The Father and Son agreed that we are the living answers to the question, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
With the wood fuel on Isaac’s back, and the fire and knife in Abraham’s hands, we read, “and the two of them went together” (Gen 22:6). Then, having answered Isaac’s question—at least in part—about the needed lamb, we read again, “So the two of them went together” (v 8). We could just as well write over the scene at Calvary, “So the two of Them went together.” Isaac may not have fully understood what he would experience that day, but the Lord Jesus knew exactly what the Cross would mean for Him. After all, “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev 19:10). He inspired David to write the agonizing words of Psalm 22 and moved Isaiah to pen Isaiah 53, recording beforehand His agony and blood-like sweat in Gethsemane. He had also asked His Father something: “that if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him” (Mk 14:35). But then He expressed His willingness to climb Calvary’s hill with His Father in these words: “nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will” (v 36). Never think for a moment that the will of the Father and Son were at odds. Of course the Savior shrank back from the experience! The Holy One to be made sin for us! The Light of the World plunged into a horror of darkness! The Lord of Life to taste death for everyone! Whole civilizations full of sinners full of sin, all hurled upon Him. Then the wrath they deserved poured out. And, oh, abandonment by God, His only delight! Holy ground here! I love the words of H.A. Ironside as he spoke of the Greater Son of Abraham (Mt 1:1). He wrote: “Never were the Father and the Son so united in desire and purpose as when the Lord Jesus cried, ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’” Ah, that’s it! Together!