The Father’s Loving Eye upon the Son
God the Father did not turn His gaze from Jesus, as such is a misunderstanding of Habakkuk 1:13
Isaiah 53:10
Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush Him; He has put Him to grief; when His soul makes an offering for guilt, He shall see His Offspring; He shall prolong His days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.
While the heavenly Father poured out His eternal and infinite wrath upon His only Son, He not only looked upon Jesus has He suffered God’s wrath (Psa 22:1; Matt 27:46), the Father could not remove His loving gaze from the Son while He suffered. Though I had written some exposition for Isaiah 53:10 in this morning’s devotional thought, it is worth repeating here for this addendum article.
It was the LORD’s will to crush His Son. The Father put Jesus to grief though Jesus did nothing grief-worthy. And when Jesus laid down His life to make His soul an offering for the guilt of sinful men, the heavenly Father saw His holy Offspring, the virgin-born Son, and was pleased. The English word “will” is also correctly translated “pleased.” It’s the Hebrew word חָפֵץ (cha-FĀTZ), and it means “to be inclined toward,” “to delight in,” “to be pleased with,” “to will or determine.” The same word is also used at the end of the verse. The KJV renders it like this:
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief: when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His Seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand. Isaiah 53:10, KJV
Of late, I have heard many preach that the Father’s eyes are “too pure” to look upon the Son when He suffered God’s wrath upon Calvary’s tree. I believe that this idea may come from a misunderstanding of Habakkuk 1:13,
“You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do You idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?”
Some have concluded, I suppose by this verse because of the “purer eyes” wording, that the Father could not look at Jesus when He suffered on the cross because Jesus bore our sin. But in the verse itself, the prophet not only says that God’s eyes are too pure to look upon evil, he also says that YHVH God looks upon the Babylonians idly, that He looks upon wretched idolators, who are more evil than the wicked in Judah, and that He’s using these sinners in order to bring about judgment upon Judah (Hab 1:5-11). So, first, we already have the proof from Habakkuk 1:5-13 that this cannot be truly applied as a literal thing concerning YHVH God.
Second, Satan entered the very presence of God at least twice since the fall, recorded in the book of Job (Job 1:6-12; 2:1-7), and possibly more than we know (Rev 12:10). I think we can agree that as far as evil is concerned, Satan is the worst of the worst, yet he conversed with YHVH God, and moreover, conversed with the Lord Jesus Christ (Matt 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13). Satan’s staining heaven with his presence is why the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus is also the propitiation for the whole world (1 Jn 2:2); because in the regeneration, a new heaven and new earth will be cleansed by the omnipotent power of Christ’s precious blood; washing away even the stain and stench of Satan’s foul presence (remember, Satan had every right to stand before God’s presence in Job 1-2 and Revelation 12 because Adam relinquished his rights to Satan when he disobeyed God in the garden).
And though I will not give exhaustive proof texts for YHVH God looking upon evil, here is one text:
You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence. Psalm 90:8, ESV
Hosea 7:2 is another verse that come to mind concerning the sins of men before the face of YHVH God.
Thirdly, to suggest that the Father could not look at Jesus on the cross would imply that Jesus did not pay the penalty for sins He did not commit, but actually became sin itself; and that would in turn imply that Christ’s righteous act was not the delight and satisfaction of God. If Jesus was at any time unpleasing to the Father (Matt 3:17; John 8:29), even on the cross, His substitution means nothing (1 Pet 3:18), and you and I have no hope of salvation at all.
If Jesus was not pleasing to the heavenly Father on the cross, this would make Jesus a liar when He said the last part of this statement:
“And He who sent Me is with Me. He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.” John 8:29, ESV
Was the vindication of God’s justice not pleasing to Him? Will the righteous Judge on that Day be unable to look at the sinners He’s condemning to eternal punishment?
Since I cited the entire verse, I must mention this about John 8:29. We do know that Jesus was forsaken of the Father (Psa 22:1; Matt 27:46; Mark 15:34). That’s because the first part of John 8:29 was true of Jesus right up until the cross. Jesus walked intimately with the Father (John 1:18; Heb 1:3), so much more intimately than any man, including Adam; so that when Jesus was forsaken of that relationship, the suffering of all men collectively who have rejected Christ and will be sent to eternal torment in that Day, could never come close to matching the wrath that Jesus suffered when He was forsaken by God. What that exactly entails is a heavenly mystery that is infinitely beyond our finite grasp. You and I will chase down the infinitely glorious truth of Christ crucified for all eternity.
Fourth, this doctrine of the Father not looking at Jesus would devilishly assault the nature and character of the Father because to suggest such a thing would cause the Father to tell us to do something He couldn’t do Himself—that is, to look upon Jesus Christ crucified, which is our only Hope of salvation. This is what the Father told us to do through the prophet—to look upon Jesus to be saved, Isaiah 45:22,
Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. KJV
“Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.” ESV
Both are wonderful English translations of this verse. YHVH God says in Hebrew פְּנוּ־אֵלַי (p’NŪ—e-LAĪY), “You face Me.” The command is to “face” God because we are looking away from Him, so therefore, the ESV also is correct because the command implies repentance, turning from our sin and turning to God. But since the Father is spirit and has no body (John 4:24), then the command can only be applied by our looking to Jesus (John 1:18; 14:9; 19:37; Heb 1:1-3; 1 Jn 1:2; et al) with spiritual eyes (2 Cor 5:7).
Sixth, we must consider why Habakkuk would say such a thing if it is not literally true of the Father? I believe that among the redeemed, even in our misgivings and misunderstandings, we still become a gospel witness for Christ’s sake and for His glory. While every prophet points to Messiah, and is a witness of and for Messiah, and also in many ways is a type of Christ (John 5:39), the weakness of men is one of the ways God works all things together for good (Rom 8:28). When we see the weakness in Abraham, Moses, Aaron, David, Elijah, Habakkuk, etc., we will depend less and less upon men, less and less upon ourselves, and depend more and more upon the Lord Jesus. Jesus didn’t entrust Himself to men (John 2:24-25), and neither should we.
Jesus of Nazareth is certainly that Prophet foretold to come (Deut 18:15). Jesus is the only Jew who ever kept the whole Law both actively and passively. Jesus is the only Son who was wholly obedient to His Father. Jesus is the only Prophet who had ever spoken the truth of heaven without schism or defect. All others were fallen descendants of Adam. And since the Lord Jesus came, all His ministers continue to fall short of His glory (Rom 3:23). Habakkuk in his frailty and fallenness only expresses what we do all the time—apply our weaknesses to the immutable God. He speaks as if the presence of wickedness is going to change Him. Certainly, God is not aloof to our sin, for our sin grieves Him (Eph 4:30); but He cannot be changed by anything. He is complete in Himself. He cannot learn; He’s all-knowing. He cannot be nowhere; He is everywhere-present.
Because we are often driven by the wind and tossed in our situations and circumstances, we sometimes project our weaknesses onto the character of the unchanging God. Thus, Habakkuk points to Christ Jesus in his weakness, because it is only in the incarnate God, Jesus Messiah, who was the faithful, infallible, and impeccable Prophet to the end—when He breathed His last on that tree.
We see these same Habakkuk-like characteristics in our own lives, which when we recognize them, provoke us to surrender unto Christ through the Holy Spirit even more. We know that God is sovereign, but sometimes in our hearts, or even by our actions and attitudes, we may openly or secretly give the impression that Jesus couldn’t build His church without us (Jas 4:13-17). Or we know that truth must be revealed to us by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 2:14), but we sometimes act like or live as if we discovered these treasures on our own (1 Cor 4:7).
Seventh, and finally, does this mean that those who preach that the Father turned away from Jesus when the Lord Messiah hung upon the cross are not saved? No, it does not. God forbid. Nevertheless, shouldn’t we be zealous for the truth of Christ’s cross, the character of the Father, and the blessed truth of Scripture that expresses Christ’s gospel? Indeed, we should.