If Jesus was God, why did He call God "My God?"

When Jesus was on the cross, He quoted from Psalm 22, saying, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). This was a psalm of David and a messianic prophecy pointing to the terrible suffering that Christ would endure. The entire psalm contains remarkable predictions concerning the coming Messiah: the insults (Psalm 22:7), the out-of-joint bones (verse 14), the thirst (verse 15), the piercing of His hands and feet (verse 16), and the gambling over His clothes (verse 18). So, one of the reasons Jesus called God “my God” was to point people to Psalm 22. In fact, the psalm’s first line, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” could be considered the title of the poem. Jesus’ naming the title from the cross would have the effect of reminding people that the prophecy was being fulfilled.

As He was hanging on the cross, Christ experienced the outpouring of divine wrath upon the sin that He bore. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21). “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’” (Galatians 3:13, ESV). This was the price He paid to redeem His church—all who would ever believe in Him—and He paid it in full. His cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” undoubtedly reflected the feelings of abandonment and desolation at work in His heart.

There are other times when Jesus refers to God as His God. For example, after His resurrection Jesus tells Mary Magdalene to deliver this message to His disciples: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17). The wording has the effect of emphasizing the brotherhood we share with the Son of God incarnate. In His humanity, the Son can truly call us “brothers.” The fact that Jesus called the Father “my God” also puts to rest any notion that God had rejected Jesus. The Lord had been tried as a common criminal, but the Father had promised to “give him a portion among the great” (Isaiah 53:12). The resurrection proved that the promise would be fulfilled. God had never forsaken Jesus. Jesus could still call Him “my Father” and “my God.” The relationship between the Father and the Son continues unbroken eternally.

In Revelation 3, Jesus refers to the Father as “my God” in verses 2 and 12. It has to do with Jesus’ relationship as a human to His heavenly Father. Even though the Son is eternal and equal to the Father in nature and substance, He is still a different person from the Father. It was the Son who was made incarnate. As He took on human flesh and a human nature, the Son of God humbled Himself and identified with us in every way —including our need to submit to the Father and rely on the Spirit. Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing” (John 5:19). In His humanity, Jesus submitted His will to the Father’s (Luke 22:42), and “learned obedience from what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8).

Jesus could truly call the Father “my God” because He was “made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. Then he could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17, NLT). Jesus, the Son of God in human flesh, was “made like us.” From that perspective, God the Father is the God of Jesus. Jesus’ calling God “my God” doesn’t imply inferiority to the Father, only a difference in roles.