Did the Son of God abandon Jesus the man on the cross?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1992.

As I understand your letter, you state that the Son of God forsook Jesus before Jesus died. If that were really so, I could no longer say, 'The Son of God loved me, and gave himself up for me' (Galatians 2:20), for now I would have to believe that, instead of giving himself up for me to the final penalty for sin, the Son of God withdrew and went to heaven and left simply Jesus to give himself up for me. This would be a most serious error.

According to your letter, the Son of God was not put in a tomb at all, for the Son of God does not die. If you are going to argue that the term 'Son of God' has a double function—to indicate the Second Person of the Trinity; and as a mere label to denote the man Jesus, with whom the real Son of God dwelled for a time until he deserted him at the cross—then your theory would land you in horrific error.

Your theory also seems to involve you in doctrines that come perilously close not only to modern theosophy but to the false teaching that John denounces in 1 John 2:22. As you know, theosophy and many forms of Hinduism teach that Jesus was not the Christ. The Christ, they say, is the great world spirit. That great world spirit filled Jesus during his lifetime, but deserted him at the cross. You, by contrast, hold that Jesus was the Christ, but that the spirit of the Son of God deserted Jesus at the cross.

Muslims, for their part, teach that Jesus did not die at the cross. He was taken away to heaven and someone else substituted for him at Calvary. It seems to be one of Satan's great objectives to get us to disbelieve that the Son of God died for mankind at Calvary. To that end, he will persuade people either that Jesus did not die at all, or that, when Jesus died, he was not any longer the Son of God. Your theological speculations have led you into exceedingly dangerous territory.

You also deny the principle of substitution; and in so doing you deny the plain straightforward statement of 1 Timothy 2:6, which undeniably and inescapably teaches that Christ's death was substitutionary.

I am sure that you have not intended to dishonour the Saviour, but I implore you to abandon these dangerous speculations, lest you both dishonour the Lord Jesus and make shipwreck regarding the faith.

Yours sincerely in Christ,