CHAPTER 22

A PSALM OF DAVID: CHRISTS SUFFERING AND COMING GLORY

¹My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? why are You so far from helping Me, and from the words of My roaring? (The stark reality of this Psalm portrays the Crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospels narrate the fact of the Crucifixion, this Psalm the feelings of the Crucified.

Jesus cried this Word while hanging on the Cross [Mat. 27:46]. This portrayal glorifies Him as the Sin-Offering.

It presents a sinless Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, forsaken by God, but only in the sense that God allowed Him to die. Such a fact is unique in history and will never need to be repeated. This sinless Man Himself God manifest in the flesh was made to be a Sin-Offering, in effect, the penalty of sin, which, in this case, was physical death [II Cor. 5:21], and thereby pierced with a sword of Divine Wrath [Zech. 13:7]. In that judgment, God dealt infinitely with sin and, in so dealing with it in the Person of His Beloved Son, showed His wrath against sin and His Love for the sinner. Thus, He vindicated Himself and, as well, redeemed man. God revealed Himself at Calvary as in no other place or way.

What the depth of horror was to which the sinless soul of Jesus sank under the Wrath of God as the Sin-Offering is unfathomable for men or Angels; therefore, our efforts to explain these sufferings will, of necessity, fall short of that which He really experienced.)

²O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You hear not; and in the night season, and am not silent (as a Sin-Offering and Perfect, still, God could not hear or answer prayer from such, at least at this particular time, but could only pour His Judgment as He had done so through the centuries on the slain lamb).

³But You are Holy, O You Who inhabits the praises of Israel. (This is the closest that the Scripture comes to the statement, God inhabits the praises of His People. During Christs Earthly Ministry, He spoke of God as His Father, and resumed the title after He had triumphantly shouted, Finished. But while suffering Divine Wrath as the Sin-Offering, He addressed Him as God. Because God is so Holy, He could not even look upon this particular Sin-Offering, much less hear and answer prayer, but only for the time when He was bearing the sin penalty on the Cross [Mk. 15:3334].)

⁴Our fathers trusted in You: they trusted, and You did deliver them. (However, Christ could not be delivered from this terrible act. Had He been delivered, humanity could not be delivered.

Had the Messiah been only Man, He would have put His physical sufferings first, and His spiritual sufferings last. But to Him, as the only begotten Son of God, there was no anguish so infinite as the hiding of the Fathers face.)

⁵They cried unto You, and were delivered: they trusted in You, and were not confounded (this teaches Gods people to cling in confidence to the Lord when circumstances seem to say that God has abandoned them; the infinite care of God for us is made possible by what Christ did for us at the Cross, and by no other means).

⁶But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people (the word worm, as used here by Christ, means that He took the lowest place among men, to be rejected, scorned, spit upon, and even humiliated in infamy and shame [I Pet. 2:24; Isa. 49:7; 52:14; 53:112]).

⁷All they who see Me laugh Me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying (this was done by His Own People while He hung on the Cross in bitter suffering; they had no kind word for Him; they only laughed and mocked Him [Mat. 27:3943]),

⁸He trusted on the LORD that He would deliver Him: let Him deliver Him, seeing He delighted in Him (at the Cross, the enemies of Christ, His Own People, actually used the very words as recorded in this Eighth Verse [Mat. 27:43]).

⁹But You are He Who took Me out of the womb: You did make Me hope when I was upon My mothers breasts (these two Verses [910] show the relationship between the Father and the Son, even from the womb of the Virgin Mary; and yet, this relationship that had never before been broken would now be broken, at least for a short period of time, because He was bearing the sin penalty of the world).

¹⁰I was cast upon You from the womb: You are My God from My mothers belly (in a certain sense, this is true of all; but, of the Holy Child, it was most true [Lk. 2:40, 49, 52]).

¹¹Be not far from Me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help (all the Disciples forsook Him and fled [Mat. 26:56] He was truly One Who had no helper).

¹²Many bulls have compassed Me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset Me round (bulls here symbolize the demon-possessed religious leaders of Israel, who were determined to kill the Messiah [Mat. 27:166; Acts 2:36]).

¹³They gaped upon Me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.

¹⁴I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint: My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of My bowels (Crucifixion was one of the most, if not the most, horrible forms of death ever devised by evil men; coupling that with the spiritual torture, which was even far worse, we have suffering that is unimaginable).

¹⁵My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and My tongue cleaves to My jaws; and You have brought Me into the dust of death (but yet, His death would be totally unlike any other death that had ever been experienced; it would be the death of a Perfect One, Who purposely laid down His Life as a Sacrifice).

¹⁶For dogs have compassed Me (refers to the Gentiles, who carried out the Crucifixion): the assembly of the wicked have inclosed Me (refers to the Scribes, Priests, and the Pharisees, actually, the religious leaders of Israel): they pierced My hands and My feet (nailing Him to the Cross).

¹⁷I may tell all My bones: they look and stare upon Me (Christ hung on the Cross in complete humiliation, in other words, totally naked).

¹⁸They part My garments among them, and cast lots upon My vesture (uttered a thousand years before the fact, Mat. 27:35, Mk. 15:24, Lk. 23:34, and Jn. 19:24 all record its fulfillment).

¹⁹But be not You far from Me, O LORD: O My Strength, haste You to help Me. (Jesus was placed on the Cross at 9 a.m. [Mk. 15:25]. From 12 noon until 3 p.m., the latter being the time when Jesus died and also the time of the evening sacrifice, darkness covered the land for that three-hour period the period when Jesus was bearing the sin penalty of the world [Mat. 27:45]. During that three-hour period, the Lord would not answer the prayers of Christ, nor help Him in any way; however, at the moment He died, the sin penalty was paid [Mat. 27:51], and the Lord could, and in fact most definitely did, answer His prayers from that moment on [Jn. 19:30; Lk. 23:46].)

²⁰Deliver My soul from the sword; My darling (My soul) from the power of the dog (the Gentiles, and more particularly Pilate).

²¹Save Me from the lions mouth (religious leaders of Israel): for You have heard Me from the horns of the unicorns (wild bulls, again typifying the religious leaders of Israel).

²²I will declare Your name unto My brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise You. (Verses 1 through 21 present to us the sufferings of the Messiah, while Verses 22 through 31 present to us the Exaltation and Glory of the Messiah. We are to declare His Name all over the world, and praise Him for what He has done in redeeming man.)

²³You who fear the LORD, praise Him; all you the seed of Jacob, glorify Him; and fear Him, all you the seed of Israel (all Believers are to praise the Lord for what He has done; Jesus is the Source, and the Cross is the Means).

²⁴For He (God the Father) has not despised nor abhorred the affliction (suffering) of the Afflicted (His Only Begotten Son); neither has He hid His face from Him (not permanently, actually for only about three hours); but when He (our Saviour) cried unto Him (God the Father), He heard (cried out of the death world, and the Lord heard Him, and raised Him from the dead).

²⁵My praise shall be of You in the great congregation (every Saint is to praise God for what Jesus has done for us at the Cross): I will pay My vows (devotions) before them who fear Him.

²⁶The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the LORD who seek Him: your heart shall live forever (the Cross afforded us eternal life).

²⁷All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before You (when Jesus died on the Cross, He died not only for Israel, but for the entirety of mankind).

²⁸For the kingdom is the LORDs: and He is the Governor among the nations (this privilege is afforded Him because of Calvary).

²⁹All they that be fat upon Earth shall eat and worship: all they who go down to the dust shall bow before Him: and none can keep alive his own soul (life is Christs gift; the soul cannot be kept spiritually alive except through Him, by His quickening Spirit [Jn. 6:53, 63]).

³⁰A seed shall serve Him; it shall be accounted to the LORD for a generation (what Jesus did at the Cross shall be told of the Lord to generation after generation).

³¹They shall come, and shall declare His Righteousness unto a people who shall be born, that He has done this (the words, that He has done this, speak of the great price He paid for mans Redemption; it is done; It is Finished [Jn. 19:30]; this shall be told from generation to generation, and so has it been).