The Ultimate Act of Faith |
by David A. DePra |
| When Jesus hung upon the Cross, He uttered words which |
| He had never spoken before. He said, "My God, My God, why |
| hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matt. 27:46) But only a short time |
| later, He would pray other words. He would say, "Father, into |
| Thy hands I commend My spirit." (Luke 23:46) The two sayings |
| put together provide us with a perfect picture of what it really |
| means to surrender to God. |
| The words, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?, |
| are, of course, a fulfillment of a prophecy from Psalms. But let's |
| look a little closer at them and try to discern the heart attitude |
| behind them. What was Jesus really saying? |
| Not a Lack of Faith |
| First, what was Jesus NOT saying? It is certain that Jesus |
| was not protesting to God the fact He was being crucified |
| unjustly. To the contrary, Jesus had continually foretold that He |
| was going to be crucified, and raised from the dead. In only the |
| prior twenty four hours He had said that He was pressed to get |
| on with this crucifixion. He had also announced that He had |
| been birthed into this world for the very purpose of giving up His |
| life. So Jesus was most definitely NOT surprised that He was |
| hanging on the Cross. He was not saying to God, "Why have you |
| deserted Me and allowed such a thing to happen?" No. Jesus |
| was dying exactly as He had predicted. |
| There was no air of protest or resistance to the Cross in |
| Jesus. He had already told the disciples, "No man taketh My life. |
| I lay it down willingly." Neither was this a fit of weakness on the |
| part of Christ, now that He hanging on the Cross. It was not that |
| He, being human, lost faith for a moment. That would be |
| impossible since, "Whatever is not of faith is sin." (Rom. 14:23) |
| Jesus did NOT hang on the Cross for our sin, only to Himself commit |
| sin in the process. |
| An Eternal Fellowship Broken |
| So what did Jesus mean by His heart cry to God? Well, this |
| was the first time in all eternity that the Son of God, the Word of |
| God, now Incarnate, had lost His consciousness of God's |
| presence. It was the one experience which Jesus Christ had |
| never faced. And upon facing it, He was merely exclaiming the |
| horror of it. "My God, My God, Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" |
| "Why have you left Me alone, Father?" |
| Despite the fact that Jesus knew He was going to die, and |
| despite the fact that He gave Himself up for it willingly, He could |
| not have known what it was like to be left alone by God. Even |
| though He had totally surrendered to the FACT that He would |
| bear the sin of the world, actually experiencing it was something |
| which He could not know about until He faced it. His cry to God |
| at such a moment shows the utter barrenness His soul must |
| have felt at that moment. |
| Why did God "forsake" Jesus? Because Jesus was "made to |
| be sin." (II Cor. 5:21) Jesus BECAME everything we are in |
| Adam. And when He became that, He was stripped of His |
| fellowship with God. It could not be there as it was before. It was |
| gone. |
| Now, we must gain a proper perspective here. It would be |
| somewhat narrow to take our fellowship with God and try to |
| compare it to the fellowship which Jesus lost on the Cross. No. |
| The walk which Jesus had as a man on this earth was so far |
| beyond what most of us have ever experienced that we cannot |
| but imagine it. His fellowship was total. He said, "I and the Father |
| are ONE." He was always completely open and vulnerable to |
| God. He never once sinned or cast a shadow of unbelief upon |
| His oneness with the Father. |
| This perhaps gives us a greater understanding of why Jesus |
| cried out as He did. The loss which He sensed was of such great |
| magnitude because the fellowship He had was of perfect |
| oneness. The eternal Word of God, now the Incarnate Son of |
| God, was now alone. He was on the Cross, bearing the sin of |
| the world, yet without the perfect fellowship which He had always |
| possessed with the Father. |
| Surrender |
| The incredible part about all of this is that despite losing His |
| eternal fellowship with God, Jesus nevertheless remained totally |
| faithful and obedient. His response was to continue to submit to |
| God, regardless of the loss of any consciousness of God |
| Himself. As He hung upon the Cross, bearing the sin of world, |
| Jesus did cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" |
| But then He said, "Into Your hands do I commit My spirit." |
| Can we see the lesson here? Despite having NO idea where |
| God had gone, and despite having no consciousness of the |
| presence of God, Jesus nevertheless said, "I surrender anyways. |
| I nevertheless choose to believe." |
| Some Bible teachers have tried to paint this episode on the |
| Cross as a temporary breach of faith on the part of Jesus. They |
| try to say that for a moment He lost His faith in God. They then |
| try to use this to show that it is ok for us to lose faith too. But that |
| is not what these passages are teaching. Rather than a |
| temporary breach of faith, this episode is the ultimate act of faith. |
| Jesus had lost everything He had in God. But He surrendered to |
| God anyways -- even in that. He gave Himself wholly into the |
| hands of God. |
| A Lesson for Us |
| There are going to be times in the Christian life when we will |
| have no awareness of the conscious presence of God. There will |
| be LOTS of times. In fact, for some of us, MOST of the time we |
| may have little or no awareness of what God is doing, where He |
| is, or what He would have to say to us. Some of these "seasons |
| of silence" may last years. Even longer. |
| That is difficult. But worse, the most common times in which |
| we will wonder where God is and what He is doing are going to |
| be times of trial. There are going to be times when WE will be |
| hanging on OUR Cross, without any idea of where God is. We |
| will feel as if He has forsaken us. The question is, will we say to |
| Him, "Into Your hands I commit my spirit?" Or will we attempt to |
| come down from our Cross? |
| It is a fact that all trials in the Christian life are ultimately trials |
| of FAITH. And to try our faith, God must strip from us every other |
| crutch, including the discernable indications that God is with us. |
| Only then will we learn to stand in Christ by faith alone, and |
| therefore grow. |
| What this means in the practical sense, is that circumstances, |
| and especially our own emotions and temperment, will be |
| allowed to conspire to create for us an atmosphere where it |
| seems God is not with us. We will seem alone, and perhaps |
| forsaken. God won't talk to us. In fact, we will have no idea |
| where He is at all. But we must nevertheless believe, and in |
| believing, surrender to Him unto death. |
| Jesus surrendered to God unto death on the Cross. He had |
| no idea was it was like to die. To Him, that was unknown |
| territory. And He had no power to raise Himself from the dead. |
| But He trusted that God would be faithful to receive His death, |
| and raised Him out from it, just as He had promised. This also, is |
| our calling. |
| Faith |
| There is tremendous encouragement in this example of Jesus |
| on the Cross. It tells us that it is NORMAL for us, in the plan of |
| God, to be on a Cross, without consciousness of God. It tells us |
| that it is NORMAL for us, while on this Cross, to be faced with |
| having to surrender to a God we cannot presently see or |
| understand. It is God's way to put us in this position. |
| Do you realize what this means? It means that if, despite |
| having prayed and sought God, you still cannot find Him in your |
| great trial -- that you are right where He wants you. God |
| doesn't want you to have any conscious presence of Him. He |
| doesn't want you to know what He is doing. Indeed, if we would |
| understand it, we CANNOT know. We are not to the place where |
| we can know. What God DOES want is this: Surrender. He |
| wants you, despite not being able to see or understand where He |
| is or what He is doing, to commit yourself to Him unconditionally. |
| He wants you to totally and completely abandon yourself to Him |
| by faith. |
| This will, at the time, seem like the most terrifying thing |
| imaginable. You will be aware of the fact that if God isn't there as |
| He promised, that your surrender will be a disaster. You will say |
| to yourself, "If I take this thing in my own hands, and save my life |
| out of it, then it might be ok. But if I surrender to God, and He |
| isn't there for me, there is no way back." |
| There never is any way back if we trust God. Would we want |
| there to be? The nature of faith is that it must be tried. And when |
| it is tried, we will come to the place where we must make the |
| ultimate choice: Trust God, and in doing so, lose our lives -- |
| lose control over them. Or come down from the Cross and save |
| our lives. |
| Surrender to God always carries with it TOTAL and |
| COMPLETE UNCERTAINTY. Total and complete uncertainly |
| about everything! Everything that is, except God. The ultimate |
| acts of surrender in my life will be made in an atmosphere of |
| complete uncertainty about everything but God Himself. And if I |
| am certain about God, I'll risk everything on His faithfulness. |
| Faith doesn't need to see God. It believes God sees me. |
| Faith doesn't need to hear God. It believes God hears me. Faith |
| doesn't need to understand God. It believes God understands |
| me. Faith doesn't need to be certain about anything. It is certain |
| about God. And He is certain about everything. |
| Why does God require this kind of death of us? Because it is |
| the only way for us to be set free from this old creation. Because |
| only if we DIE to ourselves can we be raised in Christ. Jesus was |
| the pattern for us. And now we must follow. (see I Peter 2:21) * |