Saying #4: My God, My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me? (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34)
And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And some of them that stood by, when they heard it, said, Behold, he calleth Elias. And one ran and filled a spunge full of vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink, saying, Let alone; let us see whether Elias will come to take him down. (Mark 15:33-36; cf. Matthew 27:45-49)
The Lord Jesus said this after three hours suffering on the cross. What does it mean?
First, this is a quotation from the Old Testament: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?” (Psalm 22:1). This is a way for the Lord Jesus to show that His suffering is a fulfillment of that Psalm. If you read that Psalm, you see how much of it was fulfilled at His Passion. However, this reference was lost on His immediate audience, thinking Eli/Eloi was a reference to the prophet Elias.
Second, this was His true experience. “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand” (Isaiah 53:10). The Father poured out His wrath on His Son that was rightfully due us. We were accepted because He was rejected. This is the great exchange: The righteous died for the guilty, and the guilty was set free. Nobody would ever be saved if the Lord had not done this.