Did the Holy Spirit Abandon the Lord when He was on the Cross?

 Did the Holy Spirit Abandon the Lord Jesus on the Cross? by Keith Petersen 

There is, evidently, a certain conflict in Christendom as to whether the Holy Spirit left – or, abandoned – the Lord Jesus when He was on the Cross.  This paper seeks to provide a Biblical and comprehensive answer to this issue.

I think it accurate to say that the suggestion that the Holy Spirit could not be associated with the Lord on the Cross is evidently based upon two Bible statements – that the Lord was “made sin” on the Cross (2 Corinthians 5:21) and that He was forsaken (“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” – Matthew 27:46).

The immediate Scripture that comes to mind in respect to this suggestion is Hebrews 9:14 – “who by the eternal Spirit offered himself spotless to God”.

There are two important teachings in this one Scripture (as a prelude, it should be said that the Lord’s offering of Himself as the sacrificial Lamb on the Cross, whatever might be any aspects of the Cross, is one great matter).  The first teaching is that the Lord offered Himself by the Holy Spirit – i.e., the Lord’s offering of Himself on the Cross – is shown to be by the Holy Spirit.  This immediately shows the presence and power of the Holy Spirit throughout the offering.  There is no ground given by which the statement can be abridged or modified in even the slightest way.  Any attempt to modify this statement by suggesting that “by the Holy Spirit” could be limited to the Holy Spirit’s presence in/with the Lord in either His approach to the Cross, or, the initial hours on the Cross prior to the forsaking, or, any other modification – cannot be supported when viewed against this Scripture.  As just noted, the Lord’s offering of Himself on the Cross is one matter – Hebrews 9:14 is distinctive in its language that this offering was accomplished throughout by the eternal Spirit.  It says nothing less.  In this aspect of the Cross, the presence and active power of the Holy Spirit is particularly emphasized.  This statement cannot be modified – it forms the starting point for any discussion on the presence of the Holy Spirit during the time frame when the Lord offered Himself on the Cross.

The second teaching included in this verse in Hebrews 9:14 is this – the Lord “offered Himself spotless”.

Part of the initial mistake in this misunderstanding of the Spirit’s presence during the Lord’s offering evidently rests upon a faulty premise – albeit, perhaps a subconscious thought – that when the Lord “was made sin” in some way He actually became, however it might have worked out, sinful.  However, “made sin” can only refer to the attitude of God towards the Christ in respect to a necessary judgment against sin.  It was done vicariously.  An example of a vicarious appointment is that, in the 15th and 16th centuries a whipping boy would be beaten with the punishment that should have been meted to the crown prince – the whipping boy was undeserving of the whipping but he vicariously underwent the punishment due to another. 

We need, also, to look at the full quote as to the Lord being made sin.  It reads, “Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us.”  The Lord “knew not sin”.  He never knew it and He never was it other than the vicarious appointment of God when the Lord went to the Cross.  When we link this full verse with the Scripture just quoted showing that the Lord offered Himself spotless, we can readily understand that there never was – there could not be – any point in which, in any way, whether in His earthly path here or at the Cross, that the Lord Himself could actually be constituted or viewed as being, or having, sin.  He was “spotless” throughout.  As a result, there would be no basis to assume that the Holy Spirit would have left the Lord due to some presence of sin.  As said, “made sin” was entirely vicarious – there was no taint of sin in or with the Lord – ever.

This brings us to the forsaking.  The thought evidently is that, if God forsook the Lord on the Cross, and, since the Holy Spirit is a Person of the Godhead, He would have had to, of necessity, left the Lord during the forsaking.  But, as already shown in Hebrews 9:14, the presence of the Holy Spirit in connection with the Lord was an unbroken reality on the Cross – as well, of course, throughout the Lord’s path here.  This Scripture in Hebrews has to stand unbroken as the starting point, as already mentioned. 

So, how do we account for the forsaking?  There is a brief treatise by JN Darby regarding the place of the Holy Spirit in the Lord’s history on earth, and it would do us well to consider at least this extract from it:

“But Christ as Man was born of the Holy Spirit; His life, though human in every respect, was the expression of the power of the Holy Spirit.  He cast out devils by the Holy Spirit.  His words were spirit and life.  The fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Him bodily, but His humanity was the expression of that which was divine by the Holy Spirit, in love, in power, and specially in holiness.  He was the Holy One of God.  By the Holy Spirit He offered Himself without spot to God.

In all things He served His Father; but His service was the perfect presentation of what was divine, of the Father Himself, in the midst of men—He, as to His humanity, by the Spirit, at every moment answering to the Godhead, the expression and effulgence of it without spot or blemish.  All the offerings of the Old Testament are types of Christ; but in this connection the meat-offering is the corresponding and most striking type.  Cakes of fine flour, unleavened, mingled with oil, anointed with oil, parted in pieces, and oil poured upon them. What a striking type of the humanity of Christ, which, as to its nature, was of the Spirit, and anointed with the Spirit, every part being characterised by the outpoured Spirit, and by which all the incense of His perfections was offered up to God as a sweet-smelling savour!   So, He had to be tried by fire, in death, to shew that all was a sweet savour, and nothing else.

We see from our brother’s writing the corresponding agreement as to Hebrews 9:14 – i.e., the Lord offering Himself by the Holy Spirit and without spot to God.  However, what we can note as to being of additional interest is his reference to the meat-offering.  The meat-offering is shown as either mingled with oil, anointed with oil or oil poured upon (the teaching as to this offering being in Leviticus 2).  In every instance the oil is incorporated into the offering which is then, as Mr. Darby indicates, subjected to the activity of the fire.  The importance of the meat-offering, then, is that the oil is present throughout the sacrificial process.  Oil in Scripture, as we know, is, virtually with no variation, a reference to the Holy Spirit.  Here we see that there is no separation in the offering of Christ (shown typically in the fine, unleavened flour) and the presence of the Holy Spirit (the oil).  Fire in Scripture typically involves, as Mr. Darby notes, suffering/judgment and death – and, we can bring forward this teaching in this type to its fulfillment in the antitype of the Lord in His path here.

So, what is involved in the forsaking?  It is of interest that, in researching the forsaking of the Christ (some greatly skew the teaching of the Bible on this subject to even include the unwarranted suggestion that Christ was not even forsaken) the general consensus is apparently that the Holy Spirit was not involved in the forsaking – and these agreements are based on Hebrews 9:14.

For myself, I have always thought that the Lord’s cry as to the forsaking – “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me’ – was directed to the Father as God.  The Scripture clearly supports the recognition of the Father as God – “to us [there is] one God, the Father” (1 Corinthians 8:6).  When I looked afresh at what was said as to this circumstance in the seminal paper “The Sufferings of Christ” I find that it fully supports this understanding[1].  It says this:

“Another very striking fact in the path of the blessed Lord which I alluded to, is this: during the whole of His life of service, all through, including Gethsemane, Christ never addresses God by the name of God. He always says “Father”.

On the cross we know His words were “My God, my God”. In His life this title would have been out of place – not, of course, because it did not belong to Him whom he addressed, but because it was not the expression of the unclouded relationship and conscious blessedness of sonship in which the blessed Lord always stood.

On the cross God was dealing with Him about sin, and therefore as God, in His nature, majesty, righteousness, and truth. Here sin was to be dealt with as such by God, and the blessed One expresses according to truth the position in which His holy soul stood.

We are permitted in wondrous grace to see Him in such a One. Infinite and wondrous grace it is.

But the terms the Lord makes use of mark very clearly and solemnly the difference of the two positions in which the blessed Lord relatively stood.

Till the cross the Lord walked in the enjoyment of the relationship of a Son with the Father, yea, an only begotten Son, knowing that the Father heard Him always.

On the cross, as we have seen, all that God was against sin, He, as made sin, had to feel and meet and endure”.

Although all the prior paragraphs to this point should have provided ample evidence on their own, this straight-forward understanding as set out by the author of that treatise should further help dispel any thought as to the Holy Spirit being forced to (being God Himself), as it were, become disassociated with the Lord when He was on the Cross.  It is evident that the Lord was addressing the Father as God – the Holy Spirit, as present in/with the Lord, could not be included in this address.  The forsaking itself relates to the place the Lord took vicariously on the Cross as being made sin – and, God’s wrath against Him as the Sin-Bearer.  The wrath was a real thing – as was the forsaking; but, it is vital to understand that the Lord Himself was on the Cross as a vicarious Substitute who “knew no sin".

I have gone on at some length in reference to all these points set out above regarding the presence of the Holy Spirit during the Lord’s time on the Cross.  It is extremely important that we understand accurately what transpired on the Cross.

However, there is another, overriding reality that has come to the fore through these questions and it involves a most vital comprehension – which is that of understanding the Godhead.  We must always remember that, while God in space and time has taken up a revelation of Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Bible says “God is one” (1 Timothy 2:5).  We cannot see or know God apart from revelation (“who only has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen, nor is able to see” – 1 Timothy 6:16).

As a result, when it comes to the Persons of the Godhead in their inherent, essential Nature, we have to tread with great care because, even though we have the revelation of God as set out in the Scriptures, there remains what is eternal and inscrutable.  This is not to say that there is anything “hidden”, reverently speaking, that we should know; but, just that we as finite creatures have been brought into an ineffable and eternal relationship with the Divine Persons of the one Godhead and we must be careful not to go beyond what Scripture shows as to God Himself.

We must be aware, then, as “God is one”, that it is great error to attempt to “split” or make a separation in the Oneness of Divine Persons.  This is to say that, while we must indeed take up the revelation of God as revealed in the Bible, we have to treat any considerations as to God Himself in the light of His eternal Essence and Being – as being “One”.  We cannot use the revelation of God in creation and “reverse engineer” our thinking in an attempt to extrapolate what is relative back to what is absolute.  An immediate example of such reasoning is seen in the glaring error of attempting to state that the Person of the Godhead that we know as Jesus Christ the Son of God was actually a Son in the past eternity.

Over the centuries there have been many – generally erroneous – attempts to try to define the nature and the reality of the fact, as is said in 1 Timothy 3:16, that “God has been manifested in flesh”.  Monophysitism attempted to establish that Jesus Christ had only a Divine nature in a human.  Apollinarism tried to say that the Lord had a human body, a divine mind; but, no human soul.  Gnosticism said that the Lord received the Holy Spirit upon baptism but that the Spirit left Him at the Cross.  Others promulgated a theory that in Christ there were two entirely separate and distinct natures – i.e., Jesus the human and Christ the Divine.

The generally accepted phrase used today is “hypostatic union”.  It is not, of course, a scriptural term; but, it enunciates an accepted definition which is:  “Jesus Christ, one Person, fully God and fully Man.”  This is indeed what Scripture shows (John 1) and we do well to leave it there.

So, how does all this feed into our discussion about the Cross and the presence of the Holy Spirit?  Simply this – if we recognize that “God is one” we can immediately understand that it is, as stated above, an impossibility – indeed, a great error – to think that there could be any divergence or “split” in the Oneness of Divine Persons as God.  In the case that we are examining of the Cross, if we try to decide that the Holy Spirit could indwell Christ but then leave Him (in this case, to subsequently return to Him) we are, even if subconsciously, attempting to divide the person of the Christ into two distinct entities – which is patently unscriptural.  We cannot decide that the Holy Spirit could not leave, for example, speaking reverently, the “God-part” of the Lord; but, could leave the human part.  This would be falling into the error of dividing the Christ to be ½ God and ½ Man.  It is true that John the Baptist says that “he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him” (Matthew 3:16); but, this was only in the way of witness (see John 1) as Luke 1:35 shows that the Lord was holy from birth – “[The] Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and power of [the] Highest overshadow thee, wherefore the holy thing also which shall be born shall be called Son of God.”

I cannot emphasize this point enough:  “God is one” – that has never changed and cannot ever change.  Any thought that the Holy Spirit could ever move distinctly from, or, away from, Christ – no matter what the circumstance – is a Scriptural impossibility.  So, we see in this respect that the Bible establishes that “the Lord is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:17).  The Lord Himself says, further, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).  God is One – this cannot be affected by time, space, creation or anything – including the Cross.  There can be no separation, no split, no divergence, no difference, no variation, no distance in the Godhead.  It is impossible that the Holy Spirit could separate Himself from Christ.

 I trust all the above is agreeable.  We say at intervals that it is vital that we do not attempt to go beyond Scripture – i.e., that we leave Scripture as it is written.  It is, perhaps, not so hard to step over the lines (the truth is a straight line – see 2 Timothy 2:15) of Scriptural truth – we must be kept guarded and prayerful.  As mentioned earlier, it has been well said that we must allow Scripture to form our minds and not take our thoughts to Scripture – the key is to always be amendable to “the Spirit of truth” as “he shall guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13).

[1] Of course – we do not accept any Christian teaching based only on what may be the stature of the teacher (see Acts 17:11); however, our brother JN Darby’s statements throughout his paper on the “Sufferings of Christ” have long been regarded as being fully consistent with Scripture.