CHAPTER FIVE

ORTHODOXY'S MISUNDERSTANDING OF ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI

Every Christian alive today is dependent upon teachers to assist them to understand God's Word. For two thousand years this has been the case and it will not change. Teachers are necessary if ideas are to survive.

Every idea about God that exists on the face of the earth has a pedigree. Like the blood lines of a race horse, ideas are passed on from generation to generation changing little if at all in the process.

In the world of ideas, some ideas are bigger than others, more important, more critical to understanding. It is very likely that every Christian who actually depends on their relationship with God to provide the ground of hope has, at one time or another, been deeply troubled by something Jesus said when he was dying on the cross. "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?", are the words written in Matthew 27:46. The Hebrew words spoken by Jesus are translated for us in the last half of the verse: "which means, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'" For a person who depends on their relationship with God for hope, those words are potentially devastating.

The words raise the possibility that God could forsake us. Such a possibility has to be dealt with in the life of every sincere follower of Jesus Christ. And it is dealt with. There is not a Christian on this planet who depends on their faith in the atoning death of Jesus Christ as the ground for their hope of eternal life who has not asked the question, "What did Jesus mean when he said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And invariably, as we waited for the answer, there was anxiety in the deepest part of our being. It is terrifying for a person whose fears had been calmed by the gospel of Jesus Christ to find themselves faced with the prospect of being separated, being forsaken by God. It is terrifying because such a prospect opens the possibility of being returned to that state whose very nature had created the need to run to God in the first place.

I remember the first time I really heard the words in Matthew 27. I was in prison and had just surrendered myself to Jesus Christ after about a ten year period of disintegration which had sapped every personal resource I possessed. On the verge of total loss of control, I had said these words: "Jesus, if you want me to die, I'm ready to die; if you want me to live, you're going to have to show me how." Jesus revealed Himself to me then in a way I had not experienced since I was a young child growing up under the care of a Mother who took me to Church every time the doors opened. Jesus revealed Himself to me as a Comforting Presence, a Spirit who communicated to me, not in words my ears could hear, but in words my spirit, my mind, heard as the very breath of life itself. He began to remind me of all He said in the Bible, and I was led to review everything I had ever learned about the One I now knew to be alive, the One I now knew was committed to delivering me from the web of sin in which I had entrapped myself.

It was only a few days later that I encountered the words of Jesus in Matthew saying, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani." I had probably heard those words of Christ in three dozen sermons when I was growing up, but I had never really heard them. This time I heard them. The thought shot into my mind: If God could forsake Jesus, He might forsake me!

My heart began to race and my palms began to sweat; the ringing in my ears increased in volume. Trying to appear calm, I glanced around for help. Somebody to ask! Is that what it means? Might God forsake me as he forsook Jesus? No!, my soul cried out, I can't handle that! Not now, not when I've found hope. I immediately went looking for somebody to help me and found Billy Graham.

As soon as I had written that last sentence, I realized I did not remember the name of the book in which Billy Graham had answered the question that plagued me. I stopped writing, went to our local Christian bookstore, walked to the section containing authors whose names begin with G, and the first book I saw by Billy Graham was entitled "Peace With God". That was it! That was the book! Of course, What else, I said to myself. It was my peace of mind that had been threatened by the troubling words of Jesus; any book about God with "Peace" in its title would have leaped out and grabbed me like a rescuer saving a drowning man. I picked up the book and drove back home.

As I was driving, I remembered how my hands had trembled as I raced through the pages of Graham's book that first time. I remembered the strength I had drawn from its pages, the strength of the Godly warrior Billy Graham, a man who had proven his connection to the One who was saving me from the turmoil in my soul. And I remembered the gratitude I had felt to Billy Graham that day; I remembered the love I had felt for him.

I still love Billy Graham. I think the Lord has used him mightily. I know his words were used that day to allow me to endure the turmoil of my soul. I had to have an answer that day. The answer Billy Graham gave me allowed me to hang on to the faith I had received. I didn't understand the answer Billy Graham gave me, but the fact that there was an answer, an answer that had sustained men like Billy Graham, even if I didn't understand the answer, was enough to allow me to endure. Because of the help he gave me that day, not to mention the mighty work he has accomplished as the preeminent Protestant evangelist of this century, I have great respect, admiration and love for Billy Graham. In short, I am obliged to him.

But, as much as I love Billy Graham, and as much gratitude in my heart as I feel for him, I have another obligation that transcends any obligation I have to Billy Graham.

I have an obligation to be faithful to my understanding of God's Word. This obligation is not mine alone. It is common to all Christians. This obligation sometimes causes Christians to disagree about the meaning of the message in Scripture.

The normal procedure to follow in cases of disagreement among Christians on the meaning of Scripture is to contact the individual with whom you disagree and privately attempt to arrive at an understanding. But in the matter now under discussion, the normal method is impractical. Not only would I have to contact Billy Graham, I would have to write to literally thousands of Protestant teachers, preachers and theologians both alive and dead, in a line stretching from here to the Protestant Reformation teachings of Luther and Calvin. Since I can't resolve the disagreement in private, I have no alternative but to make this matter known to the Body of Christ at large.

Depending on the grace God provides to those called to His service, I am going to do everything in my power to demonstrate that what Billy Graham taught me that day was not only incorrect but a direct cause of enormous distress that later imperiled my walk with the Lord. Billy Graham's answer created distress in me because his answer made it impossible for me to understand, truly understand, how I was saved. I am going to do this, not because of lack of love for Billy Graham and all those who have taught the same explanation of Jesus' words, but because of love for God's Word. And I believe this, when all the dust settles and the furor dies down, Billy Graham will understand that, had he been in my shoes, he would have done the same thing. I believe that because, when all is said and done, Billy Graham wants to do whatever is necessary to see that those chosen by God to live in the kingdom of God are brought into that kingdom.

Here's what Billy Graham tells us in "Peace with God." "And at last we hear Him cry out, "'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' (Mark 15:34) Not only had he been forsaken by His human companions, but now in that desperate and lonely hour, He--because He was bearing our sins in His own body on the cross--had been forsaken by God as well. Jesus was enduring the suffering and judgment of hell for you and me."

He continues, "Hell, essentially, is separation from God. Hell is the loneliest place in the universe. Jesus suffered its agony for you, in your place. Now God says, Repent, believe on Christ, receive Christ, and you will never know the sorrow, the loneliness and the agony of hell."

In an earlier chapter in the same book, Billy Graham explains why God was obligated to forsake Jesus when he cried out on the cross, "From Genesis to Revelation, God reveals Himself as a Holy God. He is utterly perfect and absolute in every detail. He is too holy to tolerate sinful man, too holy to endure sinful living...The Bible tells us that our inequities have separated us from God--separated us so completely that His face is hidden from us and He will not hear us when we call...It is in God's holiness that we find the reason for the death of Christ. Jesus was the only one good enough, pure enough, strong enough, to bear the sins of the whole world. God's holiness demanded the most exacting penalty for sin, and His love provided Jesus Christ to pay this penalty and provide man with salvation."

Billy Graham's explanation is the commonly accepted explanation of the meaning of the cry of separation uttered by Jesus on the cross. From Luther across the centuries to Billy Graham, R.C. Sproul and literally every Evangelical Protestant teacher in the world, we are told that Jesus cried out because God the Father had turned His face away from the Son. We are told God the Father had to turn His face away from His Son because His Son had taken upon himself the sins of the world and God the Father's Holiness would not allow Him to come into contact with sin.

In order to understand why there has been virtual unanimity in Protestant theology concerning the meaning of Jesus' words, we must see the doctrine of the Holiness of God as Billy Graham and virtually all other Protestant theologians saw it. Graham tell us: "The Holiness of God regulates all the other principles of God." In other words, the doctrine of the Holiness of God was a regulatory principle: any other ideas about God had to be developed and explained in such a way that the doctrine of Holiness was unchanged from the form in which it had been handed down from generation to generation.

This is all well and good, if that is what Scripture tells us to do. But if Scripture does not tell us to do that, anyone who accepted the idea that the Holiness of God as defined by Protestant tradition was a "regulatory principle" would be bound, not to interpret Scripture with an open mind which would then be informed by Scripture, but to interpret Scripture "regulated", not by Scripture, but by the doctrine of the Holiness of God handed down by Jewish and Christian theologians, theologians who had convinced us their doctrine of Holiness was a regulatory principle.

Does Scripture tell us that the Protestant Church's interpretation of the Holiness of God is an interpretation that must regulate everything we think about God? That would be an easy question for Catholics to answer. Catholics believe that the Church's interpretation of Scripture as expressed through decrees of the Pope is precisely what they are supposed to believe as the Word of God. But Protestants became Protestants because they decided God wanted people to understand Scripture for themselves. Protestants would be required to search the Scriptures for themselves to see if the Bible tells us that the traditional interpretation of the Holiness of God is in accord with Scripture.

Beginning our search in the Old Testament, we see that the doctrine of the Holiness of God is just like Protestant traditional orthodoxy says it is: it is indeed the fundamental defining characteristic of God. Because God was Holy, He would not allow Adam and Eve to remain in fellowship with Him. He cast them from His Presence and placed an angel with a flaming sword to refuse them access again. We see the Holiness of God demonstrated in the Holy Mountain that could not be touched lest one die, the Mountain that could only be climbed by one from the midst of the congregation, and even that one would not be allowed to see the Holy One face to face. Again, we see that the Tabernacle in the Old Testament is designed to demonstrate the awesome gulf that separates sinful man from Holy God, Holy God who dwells within the Holy of Holies, and could be approached but once a year by only one from the congregation, and then only after blood had been shed and sprinkled, cleansing the way for the approach to the Holy One.

Again and again in the Old Testament we see clear evidence that God intends for us to understand that sin cannot approach God, sin cannot come into God's presence, sin cannot come near the Holy of Holies. But in the New Testament it is possible to see something different.

God, the Holy One, the unapproachable One, begins to act rather strangely. The same God that would not allow anyone to approach Him without blood being shed, broke the pattern and visited us here on earth. Oh, I know, He had done that before. He had visited the Prophets and left them His Word. But this time He left something else. He left His seed. In the woman. God the Father, through the person of God the Holy Spirit, visits a woman, a woman who is impregnated with the seed that is promised from of old. In light of what the Old Testament teaches us about the Holiness of God, this event must be defined as exceedingly strange.

What are we to think about the Holiness of God, that most firmly grasped insight into the nature of God held onto by the Pharisees as the very foundation upon which their self-image was erected? But our problems with the doctrine of Holiness have just begun.

Not only does God the Holy Spirit impregnate the virgin Mary, but a child is born from the seed planted by God the Holy Spirit. That seed becomes flesh, and dwells among us. And claims to be God. Immanuel. God with us.

What happened to the Holiness of God? Here we have two thirds of the godhead surrounded by sin and sinners, being touched right and left by sin and sinners--yet never sinning Himself. But the doctrine of the Holiness of God includes more than the fact that God never sins: the doctrine contends God never comes into contact with sinners. According to Protestant orthodoxy, that is why the Holy God, the Holy Father, was obligated to turn away from God the Son when He took the sins of the world into Himself. But as we watch Jesus move about in His ministry, contact is obviously going on. How can the Old Testament doctrine of the Holiness of God remain unchanged in the face of such unusual activity on God's part?

Well, the Protestant theological tradition would have us believe the Holiness of God was unimpaired because God the Father was still out there somewhere, untouched by all the sin that surrounded God the Holy Spirit and God the Son. They would have us believe this because otherwise the principle that regulates all their other principles about God would be violated. As long as we understand that God the Father is out there somewhere untouched by sin, it is very easy to explain how God the Father's Holiness was not impaired when Jesus took the sins of the world upon Himself. God was untouched because God the Father turned away from the Son and left Him to go to hell alone.

The reason the doctrine of Holiness taught by Billy Graham and all the other Protestant theologians is going to have to be altered is because the doctrine of Holiness utterly destroys the integrity of the doctrine of the Trinity. Without getting very deep into the doctrine of the Trinity it must be clear that there can be no separation between the persons of the godhead if the doctrine is to reflect what Scripture teaches. There can be distinctions, but never separation. By holding on to the doctrine of Holiness handed down by the Pharisees, Protestant theologians inadvertently introduced a teaching at precisely the point every Christian on earth would inevitably be most pressed to find an answer, and that teaching would devastate the integrity of the Trinity. By teaching Christians that God the Father separated Himself from God the Son (an actual event that we are to understand occurred in space and time) it is inconceivable how God the Son could be perceived to be without division from God the Father. In fact, we teach that there was division, a rupture in the Godhead that left God the Son to go to hell alone.

The amazing irony of this whole tradition is that Scripture does everything in its power to teach us that precisely the opposite actually happened. Instead of the Father separating Himself from the Son, the Bible tells us the Father did not turn His face away. Here is the evidence:

There is only one place in the Greek Scripture where Jesus is quoted as speaking in Hebrew. That does not mean Jesus never spoke Hebrew words. We can assume that when he went to the synagogues to teach, there were many times when he read and quoted the Hebrew passages in Hebrew. But it does alert us to the fact that there is something unusual to be seen in his words. What was unusual? Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani is the English transliteration of the Hebrew words that begin the 22nd Psalm. In other words, the sounds Jesus made on the cross, the words translated, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" were the exact sounds one would hear when one began to read aloud the twenty-second Psalm in Hebrew.

This is no new insight. Every theologian throughout history has understood this. The amazing thing is that Protestant theologians have done just as poorly understanding the meaning of Jesus' words as the man standing at the foot of the cross who said, "He's calling out for Elijah."

Because of the hold the doctrine of the Holiness of God had on Protestant theologians, they simply could not hear Jesus doing everything in his power to get them to refer to the Twenty-second Psalm to interpret his words. But they tried. They knew there was significance in the fact that Jesus had uttered the precise Hebrew words that began the Psalm. One of the more straightforward attempts to make the connection between Jesus' words and the 22nd Psalm was made by C. I. Scofield in his notes on the "Eloi, Eloi" passage. He tells us: "Psalms 22:1 is predictive of this terrible cry; Psalms 22:3 gives the answer to the question."

In other words, Scofield tells us the first verse of the 22nd Psalm is predicting the cry Jesus will make on the cross, and the third verse gives us the answer to the question, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Here are the first three verses of the 22nd Psalm, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? 2. Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent. 3. But thou art holy, O thou who inhabitest the praises of Israel." From Scofield's point of view, what is the answer to Jesus' question concerning why God would forsake Him? God is Holy, that's why.

In this interpretation Scofield joins the great phalanx of Protestant theologians whose doctrine of Holiness proves they either never read past the third verse of the 22nd Psalm, or they were in bondage to a prejudged interpretation that made it impossible to hear the clear meaning of the Psalm in context. Had they read past the third verse with an open mind, they would have heard exactly what Jesus would have heard if he had continued to recite the 22nd Psalm to himself after uttering his horrible cry of desolation.

And that is the question. Are we to understand that Jesus, after uttering the fateful words, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani" ceased totally to think anymore as he hung on the cross about the other Hebrew words that follow in the 22nd Psalm. The Protestant doctrine of the Holiness of God absolutely requires that Jesus hear no more of the words written in the Psalm. It is an absolute requirement because if Jesus had actually heard anymore of the Psalm in his mind, it would be logically impossible and literally inconceivable to believe that God, the Father, turned away from God, the Son, as the Son hung on the cross dying for our sins. The reason it would be logically impossible is because if Jesus had continued to repeat to himself the rest of the 22nd Psalm, Jesus would have been in communion with God, the Father, because the words he was repeating were the words of the Father! The Father could not logically be seen to depart from the Son when the Son was still hearing the Father talk to him.

The 22nd Psalm is about the crucifixion of the Messiah. Anybody can see that! Is it possible that the 22nd Psalm had been designed by God for Jesus to hear at precisely the moment that Jesus was hanging on the cross? Not only possible, it is obvious to those who are not in bondage to Protestant orthodoxy.

Listen to what Jesus would have heard God telling him if he had continued to recite the Psalm in his mind after uttering the terrible cry:

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Why are thou so far from helping me,

and from the words of my roaring?

O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not;

and in the night season, and am not silent.

But thou art holy,

O thou who inhabitest the praises of Israel.

Our fathers trusted in thee;

they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.

They cried unto thee, and were delivered;

they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.

But I am a worm, and no man;

a reproach of men, and despised by the people.

All they who see me laugh me to scorn;

they shoot out the lip,

they shake the head, saying,

He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him;

let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.

But thou are he who took me out of the womb;

thou didst make me hope upon my mother's breast.

I was cast upon thee from the womb;

thou art my God from my mother's body.

Be not far from me;

for trouble is near;

for there is none to help.

Many bulls have compassed me;

strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.

They gaped upon me with their mouths,

like a ravening and roaring lion.

I am poured out like water,

and all my bones are out of joint:

my heart is like wax;

it is melted within me.

My strength is dried up like a potsherd,

and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws;

and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.

For dogs have compassed me;

the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me;

they pierced my hands and my feet.

I may count all my bones;

they look and stare upon me.

They part my garments among them,

and cast lots upon my vesture.

But be not thou far from me, O Lord,

O my strength, haste thee to help me.

Deliver my soul from the sword;

my precious life from the power of the dog.

Save me from the lion's mouth;

for thou hast heard me from the horns of the wild oxen.

I will declare thy name unto my brethren;

in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.

Ye who fear the Lord, praise him;

all ye, the seed of Jacob, glorify him;

and fear him, all ye, the seed of Israel.

For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted,

neither hath he hidden his face from him;

My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation;

I will pay my vows before them that fear him.

The meek shall eat and be satisfied;

they shall praise the Lord that seek him;

your heart shall live forever.

All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord;

and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.

For the kingdom is the Lord's;

and he is the governor among the nations.

All they that are fat upon the earth shall eat and worship;

all they that go down in the dust shall bow before him,

and none can keep alive his own soul.

A seed shall serve him;

it shall be counted to the Lord for a generation.

They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness

unto a people that shall be born,

that he hath done this.

As we read the words of Scripture that tell us about Jesus' crucifixion, we all know that Jesus' choice to repeat the actual Hebrew words that begin the 22nd Psalm was no coincidence. He had something on his mind, something he was trying to tell us. The meaning we attach to his words absolutely determines everything we will believe about our salvation: the meaning of the atonement, the place of Christ in the Godhead, who we are in Christ--every foundational idea upon which a Christian takes his stand and stakes his eternal destiny is formed there at the cross upon which a naked, suffering man is hung.

Protestant theologians tell us that what Jesus had on his mind was a sense of utter forsakenness, a forsakenness that led him to cry out, "My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?" Protestant theologians would have us believe that Jesus lost faith in his Union with the Father. What else could "forsaken" mean? Protestant theologians would have us believe that Jesus lost his faith that he was in the presence of God, the Father, because the Father would not look upon the sins of the world that Jesus had taken upon himself.

But did it happen this way? Did Jesus lose faith that he was in the presence of God? If all he heard of the 22nd Psalm were the words he uttered in his moment of supreme agony, Protestant theologians are correct. But if Jesus continued to hear the words of the 22nd Psalm silently in his mind, it is logically impossible to contend that God, the Father, turned his face away from the Son, nor is it possible to contend that Jesus lost faith in his Union with God, the Father, as he was dying on the cross.

When we realize that Jesus' utterance of the words "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani" can only reasonably be explained as a reference to the 22nd Psalm, we are forced to ask what would Jesus have had in mind when he focused his attention on the 22nd Psalm? Look at the 22nd Psalm again. Do you see a message from God, the Father, to God, the Son, explaining why the Father was forsaking the Son? Is that what the 22nd Psalm says? Scofield would have us think so. And sad to say, virtually every other Protestant theologian throughout history would do the same.

Surely this has to be one of the most grievous errors in the history of Christian theology! Imagine what Jesus was feeling when he cried out on the cross. He hung there naked before a crowd that hooted in disdain at his nakedness; his flesh was what? numbed to deadness, racked with pain? either way the terror of death sliced through his body like a million knife points piercing his soul. He would have felt like God, the Father, had forsaken him. Who wouldn't have felt that way! But did Jesus lose faith that He was in the presence of God? Did Jesus believe the message his flesh was sending him? Is that what Jesus was telling the world, mankind, and history when he cried out "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? Or was Jesus telling us something else? Could it not be that Jesus was telling us to read the 22nd Psalm, read it and hear the words that were being spoken in the mind of Jesus of Nazareth as he hung on the cross.

If Jesus recited to himself the rest of the Psalm, Jesus would have heard the words of God, the Father, as the Father spoke to the Son, telling the Son about the glory that was to be revealed through the sacrifice that was being made that day. If Jesus recited the rest of the 22nd Psalm in his mind, God, the Father, was there with Jesus on the cross; the Words of God would have been in his mind, the Presence of God would have been in His soul. There would have been no way for Jesus to believe he had been forsaken because God would have been with him in the word. He would have heard a message from God that was not designed to explain why God was forsaking Jesus; he would have heard a message from God that was designed to tell Jesus in the moment when his flesh was so racked with pain and fear that Jesus felt exactly like God had forsaken him, Jesus would have heard the words of the 22nd Psalm as words from God--from the mouth of God, the Father--words that were designed to remind Jesus that God would never forsake him no matter how he felt, words that were so explicitly referring to precisely that moment in time that Jesus could not help but see how perfectly God had prepared the message so that Jesus would know the words of the Psalm were words from the Father to the Son. And Jesus would have been able to stand the pain. For the Father had not forsaken the Son, nor would he ever forsake him. Even in hell itself.

These are not vain "doctrinal" issues that have no real bearing on the lives of Christians, they are issues that will determine whether or not Christians come to understand how they are saved. To teach that Jesus lost faith in his Union with the Father, to teach that the Father actually separated Himself from the Son and left the Son to go to hell alone is to create a doctrine that effectively destroys the logical integrity of the Doctrine of the Trinity and leaves the Church in the grips of a nameless fear. Not only is the idea that all the attributes of God are contained in each person of the Trinity in equal measure directly contradicted, but the idea is planted that if God the Father would turn His face away from His only begotten Son because of sin, what might He do when faced with the sins of we, his children?

We must eliminate such fear from the souls of Christians, fear that tempts Christians to turn away from the world as it is, tempts us to shut our eyes to the role that each one of us actually plays in this world utterly in bondage to the law of sin and death, fear that leads us to masquerade around clothed in a righteousness created not by Christ but by the cunning of individual selective perception. God's Word became flesh and dwelt among us so that we would be delivered from this fear. Under the tutelage of Protestant theologians the fear has not been destroyed. It has not been destroyed because Protestant theologians have been in bondage to the Pharisee's doctrine of the Holiness of God. God delivered us from this bondage in Christ. But we will never know that deliverance until we hear God's Word clearly. And until that day we will certainly never find the power in word or deed to keep this world from going to hell.

I believe that power is available to us today. I believe the Holy Spirit of God has been poured out on the people of this world and that they are ready to come to Jesus Christ when we get our message in order.

We have just examined an example of how what we teach about what happened when Jesus was dying on the cross becomes the bedrock upon which the Christian world view is erected. Unless what we teach reflects God's point of view, we are in error and that error is used by Satan to grease the path to hell for the world. Obviously, if I am correct about the interpretation of the meaning of Eloi, Eloi Lamasabachthani, there are some fundamental problems in what passes for Christian orthodoxy today.

I know what I am about to say is going to shock, frighten, and offend many followers of Jesus Christ. But the God that we have been communicating to the world is not the God revealed in Christ Jesus. As we teach people that God, the Father, turned His face away from God, the Son, we communicate a picture of a cold, ruthless Father who uses His Child to accomplish His purpose while He, the Father, stands aloof in magisterial separation. Jesus is perceived as a loving person who really wanted to help people; but the love of the Father is very difficult to see. This concept of God becomes the ruling image that regulates everything we say about God. Is it any wonder that the world turns away from such a God? Is it any wonder that Jesus is viewed with condescension by millions of people who consider Him to have been a patsy for a tyrannical Father whose sole purpose is to dominate the world through fear?

Unfortunately, what we have is more than a problem in the itinerary of God--where was God on such and such a day and time. We have a problem with the character of God--what is God like. The model of God created by the orthodox Protestant explanation of the meaning of Eloi, Eloi, Lamasabachthani utterly distorts the character of God.

We must understand that the model of God that we present to the world through our teachers is the only model the world receives of the God in the Bible. If the model we teach does not reflect the model of God revealed in the Holy Bible, we must correct our model. In order to keep the world from going to hell, we are going to have to reexamine the entire concept, the model of God, that is being communicated by Christian leaders to the world.