Did God Forsake His Son?

There are passages in the Bible placed there for one specific purpose: to produce faith. Psalm 22 is one of them. Written by David roughly 900 years before the cross, it reads less like ancient poetry and more like an eyewitness account of the crucifixion. That is not a coincidence. That is the fingerprint of God.

A Cry That Points Backward — and Forward

The psalm opens with the very words Jesus cried from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?" (Ps 22:1) When Jesus spoke those words in Matthew 27:46, some have read despair into them — as though the Father had turned His back on His own Son. But I think something else was happening entirely. Jesus knew this psalm. He lived it. And by quoting its opening line, He was calling every ear at Calvary back to the whole of it — inviting them to see that what they were watching had been written down a thousand years before.

The Details No One Could Have Guessed

What follows in the psalm is remarkable. David described mockery — people wagging their heads, taunting, "He trusted in the Lord, let Him rescue him" (Ps 22:7-8). Matthew 27:39-43 records those exact taunts at the cross, word for word in spirit. The psalm described an unquenchable thirst (Ps 22:15); John 19:28 records Jesus saying, "I thirst." David wrote, "They pierced my hands and my feet" (Ps 22:16) — and crucifixion had not even been invented yet. He wrote that soldiers would divide His garments and cast lots for His clothing (Ps 22:18); John 19:23-24 records the soldiers doing precisely that, then notes: "that the scripture might be fulfilled." The gospel writers kept saying it because it kept being true.

Not Forsaken — Entrusted

So did the Father forsake the Son? The psalm itself answers. By verse 21, the tone shifts completely: "You have answered me." The psalmist declares that God "has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, nor has he hidden his face from him; but when he cried to him, he heard" (Ps 22:24). Does that sound forsaken? Not at all. Even on the night He was arrested, the Father sent an angel to strengthen Him in the garden (Luke 22:43). And when the moment came, Jesus did not cry out in abandonment — He said, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." He completely trusted His Father with His own soul, knowing the Father would not leave Him in Hades or allow His holy One to see corruption, as Psalm 16 had also promised. The Hebrew writer tells us Jesus "for the joy set before him endured the cross" (Heb 12:2). He knew the outcome. He was not abandoned. He was obeying.

We Are Not Forsaken Either

The same God who kept every word of Psalm 22 — down to the casting of lots for a seamless tunic — is the God who holds our lives. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16) There are seasons in life when it can feel as though God does not see what we are going through. But the evidence of Calvary says otherwise. He knew exactly where His Son was on that cross. He knows exactly where you are today. The Father did not forsake Jesus, and He will not forsake you. If anything, it is we who sometimes wander from Him — and even then, He is not waiting to condemn us. He is waiting for us to come home.