Steve Owen
Well-Known Member
This will depend what definition of 'separate' you are trying to ascribe to me (and Spurgeon, Lloyd-Jones etc., etc.). Let's look at a couple of the other uses of ἐγκαταλείπωYes. The word means "forsake". I never disagreed with that. Your definition "withhold ones help" is fitting. So is "abandon" ("to withdraw protection, support or help").
But you are adding to the definition and Scripture by trying to sneak in the idea of "separation". Scripture speaks of Christ being forsaken to suffer and die (and defines His cry as a cry for deliverance) in the exact same passage).
2 Timothy 4:10. 'For Demas has forsaken me.......' What has Demas done? He has abandoned Paul, separated himself from him and gone off to enjoy the fleshpots of Rome.
Hebrews 13:5. '......."I will never leave you nor forsake you.'" Here God promised never to separate Himself from His people, because Christ has borne that separation on our behalf..
Acts 2:27. 'For You will not leave my soul in Hades.....' David is rightly convinced that God will not abandon him in Hades, which would mean eternal separation from God.
So 'separate' is well within the semantic range of ἐγκαταλείπω.
But if you think I mean that God somehow detatched the Lord Jesus from the Trinity for a while, you are entirely wrong. I have never suggested that. What I have said several times is that on the cross, the Lord Jesus, in addition to the terrible pain which He was suffering (which neither Father nor Spirit felt), for the first time ever, as Man He could feel no communion with the Father. He felt Himself utterly alone. Why? Because He was bearing our sin, the penalty for which is the 'Second Death' - not extinction of being but everlasting separation from God.
I do, of course, none of those things, and for you to state them does not make it so.But you ignore the meaning of the Greek word, the meaning of the English word, the definition provided by Scripture that n the Matthew passage, and the context of Scripture to claim God separated from Christ.
This is only so if you adopt a definition of 'separate' which has more to do with Siamese twins that the Father's forsaking of Christ upon the cross.This is in opposition to orthodox Christian faith which states that the Father and Son are inseparable. By insisting God separated from Jesus your theory denies 1. the Nicene Creed's use of "eternally begotten", and 2. the Chalcedonian Creed's statement that the Father and Son cannot separate (they are inseparable).
It is not. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a medical doctor before becoming a preacher. It was his medical opinion that our Lord literally died of a broken heart:You do not have to agree with historic Christian faith or these Creed's (in part or in full) and you obviously do not. But this means your view is well outside traditional Christian faith on this topic.
'His heart was literally ruptured by the againy of the wrath of God upon Him, and by the separation from the face of His Father...That, my friend, is the love of God to you, a sinner... And He did it in order that we should not receive that punishment and go to hell...that is the wonder and the marvel and the glory of the cross.' [D.M. Lloyd-Jones, The Cross, God's Way of Salvation]
And again:
'If you do not believe in the doctrine of the wrath of God....what possible meaning is there in that cry of dereliction? What likewise is the meaning of the agony in the garden? Why did He sweat great drops of blood....Why? Because He knew that He was going to feel the wrath of God against the sin He was to bear, and be separated from His Father...........Our sins have been laid upon Him, and the wrath of God upon those sins has come upon Him...the punishment that should have come upon you and me on account of our sinfulness and our sins came to Him.' [D.M. Loyd-Jones. Romans: An Exposition of Chapters 3:20-4:25]
And a word from J.C. Ryle, the first Bishop of Liverpool: 'When you come to your deathbed, you will want something more than an example....Take heed that you are found resting all your weight on Christ's substitution for you on the cross, and His atoning blood, or it will be better if you had never been born.' [J.C. Ryle, 'One Blood' a sermon printed in The Upper Room: Being a few Truths for the Times]
And now, I will explain, in a further post or two, the Doctrine of the Trinity with respect to that Atonement.