Powerful Passages for Powerful Living, Pt. 8

Powerful Passages for Powerful Living, Pt. 8

Study Guide, July 19, 2026

Pastor Clay Olsen

In our journey through ‘Powerful Passages’ in the Bible which then equips us for ‘Powerful Living’, we come to one of the most powerful statements that was ever made or ever will be made. It’s also the statement that revealed that the greatest and severest and most sacrificial event in all of eternity past and future was being experienced by God Himself, who took on human flesh in order to accomplish the ‘Substitionary Atonement’, which would become the only way that any human being could ever have a rebirth of their ‘dead spirit’ and become a ‘Born-Again’ eternal child of God.

What was happening in these 9 words, translated from the Aramaic, is what made it possible for you and for me and for anyone to become redeemed and reconciled to our God. Those words are: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Matt. 27:46 NASB In those moments on the Cross, Jesus was enduring our sentence of our ‘spiritual death’ as our Substitute…our Savior…our Sin-bearer. And because He was the Eternal God, Jesus could pay our eternal wages of sin for us ‘In full.’ Jn. 19:30 – “For when He had completed paying the debt of our spiritual death and physical death He then proclaimed: “It is finished!” And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.”

Because of the brutality of the Cross, we are stunned by His sacrifice of dying physically in our place, but we often don’t comprehend the horror of His sacrifice of dying spiritually in our place. For remember, when He was being sentenced by His accusers, He was silent. And of the Cross Isaiah said: “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth.” Isa. 53:7 But when He was being forsaken, alienated, and separated from God the Father and Holy Spirit, He cried out: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” It wasn’t a question, because Jesus already knew the answer. It was an expression of ‘shock’, for there had never in all eternity past been a moment of any separation within the Trinity of the Godhead of their complete communion and total fellowship ever before! There had never been a moment of interrupted union…never a shadow or distance of separation. But on the Cross of Christ, the judgment and sentence and wages of our sin had to be poured out on Jesus, and Jesus experienced the God-forsakenness that our sins deserved.

Again, not because they became His sins…they were still ours, but because He bore them for us. Jesus was sinless, but He became the ‘Sin-bearer’. He bore our sins for us. He bore the judicial abandonment that was due guilty sinners so that believers would never be abandoned by God. Jesus said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you”…why? Because Jesus was forsaken in our place! Jesus was experiencing the sentence of our spiritual death in our place in those moments of alienation and separation from the Father and the Spirit. Jesus was forsaken, spiritually separated from God, which is what spiritual death is…separation from God…Jesus was forsaken for us so that we will never be forsaken by Him. We have Jesus’ promise on that: Heb. 13:5 – “…for He Himself has said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.” That’s also one of the greatest promises by Jesus of our eternal security.

Those words by Jesus to the Father of “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” are the most agonizing words ever uttered. But Jesus’ greatest horror became mankind’s greatest hope. For those words by Jesus to His Born-again children…to you and to me, “I will never forsake you” are the most consoling words ever spoken. Think about it: Jesus was forsaken for us, so that we will never have to fear being forsaken by God. Jesus spiritually died for us, completing our spiritual death sentence for us. Therefore, we will never have to fear spiritual death because Jesus already finished that sentence. “It is finished” is a phrase that meant ‘Paid in Full!’ Again, spiritual death is ‘separation from God.’ When Jesus experienced that and then pronounced “It is finished”, it declared that there is no more separation to be done. Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath against sin, and there is not one drop of God’s wrath left in that cup towards us who belong to Christ.

That’s why in Romans 8:1 the Apostle Paul so clearly spelled it out for us: “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” He then goes on to paint a verbal picture of our security in saying: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (37-39) Is there anything left out here? Sometimes someone will say, “But what about me? What if something about me separates me?” The answer is, “But aren’t you a creation of God’s? Paul said ‘nor any other created thing!’ Jesus took our ‘separation’ from God in our place…for us…on our behalf.

This also raises another question: When you ask Jesus into your life as your Lord and Savior…what are you asking? You are asking the Lord Jesus Christ to be your ‘Substitute!’ You are asking to receive the substitutionary merits or works of Jesus’ sinless life and His sin-bearing death to be given to you as Christ’s gift to you because of His grace and through your faith. Remember, when you think of the Cross, or see Jesus on the Cross, you are seeing Jesus in your place. Jesus did not only die. He died for you, in your place. He was not only crucified. He was crucified for you. He did not only suffer. He suffered for you. He was not only spiritually separated from God, He was spiritually separated from God for you. Jesus was your ‘Substitute’ and He paid the wages of your sins in full for you.

Those two words, ‘for you’ are two of the most blessed words in existence. For to really understand ‘the Cross’ you have to understand ‘Substitution’. ‘For me’… ‘on my behalf’… ‘in my place’…notice carefully Isa. 53:4-6 – “Surely He has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Notice the wording used: ‘Our griefs…our sorrows…our transgressions…our iniquities…our peace…’ Every statement points us to one reality: Substitution!

The Apostle Peter says similarly: 1 Pet. 3:18 – “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.” ESV Substitution: The righteous for the unrighteous, the just for the unjust, the innocent for the guilty, the holy for the unholy. And again in 2 Cor. 5:21 – “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” NIV Martin Luther called this verse: ‘The Great Exchange.’ Notice the exchange: Our sin…His righteousness, our guilt…His sinlessness, our condemnation…His acceptance, our curse…His blessing. Everything that condemned us was placed upon Christ. Everything that qualifies Him before God is imputed…or credited to us, and to everyone who repents toward God and places faith in Jesus Christ to be their Substitute…their Savior!

At the Cross everything that was required to satisfy the justice that had to be done to pardon our sins and our sentencing of spiritual death…the separation of the Spirit from the life of God, and the sentence of physical death…the separation of the body from the soul and the presence of God…that justice was completely satisfied…propitiated…through the sinless life and the sin-bearing death of Jesus Christ as our Substitute.

‘Finished’… ‘Paid in Full’…nothing remains to be added…no further sacrifice…no additional payment…no human merit…no religious works…no self-improvement. The debt was forever cancelled. Hallelujah! Col. 2:13,14 – “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” And once again in the NLT: ^“You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for He forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.”

Remember: Salvation is not Jesus’ life and death plus my merits to earn salvation. Salvation is Jesus alone. For Salvation cannot be earned by already separated and condemned people. Salvation can only be received as a gift from the One who was separated for us and who took our condemnation for us and also lived a sinless and righteous life for us. And now that record of the charges of sin against us that separated us from the life and presence of God has been canceled! It was nailed to the cross with our Savior. Yes, we still sin and need to confess our sins to restore our fellowship with God and to live under Christ’s Lordship. But the separation is gone and we fully belong to Him!

Also, note the need: As Colossians 2 reveals, the need was for our dead spirit, our spirit that was separated from the Spirit of God…the need was for our dead spirit to be made alive…to be reunited to the spiritual life of God. If there is one thing the whole religious world needs to learn is that Salvation is not a ‘behavior’ issue; Salvation is a ‘birth’ issue…a new birth of the human spirit based upon the substitutionary behavior and substitutionary death of Jesus Christ, our only Savior and Substitute! Biblical Christianity is the only religion that starts with ‘Spiritual Birth’ – not religious behavior! Biblical Christianity starts with ‘Birth’…behavior follows and is to follow and is expected to follow. But you first have to have your dead spirit brought to life by spiritual Rebirth! John 3:3 – “Jesus responded and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Every religion apart from Biblically-centered and Christ-revealed Christianity is a behavior-based religion, not a spiritually Born-again based relationship with God!

So here is what we are facing in relation to our mission of the Great Commission…of communicating the Gospel of Christ and His reign over our lives. Remember that the ‘natural man’ begins by being deceived by the Devil and deluded by what ‘seems right’ to themselves. Unsaved people don’t begin knowing spiritual truth, they begin by believing in spiritual falsehoods. Unregenerate people don’t begin being spiritually ‘Found’; they begin by being spiritually ‘Lost.’ That’s why Jesus stated His purpose statement for coming to the Earth: “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Luke 19:10 NASB

And here is one of the greatest deceptions and delusions that the natural man, the unregenerate person, the lost soul lives with and believes: that he or she is already ‘spiritually alive’, when they are in fact, already ‘spiritually dead’…dead in trespasses and sin. Eph. 2:1,2 – “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.” Point being: Most people in this world, in our country, in our communities, in our circles of contact…be it friends or even family, do not understand that their human spirit is already dead and neither do they understand that their soul is already condemned. John 3:17,18 – “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” NKJV

People the world over, being sinners by nature and practice, begin already spiritually separated from God…as the Scriptures say – “dead in trespasses and sins.” That is man’s central problem. But the world’s religions and humanistic thinking completely ignore this central problem. But unless the reality of the Problem is understood, no real solution will be given, and neither will people feel the need to seek one. And in addition, unless the real solution is embraced, the reality of the problem will continue.

So for a Born-again child of God, you need never fear ever being separated from God, for Jesus was separated for you. But for the unsaved, unregenerated, unredeemed, and un-repentant person, that person is still separated from God…separated from the spiritual life of God and separated from a relationship with God. For ‘separation’ is the spiritual condition of every person who has not come in repentance toward God and placed faith in Jesus Christ. Note Isa. 59:1.2 – “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short that it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.”

So for the Unbeliever: He or she is still spiritually separated from the Spirit of God, and will forever be separated, unless they call out to the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be their Substitute! Their need is spiritual birth and new life in Christ by His grace and through their faith. Then, of course, faithful behavior is to follow…obedience to our Heavenly Father is expected and will be inspected and rewarded.

For the Believer, rejoice in your Savior, your Substitute, for Jesus lived the life you could not live…a life of sinless righteousness, and then He died the death that you were to die…particularly, the spiritual death…separation from the life and presence of God. Again, Jesus’ having to spiritually die in our place for our Substitionary Atonement is the most neglected and least understood message of the Cross of Jesus Christ. But it is also the most comforting, most assuring, and most blessed message for the child of God…for Jesus was forsaken on the Cross for us so that we will never ever be forsaken by our God.