Questions From Readers

● Since Jesus knew he was to be bruised by the great Serpent, Satan the Devil, in fulfillment of Genesis 3:15, why did he, when dying on the torture stake, ask: “My God, my God, to what end have you forsaken me?”—Matt. 27:46.

Jesus on the torture stake asked this question, not because he did not know why Jehovah God, his heavenly Father, had forsaken him, but in order that prophecy might be fulfilled. The prophecy here fulfilled was one found in Psalm 22, which was written by David, who was a prophetic type of the Lord Jesus Christ in many respects.

In the opening words of that psalm, David cries out: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (AV) When any disciples of Jesus who were standing near his torture stake, such as John and Mary, the mother of Jesus, heard him cry out those words of Psalm 22:1, they may not at the time have appreciated why Jesus made such an outcry. But after understanding came upon them, following the outpouring of the holy spirit on the day of Pentecost, then they must have remembered and appreciated the fact that this prophetic outcry identified Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah of God.

On the torture stake Jesus was indeed forsaken by his heavenly Father, Jehovah, in order that his integrity to God might be tested to the very limit. God forsook him, abandoning him to the cruel devices of Satan the Devil and his wicked religious agents on earth. Thus Satan, who has the means to cause death, was given free allowance to exercise that power against the Son of God.

But God’s abandonment of Jesus was only as far as allowing the Devil and his dupes to put Jesus to death. This abandonment of Jesus did not include the disposal of his dead body or corpse. Instead of Jesus’ enemies taking his body down from the torture stake and casting it into the fiery valley of Hinnom (or Gehenna), his body was recovered from the torture stake by Joseph of Arimathea, who had the corpse buried in a new tomb that he had cut. This burial of Jesus meant he was in Sheol, the common grave of mankind. In Sheol he was not abandoned by Jehovah God, for Psalm 139:8 (which was written by David, a type of Jesus Christ) says: “If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, thou art there.” (AS) Hence on the third day after Jesus’ death Jehovah God showed that he had not permanently abandoned Jesus, by raising him from the dead to spirit life immortal. When Jesus later appeared to his disciples that same resurrection day he could therefore say: “All the things written in the law of Moses and in the Prophets and Psalms about me must be fulfilled,” including Psalm 22:1 (AV), namely, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”—Luke 24:44.