My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?

Driving home: They mean, that his undergoing the righteous wrath of God against the sin he was bearing was real and unspeakably horrific.

Martin contrasts the symbolic transfer of sin to Old Testament animals, which lacked souls and could not feel divine wrath, with Jesus' real, horrific experience of bearing God's wrath, explaining why only Christ could truly atone for sin.

And it was unspeakably horrific to his soul that he cries out, My God, my God, why did you forsake me? You remember in the Old Testament, all of the rituals ordained of God in which lambs and he goats and oxen were to be sacrificial victims. And part of the rubric and the divinely instituted ritual for those victims was that the hand of the sinful Israelite or the hand of the appointed priest would be laid upon the head of this beast, of this animal, this lamb, this goat. And when the hand was laid upon it, there would be a ceremonial, a verbal, a ritual transferal of the guilt of the offerer ...

27:56 - 29:02 Read in full sermon

Driving home: It was damnation.

Martin recounts Rabbi Duncan's emotional exposition of Isaiah 53, where he exclaimed that Jesus' forsakenness on the cross was 'damnation,' emphasizing the profound suffering Christ endured.

They meant that He was giving vent to the felt reality of being a true sin-bearer, of undergoing the reality of the wrath of God against the sins of men. In a book that I commend to all of you called, Just a Talker, someone has very kindly compiled many of the statements of a Scottish theologian, teacher of theology, who was rather an eccentric in many ways, but a dear saint of God, and his heart was ravished and captured with the truth of Christ crucified. And I love the incident that describes Rabbi Duncan as they called him. He was so knowledgeable in the Semitic languages, brilliant in lan...

36:45 - 38:07 Read in full sermon

Driving home: It was damnation.

Martin quotes Rabbi Duncan's statement that the cross of Jesus is 'something more awful still' than the expulsion from Eden, the flood, Sodom, or even hell itself, to underscore the unique horror of Christ's suffering.

The same Rabbi Duncan was heard saying on another occasion the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden was an awful thing. The deluge at the flood was an awful thing. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was an awful thing. The events of the last day will be awful.

39:22 - 39:46 Read in full sermon

Driving home: It was damnation.

Martin contrasts the singing of martyrs at the stake, who were upheld by God, with Jesus' cry of dereliction, highlighting that Jesus' suffering was unique because He bore the sins of others and the Father's wrath.

My friend, if so, it would be right for God to banish you forever unless you repent. For to Christ this was no phantom feeling. For Christ this was no temporary mental derangement. Martyrs have gone to the stake singing psalms and hymns and hugging the stake as God has lifted them above even the physical pain of the flames that scorched their flesh until it dropped from their bones.

40:06 - 40:45 Read in full sermon

The point: Behold what your sins look like in the sight of God by considering Jesus' cry, rather than giggling about them or watching sitcoms that trivialize sin.

Martin uses the example of average sitcoms, which portray sin with impunity and canned laughter, to illustrate how they fail to show the true ugliness of sin in God's sight, contrasting this with the mirror of Jesus' cry.

Well first of all this cry of Jesus is a mirror in which you must behold what your sins look like in the sight of God. You want to know what your sins look like in the sight of God? You don't sit down and giggle about your sins with your peers. Nor do you sit and watch the average sitcom on television in which every form of the violation of God's law is committed with impunity with canned laughter in the background.

43:47 - 44:24 Read in full sermon

The point: Hate your sins and go after their heads with all the gospel knives God has given, recognizing that they killed the Son of God.

Martin uses the metaphor of sins as 'snakes that killed the Son of God' to urge believers to hate their sins and actively fight against them with 'gospel knives,' rather than making them 'pets'.

It is the Word, the Lord's anointed Son of man and Son of God. The cry of Jesus is a mirror in which you must behold what your sins look like in the sight of God. And child of God, your sins and mine are no less ugly because they are the sins of someone who is a Christian and saved. Would you make a pet of a snake that bit your wife or darling child and killed them?

47:29 - 48:03 Read in full sermon

The point: Run into the cry of Jesus, finding refuge in His abandonment for the forgiveness of your sins.

Martin shares a story of a humble woman who, in broken English, articulated the core of the gospel: 'He die or me die. He die, me no die,' illustrating the substitutionary nature of Christ's death.

There was a tract very popular in another bygone generation that gave the account of how the gospel came to the people of Israel. It came to the people of Israel. It came to the people of Israel. It came to the people of Israel.

53:13 - 53:21 Read in full sermon