SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/26/2024 7:56 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “Sovereign
Departure”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
27:46-49
Message of the verses: “46 About the ninth
hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "ELI, ELI, LAMA
SABACHTHANI?" that is, "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN
ME?" 47 And some of those who were standing there, when they heard it, began
saying, "This man is calling for Elijah." 48 Immediately one of them
ran, and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and
gave Him a drink. 49 But the rest of them said, "Let us see whether
Elijah will come to save Him.’”
I will begin with a quote from John MacArthur as he
sets up this section for us. “A second
miracle occurred at about the ninth hour, or three o’clock in the afternoon,
through an inexplicable event that might be called sovereign departure, as somehow God was separated
from God.” Now think for a moment
about this highlighted portion of what MacArthur wrote, that somehow God was separated from
God. Now I have mentioned that I
thought one of the reasons that Jesus had sweat great drops of blood was that
He was very troubled about two things, first that He would be separated from
the Father, and second that He would become sin in order to save sinners. Throughout eternal history which is forever I
can say that I don’t think that God was separated from God, so for this to
happen was monumental.
In
these verse we see that when God was separated from God that Jesus cried out
with a loud voice, saying, "ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?" Notice the question mark at the end of this
partial sentence, and if Matthew had not gone on to write it so we could
understand it then one may not know this was a question. MacArthur writes “As Matthew explains, the
Hebrew Eli (Mark uses the Aramaic form ‘Eloi,’ 15:34) means, My God, and lama
sabachthani means, Why hast Thou forsaken me?”
Here
we see that Jesus was quoting the well-known 22nd Psalm, there could
have been little doubt in the minds of those who were standing there as to what
Jesus was saying. Many people had been
taunting Him with His claim that He was the Son of God (43), and an appeal for
divine help would have been expected.
MacArthur writes “Their saying, ‘This man is calling for Elijah,’ was not
conjecture about what He said but was simply an extension of their cruel,
cynical mockery.”
MacArthur
goes on to explain “In
this unique and strange miracle, Jesus was crying out in anguish because of the
separation He now experienced from His heavenly Father, for the first and only
time in all of eternity.” (I like it when MacArthur agrees with me.) “It is the only time of which we have record
that Jesus did not address God as Father.
Because the Son had taken sin upon Himself, the Father turned His
back. That mystery is so great and
imponderable that it is not surprising that Martin Luther is said to have gone
into seclusion for a long time trying to understand it and came away as
confused as when he began. In some way
and by some means, in the secrets of divine sovereignty and omnipotence, the
God-Man was separated from God for a brief time ast Cavalry, as the furious
wrath of the Father was poured out on the sinless Son, who in matchless grace
became sin for those who believe in Him.”
I
have to say that since I have been studying the crucifixion of Jesus Christ
that it has had a profound effect on me, more than any other time when I had
studied this subject. I suppose that
what effects me the most is that Jesus did this for me, and my thoughts are
that if I was the only person on earth that He still would have done this for
me, and that is what is effecting me the most, and what it is all about is how
much that He loves me. Living in this
sinful body all of my life, especially the first almost 27 years before the
Lord saved me is frustrating to me trying to understand the great love that God
has for me. I know that He loves me more
than I can understand, but because I feel unworthy of His love for me makes it
even more difficult to understand this great love He has for me.
8/26/2024 8:26 AM
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