⁴⁶About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?” That is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

The seven last statements of Christ on the cross (typically called the “seven last words”) give us a glimpse into His state of mind and what concerned about Him. I have often wondered what my last statements would be if I knew that I was about to die. With Jesus, we don’t need to guess; the Scripture records His words. Although we as believers have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16), who of us can fully know the mind of Christ as He was dying?

At the holy moment when God laid on Jesus the world’s sin and the eternal damnation that was due us, our Lord spoke things of ultimate and eternal concern. He had the presence of mind (the eternal presence of mind) and was, therefore, eternally present there in that moment of time. He is always timeless not matter at which juncture of time He displays Himself. As Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). He is the everlasting and actively present Yahweh.

How mysterious it is, then, as we seek to peer into His mind, that Jesus would mouth the words recorded here, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” We are contemplating the iceberg tip of the enormity of what He was doing on the cross. The incarnation and Trinity are simply words to label what we cannot fully understand. Jesus, as God in the flesh, spoke words of anguish at being forsaken by the One He called “My God”—an entirely unexpected and astounding statement! In Rabbinical fashion, He was quoting the first line of an extended Scripture passage, effectively applying it to Himself. He is quoting from the first line of Psalm 22, which speaks extensively of the experience of being forsaken by God of being separated from Him.

In Jesus’ death, there was a separation of some sort. This fits with our general understanding of physical death as a separation of the body from the spirit. Relational death can be thought of as a separation of a relationship. Spiritual death is a particular form of relational death; it is a separation from God. Jesus was experiencing the spiritual separation that we all deserved because of our sin. This spiritual break in our relationship with God began when Adam and Eve sinned, and it would continue into eternity unless the problem of death were solved. And that is what Jesus was doing on the cross—experiencing the eternal spiritual separation from the Father that we deserved.

It boggles the mind that the eternal One suffered spiritual death for us. Yet theologians have rightly concluded that God is unified, as one God; He is indivisible. Along with ancient creeds, we emphasize that God is one God in three Persons. He is not three Gods, but three Persons in one God. These three are distinguishable, as we see in Scripture (see, for example, Mark 1:9-11), yet completely and entirely unified.

At this level of understanding, we can frame our thinking as we grapple with His thoughts of being forsaken, that is, with a Trinitarian mindset. On the cross, if we might put it this way, the incarnation was straining. The struggle was a tension within the Godhead; this was the consequences of the eternal, creator God entering into His creation. This phenomenon is more unfathomable than the black holes in the universe that cosmologists tell us about. The infinite creator God of everything, who is above time and space, became part of His creation while maintaining His “God-ness.” We simply have no mental capacity to understand it.

So why contemplate it, then? For the same reason, we ponder the vastness of the starry sky at night and are amazed with its awesomeness. Our salvation is possible because of this unfathomable moment, the death of Jesus Christ, who was separated from His Father, a spiritual death, for our sake. We could include words like inscrutable, impenetrable, incredible, and infinitely profound. But we must quickly add amazing, awesome, astounding, breathtaking, and overwhelming. What do we do with this glimpse? What can we do? Worship Him for the work He has done on the cross for you and for me!

Lord, contemplating what You said on the cross is like trying to drink from a fire hydrant. But this is one thing I can do: Thank you so much for dying for me!