Search This Blog

Saturday, April 9, 2011

When Jesus Was Abandoned

Matthew 27:45,46

"Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani!' That is to say,  My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?"

This text is taken from Matthew 27:45-46, and describes the darkest hour in the life of our Savior. An hour when He had to be left alone with His load of anguish. A time when no earthly man could come to His aid either to deliver Him or comfort Him. A time when even heaven itself must turn a deaf ear to His cry, and caused the Christ Himself to cry aloud in acknowledgment that even His Father had abandoned Him.

The way the story is presented, it makes it sound as if Jesus is talking to a separate person. Now, Christians also state that Jesus is god. However, since Christians insist there is only one god, that means Jesus and the heavenly father are the same entity.

Now, this opens up several questions. The primary one is since Jesus IS god, according to the story, how could the heavenly god, who is actually Jesus as well, abandon himself? If he was abandoned, does that mean the Trinity was not intact during that period? If the Trinity remained intact, in what way was Jesus being abandoned? Since Jesus is all powerful, in what way could he be abandoned? An all powerful deity simply commands that he stay in contact with the heavenly father, who, of course, is Jesus anyway. If you want to state that Jesus allowed himself to be separated from god, who is himself, then he was not abandoned, he left voluntarily.

The biblical god is described as omnipresent. That means the heavenly father and Jesus are everywhere at all times. How can Jesus have been abandoned if both he and his father, who is himself, are everywhere at all times? To be abandoned is to be left alone. However, Jesus is everywhere at all times. It is not possible for him to be alone.

In his book, The Omnipresence of God in Hell, by Eric Landstrom, we are offered this idea of the omnipresence of god.

Thomas Oden noted in his systematic theology that the infinite is that which has no end, no limit, and no finite boundary, thus that which is infinite cannot be measured or timed by any finite standard. Infinity, rightly conceived, can belong only to God alone. By definition that which is infinite cannot be applied to any finite creature, even though the creatures themselves may participate in the infinity of God. Thus notions of infinite time and infinite space tend to be self contradictory and confusing because space and time, being finite, cannot be extended infinitely. It is only when infinity is attributed to God alone that the concept has precise, plausible, and a consistent meaning.


Space and time are transcended by the infinite God, making terms like beyond and transcended inexact and usable only in a metaphorical sense. God is both infinitely near and infinitely far, yet speaking in this way we do not imply that God is finitely localized in one place, be it here on this earth, heaven, or hell (Oden, The Living God).

Omnipresence is God's method of being present to all ranges of both time and space. Although God is present in all time and space, God is not locally limited to any time or space. God is everywhere and in every now. No molecule or atomic particle is so small that God is not fully present to it, and no galaxy so vast that God does not circumscribe it. But if we were to remove creation, God would still know of it, for He knows all possibilities, whether they are actual or not.

http://www.ovrlnd.com/Teaching/omnipresence_hell.html

If the Father abandoned Jesus, does that not mean that Jesus is not equal to the Father? If he is not equal, in what way can he be called all powerful? If he is equal, in what way can he abandoned by the Father? If he was abandoned, then the father is more powerful than Jesus.

The story drives the point that the concept of the biblical god, the Trinity and Jesus are a complete contradiction. It is also nonsense.

No comments:

Post a Comment