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Tim Keller on Jesus' Separation from the Father

If after a service some Sunday morning one of the members of my church comes to me and says, "I never want to see you or talk to you again," I will feel pretty bad. But if today my wife or my lifelong best friend came up to me and said, "I never want to see you or talk to you again," I would be devastated. The longer the love, the deeper the love, the greater the torment of its loss.

But the forsakenness experienced by Christ on the Cross, the relational loss, was between the Father and the Son, who had loved each other from all eternity. … Jesus was experiencing Judgment Day. "My God, by God, why have you forsaken me?" It wasn't a rhetorical question. And the answer is: For you, for me, for us. Jesus was forsaken by God so that we would never have to be. The judgment that should have fallen on us fell instead on Jesus.

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