Why You Shouldn’t Buy The Good Friday Lie.

Every Good Friday, Christian pastors stand in their pulpits and tell the biggest lie of the Christian faith.

In their zeal to overstate the suffering of Jesus – as if being tortured and nailed to a cross for six hours isn’t bad enough – they will attempt to convince people in the pews that Jesus also experienced a spiritual separation from the Father and that, for the first time in all Eternity, the bond between Father and Son was severed.

This is never taught anywhere in the Bible.

Not once.

Next, they will add one last insult by confidently asserting that the Father turned His face away from Jesus in that same moment because of all of that awful sin – your sins and mine – that were laid upon him.

But…there isn’t one single verse – not one hint, anywhere – that the Father turned away from Jesus at any time.

It’s just not there.

And yet, somehow, in hundreds of thousands of Christian Churches across the globe, where pastors routinely claim to teach/preach ONLY what the Bible says and not what they wish it said, or any man-made doctrines, they will quite ironically do exactly that.

Where is the verse that claims the Father and the Son were ever separated from one another?

Where is the scripture that affirms that the Father turned His face away from the Son?

There aren’t any verses that say these things.

Yet no one ever challenges these outright lies or questions this fabricated narrative.

Every Good Friday, and every Easter, preachers, teachers and pastors repeat this absolute fairy tale theology over and over again until no one questions it and everyone believes it’s the Gospel truth.

But, it’s not. It’s a big, fat, huge lie.

The closest thing to a proof text for these two huge lies is found only in one place, and even then it says nothing even close to what pastors try to make it say.

Here’s the verse: “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabaktanei?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

That’s it. One verse found only in one Gospel that never mentions:
*Separation from God

*The Father turning away from Jesus

*The spiritual pain of being separated from God

*Our sins creating a division between God and Jesus

Can you believe it?

What’s even more astounding is what happens when you trace the quote from Jesus here to Psalm 22, where it orginates. Once there you’ll see plenty of other references in that chapter to events that closely mirror the suffering Jesus was undergoing in that moment:

“…they pierce my hands and my feet.” [v. 16]

“…They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.” [v.18]

Wow. That’s pretty amazing. Jesus quotes the first line of a well-known Hebrew worship song while on the cross which predicts his own crucifixion.

But, let’s keep reading that same chapter in Psalms to see if there are any other clues about why Jesus might have referenced it. If we do we’ll read this startling statement:

“For God has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.” [v.24]

Anyone who halfway tries to study the reference Jesus makes to Psalm 22 cannot help but notice that the Scriptures deny the idea that God would turn his face away from Jesus as they pierce his hands and his feet, and as they divide his clothing and cast lots for his garment. No! It emphatically and decisively proclaims that God HAS NOT HIDDEN HIS FACE FROM HIM!

What more proof do we need?

How about what Jesus himself says?

“A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.” [John 16:32]

The spirit that invented the Christ-mass is the same one that created the counterfeit the world celebrates called Easter—which was devised to blind people regarding the true meanings of Passover. And, in that deception, there are myriad misunderstandings regarding when Christ was crucified (it wasn't on a Friday), and the true reasons He rose again on the 3rd day of the week following Passover.

While Passover is a vitally important feast day, all of which are Yah's Sabbaths, it was not a high Sabbath during which work was prohibited. It is actually called the preparation day for the next day's feast, which is Unleavened Bread. Of course, Unleavened Bread is a high Sabbath, and thus, work was not permitted. It is important to understand this, because much of the church misinterprets scripture that refers to this preparation day.

In Luke 23:54, we read of the day Christ was crucified, “And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on.” Many erroneously claim that this is speaking of Friday, the day before the weekly Sabbath, but that is not true. It is speaking of the annual Sabbath Feast of Unleavened Bread. The historical record provides the insight that this year was most likely AD 31, and in that year, the preparation day, or Passover, fell on a Wednesday, which would make the Feast of Unleavened Bread fall on Thursday.

Note that in Luke 23:55-56 we are told:

And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment.

We know from scripture that Christ died at the ninth hour, or around 3 PM. Unleavened Bread would begin at sundown. So, from 3 PM until sundown on Passover, having to prepare and bury the body, and also walk home, there would have been no time left to do the work of buying and preparing spices and perfumes, since the women had followed the body to the tomb, and had watched it being lain there, according to Matthew 27:59-61, which states, “And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed. And there was Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre.”

In Matthew 27:62-66, we're told, “Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as ye can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch.”

Mark 16:1-2 provides even more clarification: “And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.”

We already know the women were at the tomb when Christ was lain there, and that when sundown came, it was the Feast of Unleavened Bread—a high Sabbath. We know the women rested on Thursday (no work could be done other than food preparation according to Exodus 12:16 on that day). Then, on Friday, they bought and prepared the spices and perfumes. Even though the body had been wrapped with spices that had been provided by Nicodemus (John 19:39), the women fully intended that someone would roll away the stone, and they would apply more perfumes and spices to the body. But, Saturday was the weekly Sabbath, and they rested that day, so that is why they waited until Sunday morning to visit the tomb with perfumes and spices (although, He had risen hours before, during the night).

The women had no way of knowing the tomb had been sealed, since they would not have traveled to it until Sunday. In fact, when the women were walking to the tomb early Sunday morning, they apparently did not know at that point that the tomb had been sealed, for in Mark 16:2-3, we're told, “And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?” They would not have asked that question if they were aware that the stone had been sealed, and was being guarded.

Jews of that day believed that a person was not legally dead until after three days, which is why Christ waited until the fourth day to resurrect Lazarus (John 11:39). And, it was a common practice to go back to the body after it had been buried, and place additional perfumes and spices on it to defuse the smell of decay that would waft from it out to those who were mourning outside the tomb. Of course, even though Sunday was a Sabbath (Feast of Firstfruits), it was not a non-working Sabbath, as it was the first day of the barley harvest.

Seeing now the true spiritual meanings inherent within these feast days, why would any believer who knows these truths embrace pagan counterfeits over Yah's ordained traditions?

So, if your pastor or Sabbath School teacher tries to convince you that Jesus experienced separation from God on the cross, or that the Father turned his face away from Jesus as he was being crucified, feel free to challenge their poor scholarship.

Better yet, urge them to preach the truth rather than spread lies. Encourage them to preach what the scriptures actually teach:

God’s reaction to our sins is not revulsion or rejection or separation. Far from it. God’s reaction to sin is simply this: Forgiveness.