God never forsakes those who put their trust in Him. Indeed, even when people believe they have turned away from God, He is still omnipresent. Of the sometimes ambivalent ancient Israelites, a prophet wrote, "For Israel hath not been forsaken, nor Judah of his God, of the Lord of hosts; though their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel." Jer. 51:5.
As illimitable Spirit, Love, and Life, God could not withdraw from being infinite, All. Surely, then, those who rely on God and seek to live up to man's true selfhood as His perfect likeness should feel without fail His tender ever-presence and sustenance! Yet Christ Jesus—the highest expression of true manhood the world has ever known—evidently knew at least for a moment the anguish of feeling alone and unsupported. When he was righteously struggling on the cross to prove the power of Love over hate, Spirit over matter, Life over death, he cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34.
Many have puzzled as to why the beloved Son of God would not have felt his Father's presence with him all through his time of greatest need. Some reason that he was repeating Psalm 22:1, and perhaps meditating on it. But it was uttered as a cry! Some think this cry was really a shout of triumph. But how could those heart-rending words convey any conventional sense of triumph? Still others believe that as humanity's Saviour, Jesus felt the burden of the world's sin and that his cry epitomized his sacrifice, presumably once for all, as "the Representative of Humanity." J. R. Dummelow, The one Volume Bible Commentary (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1936), p. 718.
