Truth Unites - Did the Father Hate the Son on the Cross?

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

Gavin Ortlund explores what Jesus truly experienced on the cross and why the Father never hated the Son, even in the darkest moments of the crucifixion.Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/X: https://x.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

What was Jesus actually experiencing when he hung on the cross? And what was the relationship between God the Father and God the Son during that Friday afternoon as there's darkness during that horrific moment, those horrific moments, what was going on in the Godhead? Sometimes you will hear Christians frame this as though Jesus was hated by the Father during this experience. And this is teased out in different ways. Often it will be because he's bearing the judgment of sin.

He is therefore cursed, abandoned, and even. and damned. But in this video, I want to defend the thesis that while Christ indeed bore the judgment of sin, he was never hated by the Father. On the contrary, God the Father was fully pleased with his son for his perfect obedience during the act of atonement. And what I want to show is that in the Christian tradition, even those theologians who most starkly emphasize the horrors of Christ's experience on the cross, the necessity of satisfying divine wrath and things like this. Even those going furthest in that direction are nonetheless clear that Jesus was never hated by the Father. For example, John Calvin is well known for emphasizing that Jesus experienced divine

vengeance on the cross, and yet he's very clear to affirm, God was never hostile to him or angry with him. He was pleased with him. We'll come back to Calvin in a bit. So what we're trying to do here is press into clarity and nuance our understanding of what Jesus is going through. and to say, you know, what was the experience and what wasn't it? And we won't cover everything, but we definitely want to set some errors and target them and encourage for pastoral reasons, because this matters both theologically and pastorally. This is so important. Certain things we know we can sweep off the table and say, these are wrong, let's not say this, even while we continue to work on this. At the end of this video, we'll come to the cry of dereliction

and ask, what was Jesus experiencing that caused him to use the word forsaken with respect to? to his relationship to the father. So let's dive in and starting off here, let's identify three dangers that we want to clearly set to the side. These are somewhat overlapping and somewhat broad, and they'll set us up to go even more specific to more specific errors that we want to push aside as well. First, God the father lost his temper with God the son. This is error number one we want to push against. Now there is such a thing as God's wrath. It's all over the Bible. and we can understand God's wrath as his settled and holy opposition to evil. And I maintain that the problem of divine wrath is solved at the cross, but not because

God has an emotional outburst. And it's precisely to move away from anything like that, that the classical doctrine of divine impassibility is so helpful and so necessary. I might do a video on that at some point, as well as a video on divine osseity. I already have one on divine simplicity, but these aspects of classical theism, I think, are important. A second error that we need to oppose right out of the gate is the idea that the father and the son are somehow divided against one another in the act of atonement, as though they are working at cross purposes. The work of atonement does not rupture the Trinity.

There is only one divine will. So the father, the son, and the spirit all have one will, and they are working together in the plan of salvation. Related to that, the divine nature of the Son of God did not suffer and die, such that between Friday evening and Sunday morning, there's a contraction of the Trinity down into two persons, and the Father and the Spirit are holding down the fort until the Son is resurrected. No, we need to move away from anything like that. Rather, Christ's suffering on the cross and his death is made possible by and with reference to

his human nature. Here's a quote from Thomas Aquinas. He has a whole section on this. It says a lot about it, but in sum, what is impassable cannot suffer. Consequently, Christ's passion did not concern his godhead. And I want to just make this point up front because I think having a proper doctrine of the Trinity can solve a lot of problems that come up in the atonement. For example, we sometimes hear the charge of divine child abuse with respect to certain atonement models. trinitarian accuracy prevents us from going down any avenues that could possibly be accused of that, because the son of God willingly goes to the cross, working with the Father and with the Spirit for

a redemptive purpose. Accuracy about that really helps. But here's the third danger, and this is most directly related to the topic of this video, and that's construing punishment crudely rather than covenantally. We're going to double-click on this word punishment and really try to understand this as accurately as we can. We won't be exhaustive, but we'll definitely try to target some errors that we want to say we should not think of it like this. For example, just one out of the gate that most of us hopefully will be sympathetic to punishment can be conceived of as a kind of mechanical,

legalistic bookkeeping removed from a covenantal and judicial framework so that you think of like, basically you're trying to quantify all the pains of the punishment of those sins that are forgiven at the cross. And then there's a sort of direct transfer onto Jesus so that what he experiences is identical in a sort of mathematical sense to what would have been experienced by all of those who are forgiven. I think we need to move away from any sort of mathematical and crude construal of punishment and simply think more broadly of. punishment as the judicial consequences of sin born representatively. So when we say Christ bears the punishment of sin on the cross, we do not mean that the father hates the son.

Rather, we simply mean the son willingly enters into judicial exposure to sin's penalty. Hence the word penal will come up here. But the father never ceases to delight in the son, and the sun is never an object of divine hatred, even while he bears divine judgment for sin. And a healthy atonement theology is going to hold these things together and not try to flatten them out. By the word, that word punishment feels to people vindictive. I think sometimes perhaps we've only ever seen punishment that causes our minds to go awry. But punishment can be just. If there's a judge and there's a horrific crime that has been committed and the judge sends the criminal to prison, that's punishment. Not all punishment is sort of vindictive and petty.

Punishment can be just and good and sort of restorative to justice. And so this is one of the things that comes up is, do we even need to speak of punishment at all? So now, so we're making this clarification about punishment, and let's just go a little bit into this now for the remainder of this video. Some will want to ask this question of, should we speak of punishment at all on the cross. And there's a very powerful current of thought against that today. But I think we need to defend the word punishment. And, you know, for starters, this is pretty explicitly biblical, I would say. In Isaiah 53-5, the word translated chastisement can be translated as punishment. And we have language in scripture about Christ becoming a curse for us and even

becoming sin, that is language of imputation. It doesn't mean Christ actually himself sinned on the cross. And there is much that needs to be done to explore this language, but we can certainly say this much that Jesus was not experiencing merely physical pains on the cross. If it was just crucifixion alone, this would not explain his dreadful anxiety in the Garden of Gathemeny or the cry of dereliction from Psalm 22 that will focus on. Many people have faced crucifixion with courage, Jesus is not less courageous than them. He was facing a unique form of suffering. Something unique is happening during his agony on the cross. And I think we should speak of this as bearing the judicial punishments of sin. And for the case for that, I have a longer video

on my broader atonement theology where I'm drawing from I'm drawing from I'm Athanasius and Anselm to show we can hold together recapitulation and satisfaction, Christ's life and Christ's death, and within this huge framework, I'm arguing, there's a place for penal substitution, understood accurately. I might return to that again, so check out that video, because I'm not going to defend penal substitution here. I'm just referencing that I do believe in that. You can see that for the case. And I might return to this again when I'm done reading Andrew Rillera's book, Lamb of the Free. I'm still about halfway through. I've gotten stuck on other things. I'll get back to that. In the meantime, if you're wanting, some of you've

asked about a response to that book. Jay Sclar has a great review up. You can read. And Derek Rishmawi also has one. I'll link to those. They both look pretty insightful to me. Obviously, I need to finish reading the Lamb of the Free to have a firm conclusion, but I mentioned that because some of you have asked and those look good. By the way, another thing is on the subject of penal substitution in church history. Eric Ybarra has an interesting new book out. I haven't read it, but I would trust that it's going to be worth your time for sure. I'll link to that as well. For the purposes of this video, what we're wanting to do, though, is just hone in on this question of what kind of punishment are we talking about here. And so in other words, we're not defending

that. We're saying, suppose you do agree with that. What does that mean? And we're not even going to exhaustively answer that, but I just want to ward off some of the things that we want to steer clear of. We want to steer clear of any rupture in the Trinity, any language of the father hating the son, and I'm going to argue what is sometimes comes into the picture, any language of the son of God being damned on the cross or succumbing to despair on the cross. And I want to target those things because we do find this language in the church today. It was if there was a cry from heaven excuse my language, but I can be no more accurate than to say, It was as if God, Jesus heard the words, God damn you.

Because that's what it meant to be cursed, to be damned, to be under the anathema of the father. Or consider this language from Don McLeod in his otherwise very fine book on the doctrine of the person of Christ. Quote, the long, long journey from Cessaria Philippi to Calvary was a journey into a black hole involving not only physical and emotional pain but a spiritual desertion beyond our imagining, in his agony, he would cry and not be heard, he would lose all sense of his divine sonship, he would lose all sense of his father's love. In a moment we're going to return to that and argue to the contrary. A bit later, McLeod writes that on the cross at its darkest point, the son knew himself only as sin and his father only as its avenger. Here was a singularity, and he continues a bit.

and all due respect to Sprole and McLeod, but I think Francis Turriton is a better guide on this particular question. And let me explain why Turriton. By the way, again, I'm going to Calvin and Turriton because they're known for emphasizing a pretty strong and robust account of penal substitution. But even they are very clear to word against this kind of language. On the one hand, you see very clearly Turriton affirming that Christ suffers the punishment. of sin, and he has that in common with other reformed theologians like John Owen and many others. And here's an example of that in the context of opposing the claim of some Roman Catholic theologians that Christ's suffering was only in his body and not in his soul.

Let's steer away from that dispute because I actually just have a more basic point that I want to make from Turriton, even Turriton. It's very careful to qualify. After saying this, he writes, nor yet moreover, could you rightly say, that he entered the place of the damned or was damned. Those words, nor yet moreover, can be confusing to modern ears in translation, but just to be clear, he's saying we should not say that Christ was damned. He experiences the punishments of those sins, of those who themselves would be damned, but he is not damned. We shouldn't say that. Excuse me, I'm hitting the mic here.

And he also adds, we should be very clear to deny any sense that Christ fell into despair on the cross? Quote, much less should despair such as the damned feel be ascribed to Christ. Christ was still certain of his torments happy end and his own deliverance. I think this is correct because as we look at the scripture, we see Hebrews 12, Christ endured the cross for the joy set before him. And then even more poignantly, think of Christ's words to the thief. Today, you'll be with me in paradise.

how could Christ offer an assurance to the thief that he didn't have himself? So we want to be so careful here. I'm not trying to just take shots at people. This is a pastoral burden to try to help us avoid going too far in our language or in our understanding. We're not wanting to detract from how terrible this experience was. But I don't think for Christ on the cross, but I don't think we have any basis to agree with the language of McLeod, for example, where Jesus loses a sense of his own identity or anything like this. Jesus knows who he is, he knows where he's going, and he is loved by his father.

Now, what about the cry of dereliction? What does it mean when Jesus says, why have you abandoned me? The first thing to note is that, of course, this is a quotation of scripture, Psalm 22. McLeod had that language of Jesus being speechless in a darkness beyond all reason, but if you're speechless in a darkness beyond all reason, you're not quoting the Bible. You know, Jesus is quoting this verse. And while he quotes this particular Psalm because of the particular kind of dereliction and abandonment and agony he is going through, which will cover in a moment, he would have known that this Psalm also crescendos into hope.

A quote, for he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him but has heard. when he cried to him. So I think, again, Jesus knows the resurrection is coming. He's not in this complete cloud of darkness. And I would argue that we can speak of an abandonment of the sun here, as he's given over to death at the hands of this sinful mob, and as he bears the punishment or judgment of our sin. And let's leave room for us to keep working at the exact terms we want to use to convey that. We want to honor his full solidarity with us. We want to keep chipping away, nuanceing ever more. Finally, our accurate understanding of this, more to be done on that outside the purview of this video. What I'm wanting to target here is some of the things we don't want to say.

We don't want to say he is hated by the father or damned or in despair, or anything that severs the relationship between the father and the son. Now, if you want more on this topic, specifically with a view to the cry of dereliction, you could read Tom McCall's book, Forsaken, the Trinity and the Cross and Why It Matters. I'll link to that as well. He works through the church fathers and medieval theologians and then going further from there to show this idea of a kind of literal abandonment of the sun is not the historic Christian view. Here, let's finish off by looking into this, and I'll draw again from Calvin and Turriton to two theologians in the reform tradition to show even they, who really emphasize the son's

bearing of divine judgment and the blackness of that experience are very clear to avoid anything that pits the father and the son against one another. For example, in Calvin, we do get language about Christ feeling the weight of divine vengeance, as you can see on screen, and he's quoting Isaiah 53 to support that statement. But then he qualifies, quote, we do not however insinuate that God was ever hostile to him or angry with him, how could he be angry with the beloved son with whom his soul was well pleased? Or how could he appease the father by his intercession for others if he were hostile to him himself? Here's a key sentence, but this we say that he bore the weight of the divine anger that smitten and afflicted. He experienced all the signs of an angry and avenging God.

So even though Jesus is experiencing the signs of an angry God, God does not actually hate Jesus. The father does not hate the son. Moreover, Calvin is very clear to maintain that Jesus continues to trust in his father even while he is hanging on the cross. Quote, though feeling, as it were, forsaken of God, he did not cease in the slightest degree to confide in his goodness. And then Calvin quotes the cry of dereliction there. So Jesus is still trusting in his father, going to his father. He knows how Psalm 22 ends. Now, my point here is that not that everyone has to agree with what I've just summarized from Calvin, but my point is to show that even Calvin, who's sometimes accused of going too far in this direction,

takes pains to avoid any kind of ontological rupture in the Trinity where the cross represents God versus God. Not at all. At most, this is a felt experience of the signs of God's anger, not an actual rupture between the Father and the Son. So we can make a distinction here that may help us between experiential dereliction on the one hand versus ontological separation on the other. And this is also reflected in Turriton, where you get the idea that Jesus' felt experience of God's happiness is withdrawn without entailing that he's actually hated by the father. Quote, you're talking about the cry of dereliction.

Turriton says, now this desertion is not to be conceived as absolute, total, and eternal. such as this felt only by demons and the reprobate, but temporal and relative, not in respect of the union of nature, for what the son of God once assumed he never parted with, or of the union of grace and holiness, because he was blameless and pure, endowed with untainted holiness, here it is, or of communion and protection because God was always at his right hand, nor was he ever left alone. And he's quoting Psalm 110 and John 16 there to say, the Father is in a sense still with Jesus, even while Jesus is hanging on the cross. The Trinity has not been ripped in half like a sheet of paper.

No sword has gone through and sliced off the Son from the Father in the Divine Trinity. Well, so what is happening then when Jesus says, Why, have you abandoned me? According to Turriton, quote, but as to a participation of joy and felicity, God's suspending for a little while the favorable presence of grace and the influence of grace and the influx of consolation and happiness that he might be able to suffer all the punishment due to us as to withdrawal of vision, not as to a dissolution of union, as to the want of the sense of divine love, intercepted by the sense of divine wrath and vengeance resting upon him, not as to a real privation or extinction of it.

Hence our distinction. Again, in a video that's maybe dragging on, are you still with me? easy to lose track of things. Let's just cement this clearly in our minds. Experiential derogical derogical separation. And my point in this video is not to completely circumscribe around the experiential derailiction and wrestle that to the ground and nuance that perfectly. Let's keep working at what do we understand this to be. My point in this video is don't go in the direction of ontological separation. The father does. not hate the sun on the cross. Rather, the father loves the son with an infinite and perfect and

eternal love. Two final, even while he is bearing the punishment of sin. Two final issues. First, just to address this, this has come up online a little bit, is this, when we're nuancing penal substitution here, is this a Motten Bailey fallacy? A Motten Bailey fallacy is where you make a more ambitious claim, and then when it's challenged, you retreat back to a more modest claim. And this come up online. Joel Wentz had this concern in a video. I really like him. He seems like a really thoughtful guy. And I'm sure if we were to sit down and talk, which I'd be happy to do, he could have some good criticisms of me. But I do think this is not a Motten Bailey fallacy. Because what we're doing here is not first making a more crude claim about punishment and then retreating back to a more

sophisticated one. We're simply distinguishing between the two. Okay? We're saying it's not the crude, rather it is the sophisticated. It's not this bolder thing. It's this more modest thing. So to make that distinction is not a Motten Bailey fallacy. Second and final comment, but more to go. Again, this video is not really to defend penal substitution. It's trying to do that nuance.

I'm trying to show that's not a Motten Bailey fallacy because we're just never making this bolder claim to begin with. From the get-go, we're saying it's not that. Second and final comment to end it pastorally, here's the wonder of the gospel. Okay, I want you to think, as you finish this first, video about the father's love for the son. Has any human, human loves are imperfect. My love for my children is profound. It's one of the deepest things in my life, the way I feel about my kids.

But it's an imperfect love. It fluctuates. It has imperfections. But the father's love's love for his son. And indeed, the love shared among all three members of the godhead is a perfect, eternal, and full plenitude of love, such that we can't even fathom. I can't even fathom. here's what I want you to think about to finish this. If you're a Christian, you are in Christ, and that means that same love. It's amazing to think the Father has for you. He doesn't have some, you know, only 50% of that for his people. This is amazing. Consider the prayer of Jesus in John 17, so that the world may know that you have sent me and loved them, even as you have. loved me. What a happy thought amidst all the trials and buffetings of life to know that that kind of love,

that quality of love, has been set upon all of those who are engrafted into Christ through faith in the gospel. To be a Christian is to be loved by God like that. Never gets old. I never stop wondering at it. So I hope this video has been helpful. Let's sum up what we did here. We did not solve all the problems about what the atonement means. We just targeted some things we know it doesn't mean. I'm saying in other contexts I've defended the word punishment I think we need to say Jesus was punished he endured the punishment of sin but we're nuancing that word punishment we're saying the punishment is not a rupture in the trinity being hated by God being damned or in despair hope that is helpful in the meantime let's keep working on this topic thanks for watching everybody