We do well to ponder with adoring hearts the stupendous fact that Christ has been into the distance and darkness, and uttered that solemn cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Think what this means: He the righteous One, the only righteous One, forsaken of God. Never before or since has man died such a death. When has God ever forsaken the righteous? The fathers trusted in Jehovah and were delivered (Ps. 22:4). Others suffered with cruel mockings and scourgings, with bonds and imprisonments; others were destitute, afflicted, tormented; but not one was forsaken. In the midst of their sufferings they were sustained by grace, strengthened by the Spirit of God, and cheered with the conscious presence of the Lord. The light of heaven and the love of the Father so filled their souls that, in the midst of their martyr sufferings, they went out of the world with joy in their hearts and songs on their lips—not one was forsaken.

Here, however, is One who is forsaken, One who cries to God, but has to say, “You do not hear” (v. 2). Forsaken by God, no help in God, no answer from God.

Why, indeed, was He forsaken? The One who utters the cry alone can give the answer: “But You are holy” (v. 3). God is holy—there is the sublime answer to the forsaking of the cross: it is not simply that man is evil, but that God is holy. It was God, not man, that the righteous One had before His holy soul when He went into the awful forsaking of the cross. It is God’s great purpose to dwell in the midst of a praising people, a people made suited by the work of Christ to stand before the face of God. To gain this people for the pleasure of God, Christ went into the forsaking. When His soul was made an offering for sin, the pleasure of the Lord began to prosper in His hand.