STATEMENT 2

Mr 15:34 … “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

The second ‘crossing’ or exchange that took place on the cross was in the statement “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

Christ on the cross was forsaken so that we shall be reconciled to God and accepted by HIM. Jesus, the beloved Son of God, was forsaken on the cross, because looking down on the cross God could see “one carrying the sin of the whole world’. The scripture states that

‘He himself bore our sins’ in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds we are healed’ (1Pet 2:24 NIV).

He was made a sin offering and hence appeared a sinner, even though he had no sin.

It is by grace, through faith in Christ therefore, that we are saved. In Christ we have full acceptance and access to God. Glory! Our sins were not only forgiven on the Cross, but we have FULL acceptance in Christ. For just as through the sin of one man (Adam) we all became sinners and were separated by ‘default’ from God, so also through the obedience of One Man ‘Jesus Christ’ we have full acceptance with God (1 Cor. 15:22)

Sometimes it’s a bit intriguing how we easily identify with the sin of Adam and admit that we are sinners, irrespective of our righteous deeds, but unable to believe that we have been made righteous in Christ Jesus and hence full acceptance by God, irrespective of the sins we had committed.

Indeed, it is not because of the sins we committed that we were made sinners, rather it was because we were sinners (through Adam) that we committed sins. In the same vain it is not the good we have done or are doing that makes us righteous and accepted by God. It is rather because we have been made righteous and accepted by God, through our faith in Christ who was forsaken, that we commit acts considered righteous by God.

Praise the Lord, for the Lord is our Righteousness. May we walk in the boldness of the Lord our righteousness and not live in the guilt of the sins of the past. May we enjoy the liberation from the power of sin on the Cross, and burst in the glory of the Lord our righteousness