“
Still more. It does not mean that the Father, the first person of the Trinity, left the Son, the second person of the Trinity, or that the Father was in any way displeased with Him. The Lord could say, “My Father loveth Me because I lay down My life for the sheep.” The Father loved the Son!
What does it mean? It means this. That God, in eternal love for His people, now takes the hot coals of the holy judgment that our sins deserved and places them upon His beloved Son and gives His Son to suffer what we would deserve in an eternity of the darkness of hell. The cup that the Lord saw in Gethsemane, a cup that was forged by the holiness of God as it reacts against and consumes the sins of which we are guilty — that cup He has now willingly taken and He has drunk it all.
It pleased the Lord to bring this to Him (Is. 53). Voluntarily our Lord has entered into this darkness for us. In love for us, the Father hath placed it all upon Him. God the Father took the judgment, which would consume us eternally in hell, and poured it all into the soul of His Son. A darkness deeper than a hundred midnights has been brought to Calvary. And Jesus now has endured that darkness for us.
Let us allow the Scriptures, then, simply to explain the mystery to us. II Corinthians 5:21, “For he (that is, God) hath made him (that is, His Son in the flesh) to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Galatians 3:13, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” The One whose delight it was to commune with the Father is now made to suffer all that it means to be cast out by a holy God into the darkness of eternal hell.
The darkness that He deserved? Oh no! The darkness that we deserved. God has placed upon His Son the judgment that the elect of God deserved in order that they would not bear that judgment but be made righteous in Him.
I know why He was abandoned of God. Do you? No, I cannot comprehend, I cannot at all fathom the depth of what is being revealed to us. Jesus abandoned by His God! In a sense I am glad that I will never comprehend the depth of that. But I do know why this had to be. Do you know why? The answer is this: So that I might never be forsaken of God.
http://www.reformedwitnesshour.org/2004/2004apr04.html
I think that Natural Law's comment was directed to the indissoluble unity of the Trinity, while the quote focuses on Christ's human nature. I can't speak for NL, of course, and I don't really want to say any more. Seems to me a good likelihood that most, if not all, of the Christological heresies arise from someone imagining he understands the hypostatic union.
Dr. E, however, might take issue with this:
I know why He was abandoned of God. Do you? No, I cannot comprehend, I cannot at all fathom the depth of what is being revealed to us. Jesus abandoned by His God!
Anyway, she found Chesterton's use of the same formulation "maudlin" and wrong.
Wonderful quote, though!