For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens" (Hebrews 7:26). If Jesus died in a sinful state, he would not be the perfect sacrifice needed to take away the sins of the world.

"For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (II Corinthians 5:21). This statement might appear contradictory on the surface. How can Jesus know no sin and be made sin for us? The answer is simple when you understand the Old Testament. Jesus was offered up as a sin offering. A sin-offering was the sacrifice of an unblemished animal for the sins committed by someone else (Leviticus 4:3). The animal did not sin nor did it take on the person's sins. Its death stood as a substitute for the death of the sinner. Yet animals could not atone for men's sins. "For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins" (Hebrews 10:1-4). It took the sinless death of God's own Son to accomplish this. "By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Hebrews 10:10).

As the People's New Testament Commentary states: "As a sinless substitute he suffered for our sins, that our sins might thus be atoned for, the law satisfied, and we be forgiven and accounted righteous. Since we die with Christ, in him we pay the penalty, and are justified."

Another commentator, Adam Clarke, had strong words to say on this matter and documented his argument well.

Verse 21. For he hath made him to be sin for us]. He made him who knew no sin, (who was innocent,) a sin-offering for us. The word amartia occurs here twice: in the first place it means sin, i.e. transgression and guilt; and of Christ it is said, He knew no sin, i.e. was innocent; for not to know sin is the same as to be conscious of innocence; so, nil conscire sibi, to be conscious of nothing against one's self, is the same as nulla pallescere culpa, to be unimpeachable.

In the second place, it signifies a sin-offering, or sacrifice for sin, and answers to the chattaah and chattath of the Hebrew text; which signifies both sin and sin-offering in a great variety of places in the Pentateuch. The Septuagint translate the Hebrew word by amartia in ninety-four places in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, where a sin-offering is meant; and where our version translates the word not sin, but an offering for sin. Had our translators attended to their own method of translating the word in other places where it means the same as here, they would not have given this false view of a passage which has been made the foundation of a most blasphemous doctrine; viz. that our sins were imputed to Christ, and that he was a proper object of the indignation of Divine justice, because he was blackened with imputed sin; and some have proceeded so far in this blasphemous career as to say, that Christ may be considered as the greatest of sinners, because all the sins of mankind, or of the elect, as they say, were imputed to him, and reckoned as his own. One of these writers translates the passage thus: Deus Christum pro maximo peccatore habuit, ut nos essemus maxime justi, God accounted Christ the greatest of sinners, that we might be supremely righteous. Thus they have confounded sin with the punishment due to sin. Christ suffered in our stead; died for us; bore our sins, (the punishment due to them,) in his own body upon the tree, for the Lord laid upon him the iniquities of us all; that is, the punishment due to them; explained by making his soul-his life, an offering for sin; and healing us by his stripes.

But that it may be plainly seen that sin-offering, not sin, is the meaning of the word in this verse, I shall set down the places from the Septuagint where the word occurs; and where it answers to the Hebrew words already quoted; and where our translators have rendered correctly what they render here incorrectly. In EXODUS, Ex 29:14,36: LEVITICUS, Le 4:3,8,20,21,24,25,29,32-34; Le 5:6,7,8,9,11,12; Le 6:17,25,30; Le 7:7,37; Le 8:2,14; Le 9:2,3,7,8,10,15,22; Le 10:16,17,19; Le 12:6,8; Le 14:13,19,22,31; Le 15:15,30; Le 16:3,5,6,9,11,15,25,27; Le 23:19: NUMBERS, Nu 6:11,14,16; Nu 7:16,22,28,34,40,46,52,58,70,76,82,87; Nu 8:8,12; Nu 15:24,25,27; Nu 18:9; Nu 28:15,22; Nu 29:5,11,16,22,25,28,31,34,38.

Besides the above places, it occurs in the same signification, and is properly translated in our version, in the following places:-

2 CHRONICLES, 2Ch 29:21,23,24: EZRA, Ezr 6:17; Ezr 8:35: NEHEMIAH, Ne 10:33: JOB, Job 1:5: EZEKIEL, Eze 43:19,22,25; Eze 44:27,29; Eze 45:17,19,22,23,25. In all, one hundred and eight places, which, in the course of my own reading in the Septuagint, I have marked.