The Cry of Triumph
The Cry of Triumph
Jesus’ cry of triumph, one of the last statements Jesus
made while hanging on the cross just before giving up
His life, is recorded in Matthew.
Matthew 27:46:
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud
voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to
say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Does this sound like a cry of triumph—“My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Certainly not, not as
the English translation now sets. This translation is a cry
of defeat and as such has misled well-meaning people for
years.
We understand Matthew 27:46 word by word except
for the foreign words. It would appear that God forsook
Jesus because Jesus became sin and God could not stand
sin. God consequently left Jesus to die alone. This idea
contradicts every other pertinent verse in the Word of
God.
Matthew 27:46, as well as the same record in Mark
15:34, should have arrested our attention from the beginning.
Why did the translators leave those foreign words in
the verse? This deviation from normal translation procedures
should have caused us to wonder.
Let us go to The Word and see exactly what The Word
says. Look at the Gospel of John where Jesus spoke to
his apostles.
John 16:32:
Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye
shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall
leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the
Father is with me.
Jesus was referring to the time of his crucifixion and,
of his death, the coming time; he said, “the Father is
with me.” Yet Matthew 27:46 says, “My God, my God
why hast thou forsaken me?”
John 10:30 testifies, “I and my Father are one.” II Corinthians
5:19 says, “To wit, that God was in Christ,
reconciling the world unto himself.”
How are you going to separate one, separate God who was in Christ, when
he was dying on the cross?
Colossians 2:9 tells, “For in him [in Christ] dwelleth
all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” How are we going
to separate the fullness of the Godhead which dwelt in
Christ while He was present on earth? How was it possible
for God to forsake Jesus when Jesus was the fullness
of the Godhead?
Matthew tells what Jesus said at the time He was taken
captive.
Matthew 26:53:
Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father,
and he shall presently give me more than twelve
legions of angels?
A person has to be on talking terms with God to get
that kind of assistance. The Father would have given Jesus
72,000 angels. Jesus could have walked right out from
among this group of men if he had wanted to. How?
Because “I and my Father are one,” “the Father is with
me,” “I always do the Father’s will.” If Jesus Christ was
always doing the Father’s will, he must have been doing
his Father’s will when he was dying upon the cross. Yet
Matthew 27:46 says, “Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying,
Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” This verse clearly
contradicts the rest of The Word.
What is the problem? First of all, the foreign words in
verse 46 of Matthew 27 are not Greek words; they are
Aramaic. Jesus spoke Aramaic. (Aramaic is called Hebrew
in the King James Version.) These Aramaic words
show up in this particular Scripture because the translators
were not absolutely certain about their meaning. They
let the Aramaic words remain and then, also, added what
they thought the English translation might be.* However,
there is no such Aramaic word as lama, but there is the
word lmna. Lmna is a declaration of “for this purpose”
or “for this reason.” The root of sabachthani is shbk or
shbq. The root word shbk means to spare, to leave, to
reserve or to keep. The word “reserved” in Romans 11:4
is the root word shbk which must have been the same
word in the ancient text of I Kings 19:18 from which it
is quoted.
Romans 11:4:
But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have
reserved [shbk] to myself seven thousand men, who
have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.
I Kings 19:18:
Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the
knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every
mouth which hath not kissed him.
This same shbk is translated “remaining” in the following
three Scriptures.
II Kings 10:11:
So Jehu slew all that remained of the house of Ahab
in Jezreel, and all his great men, and his kinsfolks,
and his priests, until he left him none remaining
[shbk].
Deuteronomy 3:3:
So the Lord our God delivered into our hands Og
also, the king of Bashan, and all his people: and we
smote him until none was left to him remaining
[shbk].
Joshua 10:33:
Then Horam king of Gezer came up to help Lachish;
and Joshua smote him and his people, until he had
left him none remaining [shbk].
Going back to Matthew 27, it was about the ninth hour,
three o’clock in the afternoon, when Jesus spoke from
the cross. Hanging on the cross at that critical hour, Jesus
came forth with this utterance from the depth of his soul,
“My God, my God [Eli, Eli], for this purpose [lmna] you
spared me [sabachthani].” “My God, my God, for this
purpose was I spared or reserved.”
The next words that He uttered were, “It is finished.”
What was finished? Your redemption and mine. Jesus
Christ had given his own life and paid the price. He who
knew no sin had become sin so that you and I might
become the righteousness of God in Him.** Your redemption
and mine was finished then. The next chronological
verse of Scripture says, “and he. . .yielded up the ghost.”
The soldiers and accusers did not take his life. It was not
the nails driven through his hands that held him to the
cross, not the nails driven through his feet. Do you know
why Jesus kept hanging on that cross? Because Jesus
Christ loved us. He could have walked off that cross; he
could have had twelve legions of angels at his command;
but he kept hanging on the cross because he so loved us
that he gave his own life for us. And under these circumstances,
do you think God would desert His only Son?
Suppose you had an only son and right now your son
was dying. Would you be reading this book on abundant
living or would you be with your son? And yet your son
has sinned; he has done things contrary to what you would
like for him to do. Still you would want to be with him.
Do you think that God Almighty is less caring for His
Son than you are? Jesus Christ was God’s only-begotten
Son; Jesus always did the Father’s will. When he was
dying upon the cross, where do you think the Father was?
With him!
When Jesus was dying upon the cross, he did not cry,
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” but
rather, “My God, my God, for this purpose was I spared,
for this purpose was I kept, for this purpose came I into
the world, for this purpose was I reserved.*** Now we
have an accurate translation of Matthew 27:46, one of the
most difficult verses of Scripture in the King James Version.
Now this verse harmonizes or fits with the other
passages in the Word of God.
God stayed with His Son. This was not only their triumphant
hour but ours also, for it was at this point that
Jesus Christ, the second Adam, fulfilled all the legal requirements
for our redemption and salvation. This was
Christ’s purpose for coming into the world.