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Psalm 22 for our meditation prior
to the supper. I'll read the entirety of the
psalm, but our focus will be on the first half from verses
1 to 21a. So beginning in Psalm 22 at verse
1. To the chief musician set to
the dear of the dawn, the psalm of David. My God, my God, why
have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping
me and from the words of my groaning? Oh my God, I cry in the daytime,
but you do not hear and in the night season and am not silent. But you are holy and thrown in
the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in you. They
trusted and you delivered them. They cried to you and were delivered.
They trusted in you and were not ashamed. But I am a worm
and no man, a reproach of men and despised by the people. All
those who see me ridicule me. They shoot out the lip. They
shake the head saying, he trusted in the Lord. Let him rescue him.
Let him deliver him since he delights in him. But you are
he who took me out of the womb. You made me trust while on my
mother's breasts. I was cast upon you from birth.
From my mother's womb you have been my God. Be not far from
me, for trouble is near, for there is none to help. Many bulls
have surrounded me. Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled
me. They gape at me with their mouths
like a raging and roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and
all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted
within me. My strength is dried up like
a potsherd, and my tongue clings to my jaws. You have brought
me to the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me.
The congregation of the wicked has enclosed me. They pierced
my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. They
look and stare at me. They divide my garments among
them, and for my clothing they cast lots. But you, O Lord, do
not be far from me. O my strength, hasten to help
me. Deliver me from the sword, my
precious life from the power of the dog. Save me from the
lion's mouth and from the horns of the wild oxen. You have answered
me. I will declare your name to my
brethren. In the midst of the assembly,
I will praise you. All you who fear the Lord, praise
him. All you descendants of Jacob,
glorify him and fear him, all you offspring of Israel. For
he has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted,
nor has he hidden his face from him. But when he cried to him,
he heard. My praise shall be of you in
the great assembly. I will pay my vows before those
who fear him. The poor shall eat and be satisfied. Those who seek him will praise
the Lord. Let your heart live forever.
All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord.
and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For
the kingdom is the Lord's and he rules over the nations. All
the prosperous of the earth shall eat and worship. All those who
go down to the dust shall bow before him, even he who cannot
keep himself alive. A posterity shall serve him.
It will be recounted of the Lord to the next generation. They
will come and declare his righteousness to a people who will be born,
that he has done this. Amen. Well, let us pray. Father
in heaven, we thank you for this wonderful psalm. We thank you
for the reality that its application, its main subject is the suffering
of our blessed Lord Jesus on our behalf. We thank you that
he went to the cross. We thank you that he endured
the shame. We thank you that he went through all of this in
order to save us from our sins. God may again encourage our hearts
as we come to this psalm. May you encourage our hearts
as we come to the supper, and may you strengthen us by your
Holy Spirit, and may we walk in a manner that is consistent
with our high calling. Again, forgive us now for all
sin and unrighteousness, and we pray through Jesus Christ
our Lord, amen. When we come now to Psalm 22,
it's the Psalm that Jesus had on his lips when he went to the
cross. And we see that specifically
in the Gospel of Matthew. You can turn there, Matthew chapter
27, specifically in the section where he is on the cross. So
Matthew 27, we're gonna bounce back and forth a little bit tonight,
but notice specifically in verses 45 to 52. Now from the sixth
hour until the ninth hour, there was darkness over all the land.
In about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying,
Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. That is my God, my God, why have
you forsaken me? Some of those who stood there
when they heard that said, this man is calling for Elijah. Immediately
one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine and
put it on a reed and offered it to him to drink. The rest
said, let him alone. Let us see if Elijah will come
to save him. Jesus cried out again with a
loud voice and yielded up his spirit. Then behold, the veil
of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth
quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened. Amen. So going back to Psalm 22, I'm
going to look at two things. First, the subject of the psalm,
and you see that in the superscription. Notice verse 1 in the Hebrew
Bible reads, To the chief musician set to the deer of the dawn,
a psalm of David. So we'll consider the subject
of the psalm briefly. and then move to the prophetic
meaning of the psalm in verses 1b to 21a. But notice it is a
prophetic word. We have the fact that David wrote
it. But David is writing about something
here that transcends his own experience. Certainly David suffered. You see it in 1 Samuel chapter
16. He goes from shepherd to the anointed king of Israel.
Well, once the Holy Spirit comes upon him, once he receives that
anointing from Samuel, then his troubles begin. There's a life
of distress and hardship for David. First of all, from Saul,
he has the struggle with internal enemies. But as well from the
Philistines, he has the struggle with external enemies. Just about
everybody disdains and despises David, and lots of people want
to see him dead. But what we find in this psalm,
as I said, transcends the suffering of David. It does not describe
his trials and afflictions. Alec Motier makes the observation. The psalm goes beyond any experience
of David's. While it could arise from some
time of his suffering, it goes far beyond such to torture and
death. We are listening to David the
prophet looking forward to the suffering Messiah. And there
he quotes, or rather alludes to Acts 2.30. In that day of
Pentecost, when Peter is preaching, he invokes David and he calls
him a prophet in Acts chapter 2. and verse 30. So Psalm 22
is written by David under inspiration of the Spirit, but it's not about
David. It's about David's greater son,
even the Lord Jesus, the one who was promised to come from
that particular line. Now the Psalm breaks down into
two sections. Verses 1 to 21a deals with the
suffering and the death of the Messiah. And then verses 21b
to 31 deals with his exaltation. the fact that he was raised from
the dead and exalted and ascended on high, where he led captivity
captive and he gave gifts to men. So what we have in Psalm
22 is what we find throughout the Gospels, what we find throughout
the Epistles, what we find throughout the Scriptures. It is a description
of the suffering and the death of our Lord Jesus Christ on behalf
of all those whom the Father had given him, and then that
subsequent exaltation to the right hand of God Most High.
So the Psalm is quoted, verse one in Matthew 27, verse 46,
as we've seen. Verse eight in Matthew 27 at
verse 43. Verse 15 is at least alluded
to in John 19, probably Psalm 69 is back there as well. And
then verse 18 is quoted in Matthew 27, 35. And then in the latter
half, verse 22 is quoted in Hebrews chapter two and verse 12. So
that it's about Christ. I don't think is open for dispute. And Bonar, in his little commentary
on the Psalms, he entitled Psalm 22, Messiah bearing the cross
and wearing the crown. Messiah bearing the cross and
wearing the crown. And that's the movement in Psalm
22. Now that brings us, secondly,
to the prophetic meaning of the psalm. And it focuses, as I said,
upon the suffering and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want
to look at three things. First, the distress of the Messiah. Secondly, the suffering of the
Messiah. And then thirdly, the confidence of the Messiah. But
first, notice the distress. You see that there in 1B. The Lord Jesus takes this upon
his lips and he says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken
me? Why are you so far from helping
me and from the words of my groaning? I think there's some misunderstanding
in terms of what these words represent. In fact, there's a
famous song, a famous Christian song, and the man that writes
the song says that the father turns his face away from the
son. Others suggest that what the
Father does here with reference to the Son is that He abandons
Him wholly. That's not what's happening.
Again, Jesus here is expressing the distress of His heart according
to His humanity as He's suffering under the wrath and fury of God
Most High for us men and for our salvation. The fact that
the psalm tells us that he petitions Yahweh or his father while he's
on the cross indicates that there wasn't an abandonment. It indicates
that the father didn't turn his face away. In fact, in the second
half of the psalm, the Lord Christ underscores that. Notice in verse
24. For he has not despised nor abhorred
the affliction of the afflicted, nor has he hidden his face from
him. But when he cried to him, he
heard. Christ knew that experientially upon the cross as this psalm
relates. So as we look at the particular
cry, I want to explain it first as to what it does not mean,
and secondly, as what it does mean. First, it does not mean
that there was any division among the persons of the Trinity. It
does not mean that there was any division among the persons
of the Trinity. It doesn't mean there was a breach.
It doesn't mean that there was some separation. It doesn't mean
that there was some sort of a disorder in terms of God, ad intra. The father's forsaking the son
was not at the level of theology proper. It was not at the level
of what we call ad intra, God's relations, the persons to one
another, father, son, and Holy Spirit. There's no rupture in
that. There's no division there. There's no breach there. Additionally,
we need to understand that the triune God did not suffer on
the cross. That's bad theology. That is
not good. It is Jesus, according to his
humanity, as the Son of God, who goes to the cross. So there
was no division among the persons of the Trinity. But as well,
there was no dissolution of the hypostatic union. Now remember,
the hypostatic reunion refers to the fact that Jesus is one
person in two natures. There's no rupture there. There's
no dissolving there. There's no breach there. Jesus
is both man and God, and on that cross he continues to be. Our
confession in chapter 8, paragraph 2, tells us, with reference to
the hypostatic union, so that two whole, perfect, and distinct
natures were inseparably joined together in one person, without
conversion, composition, or confusion, which person is very God and
very man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and
man. Again, there's probably a lot
of other things we could say here, but know this, there's
no breach or no division amongst the persons of the Trinity, and
as well, there's no dissolution of the hypostatic union of our
Lord. So when we ask the question, what does it mean? What does
it mean when Jesus says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken
me? It doesn't mean whole abandonment. If it doesn't mean the Father
turning away his face from him, then what does it mean? I've
got four things I want to consider. First, the Lord Jesus suffered
on the cross according to his humanity. And this expresses
that. His sufferings were real. His
blood was real. His death was real. It didn't
just appear to be that way. It wasn't just sort of a stage
show. But Christ suffered and when he cries this cry, that
is the evidence of his true humanity. This is exactly what we'd expect
of a man who goes to the cross and does receive in himself the
punishment due to sin. So the Lord Jesus Christ suffers
on the cross. And notice specifically in verse
one, he says, my God, my God, not my father, my father. The
fact that he says, my God, my God, indicates that he is speaking
according to his humanity. When we locate him on the cross
in Matthew's gospel, he's there according to his humanity. Divinity
doesn't suffer, divinity doesn't ache, divinity doesn't bleed,
and divinity doesn't die. It was necessary that the Lord
Jesus Christ be both man and God. In fact, John Gill says,
God is the God of Christ as he is man. So the very statement
itself does not suggest what some try to tell us that it does,
that there's a rupture in the persons of the Trinity, that
there's this wholesale abandonment on the part of the father with
reference to the son. No, the father loves the son,
the father approves of the son, the father delights in the son,
and the father is glorified in the son's suffering. So whatever
Jesus means here cannot suggest for a moment that there's some
sort of a division between father and son. Secondly, the Lord Jesus
suffered on the cross for our sins. He goes to that cross and
he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That's
the due punishment for sinners. And so Christ is our substitute.
Christ is our federal head. Christ is our public person,
goes to that cross for us, for us men and for our salvation.
You know the passages, Matthew chapter one and verse 21, he
will save his people from their sins. Well, how does he do that?
He lives for them, he dies for them, he's raised again for them.
Matthew 20, 28, the son of man did not come to be served, but
to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Second Corinthians
5, 21, God the father made him God the son who knew no sin to
be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
So Christ suffered on the cross, according to his humanity, Christ
suffered on the cross for our sins. The church father Hillary
says, nay, it was we who were forsaken and disregarded, so
that it was as appropriating our personality that he offered
these prayers. He stood in our stead. He prayed
our prayer. He said the very thing that is
true of humanity, suffering under the wrath and fury and curse
of God Most High. This was real. It happened. It occurred. And this expression
from Psalm 22 on the mouth of the Savior indicates the case. Thirdly, the Lord Jesus suffered
on the cross as determined by the Father. He suffered on the
cross as determined by the Father. There's two passages we ought
to consider here. Romans chapter 8 and verse 32.
The Lord Jesus was delivered to the cross by the Father, according
to the Apostle Paul. In Romans 8, 32, Paul says, he
who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all,
how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who
sent Jesus to the cross? That's a perennial question.
Was it the Jews? Well, they were certainly complicit.
Was it the Romans? They were certainly complicit.
Was it you and I? We were certainly complicit,
but it was the Father. It was a plan and purpose of
God Most High. Isn't this Peter's point? Again,
on the day of Pentecost, in Acts chapter 2 and verse 23, he underscores
the reality that godless hands nailed Jesus to the cross, but
it was according to the predetermined plan and purpose of God Most
High. When the apostles pray in Acts
chapter 4, they understand that Pilate and Herod do exactly what
God's hand had determined beforehand to do. The Father undertook on
our behalf. This is what the scriptures teach
repetitively. When Adam and Eve sin, it's not
they that run to God, it's God who comes after them. When the
tower builders at Babel try to rise up and make a name for themselves,
and God confounds their lip, what happens on the heels of
that? God calls Abram out of Ur, the Chaldeans, and he covenants
with him. It's God who seeks and saves
that which is lost. And that's the emphasis that
we find in scripture. The father sent the son with
all that that entailed, perfect life of obedience, a death as
sacrifice and substitute on the cross, and resurrection again
the third day. And as well, he delivered him
to the cross, but he didn't deliver him from the cross. Isaiah the
prophet in chapter 53 at verse 10. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him, he has put him to grief. So what you have there is the
father sending the son to the cross and it pleases the father,
not in a sick, twisted, sadistic way. but in the John 12 sort
of way, when Jesus says, Father, glorify your name. And the father
says, I have glorified it and I will glorify it again. The father is pleased to bruise
him, again, not some sick, twisted, demented, you know, act of cosmic
child abuse, the way some proponents of, or anti-proponents of penal
substitution would argue. The father sends the son to affect
the purpose of God in the salvation of a great multitude that no
man can number. Christ goes willingly, the Father
sends him for that particular purpose, and the Son takes it
upon himself to go through to the uttermost. And then as well,
the Lord Jesus suffered on the cross, and here's where I think
we get at this, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me idea,
is that the Lord Jesus suffered on the cross and experienced
the withdrawal of the Father's favor. The withdrawal of the
father's favor. Not the withdrawal of the father,
or else the very petition itself would be in vain. The father
is there. The father is pleased on the
one hand, but according to his humanity, he is suffering wrath
and fury and divine vengeance for the sins that you and I have
accomplished. So the favor was withdrawn, or
rather the Lord Jesus on the cross suffered and experienced
the withdrawal of the Father's favor. So notice, the favor was
withdrawn, but not the Father. The cry itself. He doesn't say,
God, God. He continually says, my God,
my God. It's just a terrible analogy,
but I hope it gets at it to some degree. When you and I are afflicted
by Yahweh, or when we are afflicted by the Father, He doesn't stop
being our Father. He doesn't end His covenant relationship
with us. We're not supposed to interpret
it that way. If you do, you need to repent.
Oh, God's afflicted me. He must have abandoned me. I
don't think we usually think that. In fact, Paul tells us
in Hebrews chapter 12, we're not supposed to think that at
all. We're supposed to understand that the ones that the father
loves, he rebukes. The ones that the father loves,
he chastens. The ones that the father loves,
he disciplines. Jesus says as much to the church
in Laodicea in Revelation 3.19. So the presence of affliction
doesn't argue for the absence of God. The presence of affliction
for the Lord Jesus didn't argue for the absence of God. It argues
rather from this withdrawal of his favor, the kindness, the
sweetness of his smile upon him. And again, he's suffering in
our stead according to his humanity. There's no problem at the level
of ad intra. There's no divine son and father
with any breach or rupture. with reference to the cry, my
God, my God, he doesn't cease to be his God. And then in the
remainder of the Psalm, Christ expresses his confidence in the
Father over and over again. In fact, the whole is a prayer
unto God the Father in terms of the reality that he's undergoing. The favor was withdrawn in accordance
with his penal sufferings for us men and for our salvation.
Again, when we ask the question, what's true of humanity? What's
true of humanity is to cry out when the favor of God is withdrawn
from us. Again, going back to our affliction.
I hope affliction sends you to your closet, or affliction sends
you to the family altar, or affliction sends you to the prayer meeting.
And in that affliction, you cry out to God for speedy relief.
You cry out to God for his aid. You cry out to God for his visitation. Again, in terms of divine favor
and blessedness. Matthew Henry said it this way,
Christ was made sin for us, a curse for us. And therefore, though
God loved him as a son, he frowned upon him as a surety. That's
a far cry different than suggesting that the father hid his face
from the son. Now, the father looks approvingly
upon the son's work. The father looks approvingly
upon the one that brings glory to him. But in terms of his function
there as mediator, according to his humanity, as our surety,
he's receiving the penalty of God's wrath. He is satisfying
divine justice. Well, in the satisfaction of
divine justice, there's not a big smile from the father that goes
along with it. That's what evokes the cry, why
hast thou forsaken me? John Gill says, but he was now
without a sense of the gracious presence of God and was filled
as the surety of his people with a sense of divine wrath, which
their iniquities he now bore. Again, this passage ought not
to be interpreted as if something bad or something awry had happened
to the triune God. No, it underscores the beauty
of our triune God. It underscores the glory of the
incarnation of the Son. The Word became flesh and dwelt
among us. Well, what does it mean? Did
He just appear to be flesh? No. All the essential properties
and all the common infirmities thereof, and yet without sin. John Flavel says it was a penal
desertion. inflicted on him for satisfaction
for those sins of ours, which deserve that God should forsake
us forever as the damned are forsaken by him." It is in the
arena of Christ satisfying divine justice and understanding and
underscoring and receiving in himself that punishment for sin,
that's why the cry comes, my God, my God, why have you forsaken
me? Now, let's look next at the suffering
of the Messiah at the hands of men, the suffering of the Messiah
at the hands of men. And interestingly, on the cross,
we only get what happens Godward. In other words, when we see the
cross and our Lord Jesus hung upon it in Matthew 27, we only
get verse one. Spurgeon suggests that he may
have prayed the entirety of Psalm 22 on the cross. I'll read that
quote in just a moment. The point that I want to make
is that it wasn't the beastly conduct of the men that evoked
the cry from Jesus in Matthew's gospel. But that doesn't mean
there wasn't beastly conduct of men that he was undergoing
while he hung on that cross. Sometimes people say, you know,
we shouldn't sing the Psalms only, or we shouldn't sing much
of the Psalms, because there's not a lot of Jesus there. There's
as much Jesus in Psalm 22 as there is in Matthew 27. In fact,
Psalm 22 gives us insight to Jesus according to his humanity,
where Matthew doesn't. We learn more about Jesus' suffering
on the cross from Psalm 22 than we do from Matthew 27. In John
19, it speaks of his crucifixion, and he was crucified. Herman
Ritterbosch makes the observation in that place. He says, there's
not one trace whatsoever of some sort of passion celebration in
the New Testament. And I get what he means. Roman
Catholicism, if you go into one of their churches, I use that
very lightly, they've got stations of the cross, and you're supposed
to go and stand before it and wave the incense, and the priest
says a few things, and you just kind of muddle along, and it
really fixates upon the suffering of the Savior. That movie that
came out years ago, The Passion of the Christ, that was a celebration
of the physical torture of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not saying
it was specifically or purposely, but that was the high note of
that movie. It showed you the penal sufferings, or not the
penal sufferings, but the wrath of man against the Savior. And
men are sometimes fixated upon that. I think Ritterboss is right.
There's no trace of that kind of passion and emphasis in the
New Testament. The language is very brief. But
in the Psalms, we find a bit of a lens into what was going
on in terms of the Savior when he hung upon that cross. Again,
not so we can have the stations of the cross and not so we can
celebrate passion in terms of physical torture, but we get
an insight into what happened. with the Son of God who loved
us and who gave Himself for us. We get, as it were, a bird's-eye
view into His experience as He's receiving in Himself not only
the penalty of God the Father, but the punishment and the wretchedness
of beastly men. So notice, with reference to
this, he's got reproach, the reproach of men in terms of their
verbal assault. Notice in verses six to eight,
but I'm a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised by the people.
All those who see me ridicule me. They shoot out the lip. They
shake the head saying, he trusted in the Lord. Let him rescue him.
Let him deliver him since he delights in him. Brethren, I
think we need to understand that when we read certain passages
of Scripture, we tend to kind of sanitize it. And for instance,
I was thinking about that passage in John 12. I preached that this
morning and I alluded to John 12, 19, when the Pharisees said,
you know, if we don't stop this fellow, the whole world's gonna
go after him. I don't think it was in the vein
of a serious sort of a reflection and, you know, a sober sort of
assessment on the goings on. If we don't get rid of this fellow,
then the whole world's gonna go after him and they're gonna
upstage us. These are wretched, vile, disgusting
human beings. They are in Adam. They're dead,
and they've turned their antipathy against the Most High. It is
the Psalm 2 reality. Why do the nations rage? Why
do the peoples plot against Yahweh and against His Christ? Look
at the language our Savior says, but I am a worm and no man. John Gill says Christ calls Himself
a worm on account of the opinion that men of the world had of
Him. Can you imagine that? The Lord of glory, the Word became
flesh, and this is His sort of declaration? I am a worm and
no man. I'm a reproach of men and despised
by the people. All those who see me ridicule
me. They shoot out the lip. They shake the head, saying,
He trusted in the Lord. Let Him rescue him. Let him deliver
him, since he delights in him. They are wicked men. There is
derision in their voice. Yahweh holds men in derision.
Well, that doesn't seem altogether kind. Well, it's certainly wretched
and lawless for men to hold him in contempt and him in derision.
And this isn't the only place we see this. In the prophet Isaiah,
in the fourth servant song of Yahweh, we read in Isaiah 53,
two and three, for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant
and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness.
And when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire
him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces
from him. He was despised and we did not
esteem him. Brethren, when John tells us
in the prologue that he came to his own and his own received
him not, John's not making that up. John's got the prophetic
script behind him, but under the inspiration of the Spirit
as he takes pen to paper to record the doings and dyings of our
blessed Savior, he underscores that reality. Paul the Apostle
refers to Him in Hebrews 7, holy, harmless, and undefiled. And
yet men treated Him with contempt. They held Him in derision. They
despised Him. They looked at Him as a worm
and not a man. We wouldn't know that of the
suffering Savior on the cross without the lens that we have
here in this altar. So the Messiah is looked upon
as a worm by men, and he's ridiculed by men. And that's what's happening
there in verses seven and eight. And you see that in Matthew's
gospel, specifically in Matthew 27, 39 to 44, the section just
prior to what I read. They're standing at the base
of the cross, and what are they doing? They're mocking him. They're
adding insult to injury. And it's bad enough he's being
crucified for something he didn't do. It's bad enough that you've
taken the very worst form of execution that isn't even doable
with reference to Roman citizens unless they happen to be specifically
and particularly notorious. Roman citizens didn't get crucified. When Barabbas and his two compadres
are up on that cross, the text calls them thieves. You didn't
get crucified for being a thief. You got crucified for being an
insurrectionist. You got crucified for being a
revolutionary. You got crucified for being a
terrorist. And that's the way they saw Jesus.
The religious leaders of the Jews despised and hated him such
that they conjured up these charges, and they did so in such a way
as to get the interest of Pontius Pilate. He forbids paying taxes. Well, that'll make any civil
government happy to execute, happy to imprison, happy to do
away with anybody who would ever dare to not pay their taxes.
But also, he makes himself out to be a king. Why do you think
they did that? Because then Pilate would see
him as a political threat. He would see him as a revolutionary.
He would see him as a terrorist. And he would give the kill order
and send the suffering Savior to the cross. So these men are
at the base of the cross, he's suffering this shame, and they
mock him, and they insult him, and the psalmist tells us that
such is the case. He trusted in the Lord, let him
rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he
delights in him. They said this with a mock, and
a sneer, and a slapping of the knee. These were vile men. Now
notice secondly, in terms of the suffering of the Messiah,
the attack by beastly men. Notice in verses 12 and 13, verse
16, 20 and 21. Bulls, lion, dogs, dog, lion's
mouth, horns of the wild oxen. From the vantage point of the
cross, when we look at the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, it
publishes to us or declares to us certain perfections of God.
It definitely declares His love, John 3, 16, God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son. It also declares His righteousness. Romans chapter 3, when God sent
His Son as a propitiation by His blood, it was designed to
demonstrate at the present time the righteousness of God, that
He's both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
So when you look at the cross in terms of the divine perfections,
they come through fully. But when you look at the doctrine
of depravity, when you look at the base of the cross, we're
not well represented there, brethren. Our fellows are engaged in absolute
lawlessness and godlessness. And when Jesus, in the psalm
here, describes these particular persons, he uses that beastly
imagery. He uses the language of animals.
He uses the language of vicious predatory animals that want to
destroy him. Again, keep in mind, he's wholly
harmless and undefiled. He is the only man that never
committed a sin and certainly not a crime. He's the only man
that could say, you know what, they're framing me. He's the
only man that could say, you know what, this is a kangaroo
court. But he doesn't do that. He stands
there silent before the Sanhedrin. For the most part, he stands
silent before Pontius Pilate. He describes these persons that
put him on the cross in language that should cause us, as fellows,
to hang our heads in shame. Again, it's the Father who put
him there, ultimately. But the Romans were complicit,
the Jews were complicit, certainly we were complicit. For the sins
of his people, he went to that cross. Davis makes the observation. He describes his suffering in
beastly terms. Bulls surround him, verse 12. But in the next verse, bulls
become a lion that tears up its prey and roars. In verse 16,
dogs circle around. These are not the house pet variety,
but the half-wild garbage moochers of the Near East. But the canines
are human. They are a congregation of evildoers,
in verse 16b. The beast imagery implies, as
Alec Motyr says, that the assault lacks any of the constraints
of humanity. This is a frenzy. This is a bloodthirsty
mob. From the first cry of, away with
him, away with him, crucify him, to the mocking, to the insult,
and to the last breath when he gives up the spirit. These people
are wretched. These people are godless. But
the text doesn't stop. Notice the torture inflicted
by men. Verses 14 to 18. We see first
the effects of crucifixion in verses 14 and 15, and then the
actual reference to crucifixion in verses 16b to 18. But notice the effects according
to verses 14 and 15. I am poured out like water, and
all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it is melted
within me. My strength is dried up like
a pot shirt, and my tongue clings to my jaws. You have brought
me to the dust of death. There's that divine initiative
again, even on the cross, the Lord Jesus acknowledges that
this isn't first and foremost man's sinfulness that put him
here. It's the father's purpose in the covenant of redemption
for the son to redeem his people from their sins. Now notice,
with reference to the suffering, he gets very detailed and very
specific. Motyr again says a likely consequence
of the unnatural position of a crucified person. In other
words, when he says, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? The explanation is simple. Under the penalty of God's wrath
for sinners, there is that withdrawal of divine favor, the smile of
God. Not the withdrawal of the divine, not the withdrawal of
God. When it comes to the infliction of pain thrust upon him by men,
he gives that detailed description. And again, I think the 1928 in
John alludes to this. If it's not, you know, direct
quotation, this along with Psalm 69, when Jesus says, I thirst
when he's on the cross. But then notice that reference
to crucifixion specifically in verses 16 to 18. For dogs have
surrounded me, the congregation of the wicked has enclosed me.
They pierced my hands and my feet. It's intriguing. The English
versions here follow what's called the Septuagint. The Septuagint
is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. It's oftentimes
referred to as LXX, which is the Roman number for 70, because
the story goes there were 70 men that worked on this particular
translation. So you've got this Greek translation
of the Hebrew Old Testament. You've got the Hebrew Masoretic
text reading in the margin. But with reference to this, we
notice that there is a clear reference to crucifixion. Now how do we jive that? Masoretic
text and LXX. I don't want to get too bogged
down, but Davis again makes the observation. In 1997, a Hebrew
text from Nahal Haver was published which actually reads, they have
pierced. And this Hebrew text is a thousand
years earlier than our traditional Hebrew text. The Greek translation,
the Septuagint from about 200 BC, also took it this way. Now, there's a man by the name
of Michael Reitelnick, and he has a book on the messianic hope.
He deals with Genesis 3.15 and the opening up of that promise
of the seed of the woman that crushes the serpent. And he makes
the observation that the Masoretic text, at places, got rid of messianic
interpretation that would have indicated or confirmed that Jesus
was the Messiah. And he suggests as much here.
With reference to verse 16b in the Masoretic Text, Reitlnick
says plainly the Masoretic Text rendering avoids the Christological
implications of predicting the crucifixion, thereby taking the
less messianic rendering and making it more acceptable to
Judaism. Probably something about that.
And yet when we come to this passage, I just want to try to
confirm you that this is a reference to crucifixion. Several hundred
years prior to the crucifixion. Again, David is writing as a
prophet about his greater son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord
Jesus Christ invoking this psalm on his lips as he does from the
cross validates and confirms that. And so all those hundreds
of years prior to the crucifixion, we have this reference to the
crucifixion. They pierced my hands and my
feet. I can count all my bones. They
look and stare at me. They divide my garments among
them. And for my clothing, they cast
lots. Matthew 27, 35. This isn't just
kind of a vague possibility of fulfillment. See, I think there's
that idea outside the church and unfortunately inside the
church. Yeah, the prophecies are kind of vague and a bit ambiguous,
and you really got to press to see fulfillment in the New Testament.
Not even a little bit, brethren. Not even a little bit. This is
as obvious and as clear as could possibly be. Many years prior
to the crucifixion, David, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
tells us about the crucifixion. So when the Jews, for instance,
reject or resist the notion of the suffering Messiah, they're
absolutely off base. The same Old Testament that promised
an eternal Messiah, that promised a divine Messiah, that promised
a powerful Messiah, also promised a suffering and dying Messiah,
and a resurrected one. So as we move our way through
John's Gospel, and they ask the question, how can you say that
the Son of Man dies? Again, they had the concept of
power, they had the concept of eternality, but they didn't have
the concept of suffering. Paul says that into his own day
in 1 Corinthians 1. The Jews seek after signs, the
Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ and Him crucified.
To the Jews, what? A stumbling block, a scandal. Why? Because they couldn't conceive
that Messiah would actually die. He would come, he would subjugate
their enemies, he'd give them all new cars, and new houses,
and money, and bank accounts, and chickens in every pot, and
he would restore geopolitical Israel to a place of prestige.
They missed it by a long shot. And so the psalmist calls it,
the psalmist prophesies, and that shows the contemptibleness
of those Jewish leaders in first century Israel that missed this
significant piece of redemptive prophetic messaging. And then
notice, we've got the confidence of the Messiah and we'll end
here. He affirms the perfections of God, even while he's on the
cross. Notice in verse three, but you are holy, enthroned in
the praises of Israel. See, what's happening to the
Savior doesn't compromise the holiness of the Father. What's
happening to the Savior demonstrates the holiness of the Father, demonstrates
the righteousness of the Father, demonstrates that He's both just
and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ.
The forsakenness of the Son does not mitigate the holiness of
God. The forsakenness of the Son shows or demonstrates or
validates the holiness of God. Spurgeon made the observation,
He said, however ill things may look, there is no ill in thee,
O God. We are very apt to think and
speak hardly of God when we are under his afflicting hand, but
not so the obedient son. So again, that idea that he turned
his face away or he wholly abandoned him does not jive with the rest
of the psalm. The Lord Jesus expresses, again,
the confidence that He has in the Father who is holy. He knows
too well His Father's goodness to let outward circumstances
libel His character. There's no unrighteousness with
the God of Jacob. He deserves no censures. Let
Him do what He will. He is to be praised and to reign
enthroned amid the songs of His chosen people. He acknowledges
the holiness of God, and He acknowledges the faithfulness of God. Again,
I don't want to moralize. This is a bad place to moralize. I guess I want to just make the
observation. If under this distress, Jesus nevertheless confesses
the holiness and faithfulness of God when we are likewise afflicted. Again, not likewise, we're on
the cross. No, no, no, no. Don't banish the thought. But
brethren, our tendency is to question God. Our tendency is
to accuse God. Our tendency is to say, well,
why are you letting these things happen to me? Jesus is confessing
His holiness. Jesus is confessing His faithfulness. He is faithful in the history
of His people. He says that specifically in
verses 4 and 5. Our fathers trusted in You. They
trusted and You delivered them. They cried to You and were delivered.
They trusted in You and were not ashamed. the faithfulness
of God toward the Messiah. Notice in verses 9 and 10. But
you are He who took me out of the womb. You made me trust while
on my mother's breast. I was cast upon you from birth,
from my mother's womb. You have been my God. You see,
there is never this diminishing thought in the mind of the Savior
on the cross as He's suffering divine wrath and curse. for our
sin, and as he's surrounded by these beastly, ghoulish men,
there's no thought whatsoever that anything in terms of God's
perfections have been compromised. He loves the Father. He obeys
the Father. He brings glory to the Father.
He does what the Father intended for him to do. We're not looking
at the complaint. We're not looking at grumbling.
We're not looking at some sort of a register of dissatisfaction
in the terms of the covenant. Now we're looking at true humanity,
crying out to God on the cross under the weight of divine wrath.
And then notice finally, in terms of the confidence of the Messiah,
He affirms His perfections and He affirms His presence. Notice,
the presence of trouble evokes the petition in verse 11. Be
not far from me. The presence of trouble evokes
the petitions in verse 19. Do not be far from me. Hasten
to help me. The presence of trouble evokes
the petition in verse 20. Deliver me. And the presence
of trouble evokes the petition in verse 21. Save me. He affirms
the presence of God, even while he's on the cross and he's crying
out, why hast thou forsaken me? If the Lord's cry in verse 1
meant the utter abandonment of the Son by the Father, then all
of these petitions are prayed in vain. But 21b tells us they
were not prayed in vain. And you answered me. The Lord God answered him. This
follows the trajectory that you find in Ephesians chapter one.
The Lord Jesus Christ dies. The Lord Jesus is then raised
by the father from the dead and he's stationed at the right hand
of the father. This follows the trajectory in
Philippians chapter two, verses five to 11. The son who became
a slave and the son who suffered the humiliating curse of death
on a cross. What happens on the heels of
that? He's exalted to the right hand of God Most High. The psalm
moves in the same direction as the gospel. The psalm moves in
the same direction as Paul's epistles. The psalm moves in
that direction because it's the truth of God Most High. And a
plug for Psalm singing is simple. If Jesus had this Psalm on his
lips in his dying hour, we as his people ought to have it on
our lips in our living hour. We ought to sing the Psalms of
Zion, knowing that they're about the Lord Jesus Christ, and they
reveal to us things that even Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and
John don't tell us. Psalm 69 is another very important
passage in that regard. We get insight into the humanity
of our blessed Savior as he undergoes his life of humiliation. So in conclusion, I would suggest
the theology of the Psalter is no different than the theology
of the New Testament. The New Testament is patterned
after the theology of the Psalter. The complaint that the Psalms
are silent concerning the Lord Jesus is simply untrue. Brethren,
may I give you a bit of a hermeneutical piece of advice? When you read
your Old Testament, read it as a New Testament Christian. You
mean we can do that? Yeah, yeah, you can, and you
should. You should, when you come to
Leviticus chapter 16 on that day of atonement, you should
be thinking Jesus. You should be thinking Jesus.
You should be thinking blood atonement. You should be thinking
the expiation of our guilt. You should be thinking Christ
when that scapegoat is prayed over by the high priest, and
the sins of Israel are confessed, and that goat is then driven
out into the wilderness. You should be seeing there our
Lord Jesus Christ. When you come to Psalm 22, let
it inform and instruct your mindset concerning the suffering of the
Son of God on our behalf in the gospel records. Read the Old
Covenant with that New Covenant perspective. Read the Old Covenant
as New Covenant believers in Jesus Christ. That's the way
the apostles do it. That's the way Paul and Peter
train us to do it. That's the way we're supposed
to do it. And that's what Jesus affirms
when he upbraids the religious leaders, when he says to them,
you search the scriptures for in them, you think you have eternal
life, but these are they which testify of me. read the Old Testament
through the lens of the New Testament. The suffering, the death, the
exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ in Psalm 22 gives us a
perspective that even Matthew's gospel does not. As I said, Ritterboss
on 1918 and John, the New Testament has no trace of any passion mysticism
oriented to the physical torture of Jesus. Spurgeon says it may
have been actually repeated word by word by our Lord when hanging
on the tree. It would be too bold to say that
it was so, but listen to what he says. But even a casual reader
may see that it might have been. perfectly appropriate, perfectly
legitimate. The gospel writers seem to indicate
that when they keep citing, when they keep highlighting, when
they keep connecting back to this psalm of the cross. And
then in terms of the glory of the Savior, the psalm echoes
the gospels and the epistles. The psalm echoes the apostle
Paul. Hebrews chapter 2, what does
Paul say concerning the redemptive work of Christ? For it was fitting
for him, for whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory,
to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. That gets at well what we find
there in Psalm 22. And then the Psalm displays the
glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and the blessed effect, the blessed
fruit of his death and resurrection on our behalf. Verses 27 and
28. All the ends of the world shall
remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nation
shall worship before you. For the kingdom is the Lord's,
and he rules over the nations. Let us behold our Christ in Psalm
22. Yea, let us behold him in the
entirety of the book of Psalms, because he's all over the place.
And as we sing them, as we pray them, as we read them, as we
rehearse them, it is calculated to do our souls a measurable
good. Well, let us pray. Our Father
in heaven, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this psalm
of the cross that we find those many years prior to the coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for what is written
here. We thank you for the application of it in the New Testament. And
we thank you that you've made us benefactors and recipients.
As Paul says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places in Christ. May we never forget these things,
may we ponder them each and every day, and may they be fresh in
our minds and hearts even now as we eat this bread and drink
this cup. And we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
amen. We can turn to Matthew's gospel,
Matthew chapter 26, where we read the
