If Jesus is God, why does He cry out for help to God, "Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani"?

 

One should say that it is clear from the very manner of speaking that it should be understood as about Christ, for John says of him: I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and your God (John 20:17). He calls him Father, because he is God; he calls him God, because he is man. And so when he says, my God, my God, it is clear that he speaks according as he is a man; this is why he repeats it, to indicate the magnitude of human feeling.

“And when he says, why have you forsaken me, he speaks by way of similitude, because what we have, we have from God; hence just as when someone is exposed to an evil he is called abandoned, in the same way when the Lord has left a man to fall into the evil of punishment, or of guilt, he is called abandoned. So Christ is called forsaken not as regards the union, nor as regards grace, but as regards the passion; for a small moment have I forsaken you (Isa 54:7).

“And he says, why? not as though out of weariness, but it can indicate his compassion for the Jews. Hence he only said it after there was darkness; so he wishes to say: why have you willed that I should be handed over to suffering, and that these men should be darkened? Likewise, it indicates astonishment, for the charity of God is astonishing. But God commends his charity towards us; because when as yet we were sinners, according to the time, Christ died for us (Rom 5:8–9).”