CHRIST FORSAKEN FOR SINNERS by Pastor Scott Henry

Matthew 27:46: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

This Friday, April 3, is the day known on the church calendar as Good Friday.  It’s the day when the Church of Jesus Christ specifically remembers the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ for the redemption of sinners.  We remember how Christ became a curse for us on the cross so that we might receive the blessings of God.  We remember how Jesus suffered during His whole life on earth, and how He endured the reproach of sinful men and suffered the physical torture of being beaten and nailed to the cross.  But the greatest of His suffering was when Jesus was forsaken by His Father.  On the cross, Jesus Christ experienced the inexpressible pains and terrors of eternal death so that those who believe in Him might receive everlasting life.  Matthew 27:46: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”  Christ was forsaken for a time by the Father because of the sins of all who were given to Him.  It was at this time that He became a curse for us and was cast out by the Father for every sinful thought, word, and deed (past, present, and future) of all those given to Him by the Father (John 6:37).

2 Corinthians 5:21: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  Christ was our scapegoat in order that God’s wrath might be turned away from us and we might become favorable in God’s sight (Leviticus 16:21-22).  In the same way, Christ’s death was a substitutionary death — a death that atoned for the sins of His people.  Do you understand what Christ had to go through to redeem your soul?  Do you realize the great horror that He endured so we would not have to?  According to Scripture, for sinners to be saved, the precious blood of Jesus had to be shed.  “And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission” (Heb. 9:22).  And we read in 1 Peter 1:18-19: “…knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”  But Jesus was the innocent Lamb of God — the One who knew no sin; therefore death could not hold Him down.  Acts 2:23-24: “Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.”

And since death could not hold Him down Good Friday is not the end of the story.  The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” At the very heart of the Christian faith is the doctrine of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which demonstrates both the acceptance of Christ’s work by the Father and that Christ’s atoning work is finished as demonstrated by His sitting down at the Father’s right hand.  The priest’s work in the Old Covenant was never finished; they continually offered animal sacrifices and thus never sat down.  But Jesus, after the one sacrifice of Himself, sat down because His work was complete.  And because Christ was raised from the dead everyone who trusts in Him is guaranteed a blessed resurrection.  Romans 6:5: “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection…”  However, the question is this — Are you trusting the crucified and risen Christ as the only satisfaction for your sins?  Scripture says it plain and clear: “There is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).  Look to Jesus today and live forevermore!!