Thomas McCall’s Forsaken, reviewed by Timothy Lim Teck Ngern

Pneuma Review Spring 2013

Thomas H. McCall, Forsaken: The Trinity and the Cross, and Why It Matters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 170 pages, ISBN 9780830839582. Thomas McCall writes this book primarily for pastors, students, and a general audience, unlike his previous sophisticated academic study on the Trinity. In Forsaken, the professor of biblical and systematic theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School focuses on Jesus’ cry of dereliction and felt abandonment by God the Father on the cross. Typically, we would hear this message in conservative and evangelical-type churches: on the cross, the Son was totally abandoned by God the Father, so that God the Father (in rejecting the Son having borne the weight of our sins on his shoulder and having paid the atonement for our sins as our substitute on the cross) would accept sinners as God’s beloved. Although the Bible seems to say that Christ was indeed abandoned by God the Father, McCall calls this trajectory the pitching of God the Father against God the Son. McCall addresses some of the most thorny questions about the trinitarian faith: a) whether Jesus was ever abandoned by God the Father on the cross, b) what is the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and c) how this trinitarian account (especially Jesus’ death and cry of dereliction) relates to the Christian life?

To be sure, Jesus’ cry of dereliction raises some of the most challenging problems for Christians who accepts the authority of the Bible. Simply put, if God the Father did indeed forsake the Son on the cross, then if God is Trinitarian, the Son’s divinity is in question. This is because at that point, the Son loses the intimacy and contact with the other persons of the Trinity, and if so, based on the logic of the inseparability of the Godhead, the Son can no longer be divine when he was forsaken. Furthermore, to hold that the Trinity was rent asunder at Jesus’ cry of being forsaken contradicts an ancient trinitarian formulation that the Trinity operates indivisibly, at every moment, and thus runs the risk of embracing a heretical conception of the Trinity. Consequently, if the Son is not divine, but only merely human, the efficacy of the Son’s promise to save and redeem his disciples is in doubt. More importantly, if God is love (steadfast and not subjected to fluctuation), why did the wrath of God come upon Christ? Was Christ’s death and forsakenness necessary for God to accept sinful humanity? And if so, does that not reveal a God whose love is only passable and whose justice is rather inexact (or laughable, using McCall’s language)? And if Scripture tells us that Jesus must die for our redemption, would we have to recourse to embrace divine determinism—the divine necessity of a predetermined plan of God to accomplish his will and purposes? And if not, was the death of Jesus a meaningless tragedy?

Those interested in the answers to these questions ought to read Forsaken, even if they possess only an elementary understanding of Christology (i.e., the doctrine of the nature, person, and works of Christ). Written in simple, non-technical manner, McCall draws from a range of biblical, historical, and theological materials. And when technical jargon is used (e.g., social trinitarianism, divine impassability, divine simplicity, divine determinism, and primary and secondary concepts of justice), these are plainly explained. Overall, the Evangelical theologian McCall defends the classical view, with some modifications.

In a nutshell, the classical view holds that the Son was never abandoned on the cross. On the cross, the communion between the Father and the Son was never broken. The language of abandonment expresses Christ’s identification with our actual experience of having been forsaken by God on account of our sins as well as the problem of sinful human nature. The account of divine abandonment means neither that Christ has abandoned humanity nor that Christ had lost his intimacy with the Father. God for us is the impassable simplicity of the trinitarian life; the death of Christ did not make it possible for God to love us, but that through his death, we may truly know God’s love and love God.

Whilst accepting the aforementioned, McCall presents a counter-proposal. He does not fully affirm divine determinism (that Christ’s death was necessary for our salvation), but he wants to keep substitutionary atonement. Thus, McCall explains that God uses his foreknowledge about sinful humanity’s decision (to nail Christ on the cross) to bring about God’s plans for redeeming his people, abolishing sin, annihilating death, restoring righteousness, and reviving life in believers. McCall’s reconstruction implies that while we need to be saved, Christ’s death is incidental to our salvation. But rather, based on God’s foreknowledge, Christ as the way of salvation emerges as God’s plan. In other words, the theologian affirms Christ’s death as substitutionary atonement without interpreting Christ’s offer of salvation as being divine determinism from the start.

McCall’s modification of divine foreknowledge in Christ’s gift of salvation would probably upset some readers. However, the theologian clarifies that the acceptance of Jesus’ death as having occurred in accordance to divine plan and foreknowledge does not imply divine determinism. Having foreknowledge of human free choice does not imply that God determines evil actions; otherwise, it would make God ultimately responsible causally for those actions, much less the consequence of those evil activities (such as conspirators betraying and nailing Jesus to the cross). God did not impose his determined will for the conspirators to hang Jesus. The conspirators’ actions could also not be held responsible for the entire universe. Finally, to hold soteriological determinism would remove moral responsibilities from people, thereby turning God into the ultimate causal agent of killing Jesus but also for the those who live contrary to God’s goodness, justice and holiness. McCall further clarifies that while justification deals with the sinful past of believers, sanctification corrects the sinful nature in us. Christ’s contribution to our justification and sanctification are pneumatologically engaged activities, grounded in and flowing from the intra-trinitarian life of the Father, Son and Spirit operating indivisibly.

Pastors, church leaders, and Christians cannot ignore McCall’s important treatment, especially if they have not considered the nature of Jesus’ cry of abandonment and how it relates to Christ’s relationship with the Trinity. Readers new to the topics of the book will find helpful reviews of what is “to be avoided,” “to be affirmed” and “why it matters” at the end of each chapter. More importantly, because McCall believes that he stands squarely with historic orthodoxy, he urges that we correct some contemporary theology and preaching about Christ. These would include the nature of Christ’s relationship with the Trinity, and what the Trinity means for the Christian doctrines of divine knowledge, forensic justification, and sanctification in the Christian life. Finally, Forsaken serves as an important reminder to proclaim Christ with the historic Christian faith, so that we do not risk embracing a spectrum of heterodox views.

Reviewed by Timothy Lim Teck Ngern

About the Author
Timothy Lim Teck Ngern, M.Div., is an adjunct lecturer and Ph.D. candidate at Regent University School of Divinity (Virginia Beach, Virginia). He is also honorary tutor for King’s Evangelical Divinity School (London), and Book Review Editor for Evangelical Review of Society & Politics. Winner of the 2011 North American Academy of Ecumenists annual student essay contest, he has served as the assistant pastor of a Baptist church in Singapore and projects manager for Transworld Radio International (Northeast Asia Office).