Matthew 27:46 is one of the most unsettling verses in all of Scripture. As Jesus hangs on the cross, he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It’s not a rhetorical question. And it’s not just a quote from Psalm 22—it’s a raw, personal expression of abandonment. In that one cry, we see the deep mystery of suffering laid bare.
Many Christians read this moment through the lens of penal substitution: Jesus is being punished in our place, bearing the wrath of God so we don’t have to. But let’s set that framework aside for a moment—not to reject it but to listen afresh.
If we take the words at face value, without importing that interpretive grid, something else comes into focus. This cry of dereliction becomes a small but powerful lens through which we see the core question behind every theodicy: How can God be good and yet allow this?
Not a Philosophical Problem to Solve
Theodicy typically asks: “How can a good and powerful God allow suffering and evil in the world?” That’s a question we ask from the outside, as thinkers, theologians, and at times, sufferers.
Yet, what happens when the question isn’t asked about God but to God? That’s what happens on the cross.
Jesus doesn’t offer an explanation for evil. He doesn’t give a logical defense of God’s justice. Instead, he voices the very question that makes theodicy necessary in the first place. And here’s the surprising thing: the Gospels don’t rush in to resolve it. Matthew just leaves it there.
Still, that doesn’t mean his cry is meaningless or merely expressive. In fact, the very fact that Jesus utters it, that this question comes from the mouth of the Son of God, gives it theological weight. It dignifies the cry of every sufferer who has asked the same thing. And it reframes the conversation about evil and suffering—not by solving it, but by relocating it.
(For a fuller exegetical study on this text, see my comments in The Cross in Context.)
Jesus Bears the Full Weight of Suffering
Jesus doesn’t just witness evil—he bears it. He doesn’t just affirm our pain—he inhabits it. In that moment, he doesn’t speak as one offering theological commentary. He speaks as one who has been crushed under the weight of injustice, abandonment, and death.
That’s important. Because it means that at the heart of Christianity, we don’t have a theodicy that explains suffering from a distance. We have a God who joins us in it. Jesus’ cry isn’t a theological footnote—it’s a declaration that divine love refuses to exempt itself from the worst of what we endure.
This is the scandal: God doesn’t “fix” evil in the abstract. He faces it. He enters into it. He’s not absent from the cross—he’s hidden in the cry of the forsaken.
Still Praying, Even While Protesting
It’s worth noting that Jesus doesn’t simply say, “God has forsaken me.” He says, “My God, my God…” Even in his sense of abandonment, the relationship remains intact. The protest is lodged within faith. There is still prayer, still trust. That paradox— forsakenness without rejection— is the mystery at the center of this cry.
And here’s something else: by quoting Psalm 22, Jesus invites us to recall the whole psalm, not just the first line. It begins in agony, yes, but it ends in hope. The sufferer is vindicated. Ultimately, he is not forsaken.
The God who seemed absent turns out not to have abandoned his own after all. So the cry from the cross is not just lament; it carries with it the shape of resurrection. Not triumphalism but hope after despair.
Implications for How We Talk About God and Evil
If we read Jesus’ cry on its own terms, apart from a penal substitutionary lens, we’re still left with a profound theology of suffering. But the emphasis shifts:
- First, God does not stand outside human pain—he steps into it. That changes how we talk to people in suffering. It also changes how we imagine God’s presence in our own pain.
- Second, lament becomes a legitimate and even faithful response to God. There is no rebuke from the Father here. No correction. The Father receives the cry in silence—and, in time, responds not with words but with resurrection.
- Third, evil is not rationalized or explained away. It is absorbed, taken up, and yet not given the final word.
The Cross Reframes the Theodicy Question
Jesus’ cry doesn’t remove the tension between divine goodness and human suffering—it intensifies it. But it also transforms it. It means that the question “Where is God in suffering?” can never again be answered with “Nowhere.” The Christian answer, in its simplest form, is: Right there.
Not explaining it. Not preventing it. Rather, bearing it.
That may not satisfy every philosophical curiosity. But it is the kind of answer that can sustain faith. Because it means our pain is not meaningless. It has been entered. And if entered, then redeemed.
A God Who Doesn’t Let Go
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That is not just Jesus’ question. It’s ours. And what we discover in the Gospel is that God does not answer with an argument. He answers by showing up.
That’s the center of the Christian story. Not that we are spared from suffering, but that God is found in it. Not that we are given explanations, but that we are given Christ.
That, maybe more than any theory of theodicy, is what we need when we suffer. A God who cries with us, and for us. A God who doesn’t let go.
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