This Psalm is a sort of window, through which we can look into the heart of our crucified Saviour. We see all the external part of the crucifixion through the four windows of the Gospels; but this 22 nd Psalm brings us into the King's innermost chamber, and here we perceive the secret sufferings of his soul. You can very well conceive of the Lord Jesus Christ, when he was on the cross, beginning to speak in the language of the first verse of this Psalm, and closing with the last words of the Psalm: «He hath done this,» which might properly be interpreted, «It is finished.» I have often read this Psalm with you, especially on the evenings of our great communion services. If we are spared, we will read it together many more times. It is a very wonderful Psalm; the Lord give us to understand it as we read it!!
Psalms 22:1. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me! why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
That was the very climax of our Lord's grief upon the cross, that it was necessary that the Father himself should forsake him. The penalty of sin is that God must leave the man who has sin upon him even by imputation; and God left this wondrous Man, this perfect Man, in whom was no sin, but upon whom the sin of his people had been laid. He «his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree,» and therefore the Father must forsake him; but it was a bitter experience for our Saviour that even his prayers should not be heard when they had become so hoarse as to resemble rather the roaring of a wounded beast than the articulate utterance of a man: «Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?»
Psalms 22:2-3. O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent. But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
Notice that the Lord Jesus, in his greatest agony, does not impugn the justice of his Father's treatment, in his bitterest sufferings he still adores the holiness of God: «Thou art holy.» It was because God was holy that therefore his Son must suffer so, in order to save the unholy.
Psalms 22:4-6. Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded. But I am a worm, and no man;
There is a little red worm, which seems to be nothing but a mass of blood, and the Saviour compares himself in his agony to that tiny creature: «I am a worm, and no man;»
Psalms 22:6-8. A reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.
What vinegar and gall that mockery poured into the Saviour's wounded heart! How these cruel words must have stung his sensitive spirit! It was necessary that God should leave him while he was bearing his people's sin, but how shameful it was that evil men should turn that stern necessity into a ground of accusation against him! Yet they did so; they taunted him with it: «He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.»
Psalms 22:9-10. But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breast. I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly.
Our Saviour remembers his own marvellous birth, which differed from ours in some respects; and he thinks of how the Father took care of him then. Did he not preserve him when Joseph and Mary fled into Egypt from the wrath of Herod? Was there not a singular power that controlled the movements of the wise men, and warned them to return to their own country another way, so that the infant Christ should not be discovered and destroyed? Jesus on the cross remembers that remarkable preservation; and I suggest to you who are getting old that you may draw comfort from the fact that when you were infants, and could not help yourselves, the Lord took care of you; and if you come to a second childhood, if you should live to be as helpless as when you were infants, the God who watched over you in the beginning will watch over you to the end. Remember how he has said, «Even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.»
Psalms 22:11. Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.
Peter, James, John, and all the disciples had fled. «There is none to help.» The women could weep, with pitying eye and sympathetic heart; but they could not help. «There is none to help.»
Psalms 22:12. Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.
There stood the chief priests and the rulers, and the Roman soldiery with their massive bulk and brute strength.
Psalms 22:13. They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.
There was nothing but cruelty and spite and fury all round the louder heart of that lonely Sufferer. Ah, me! was there ever sorrow like unto his sorrow?
Psalms 22:14. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint:
This was caused by the rough dashing of the cross into the ground when they lifted it up, and plunged it into its place.
Psalms 22:14. My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
It was a living death, a deadly life. Christ's very heart, which is the center of life, had become dissolved by pain and weakness and sorrow.
Psalms 22:15. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
The terrible death-thirst was upon him, through the fever generated by his wounds.
Psalms 22:16. For dogs have compassed me: this assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
The common multitude, with ribald jest and execrable mockery, stood there taunting him. He was encircled by them, like a poor hunted stag surrounded by the hounds.
Psalms 22:17. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.
They stood mocking at his nakedness, jesting at his emaciated form.
Psalms 22:18-19. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture. But be thou not far from me, O LORD:
That is still the very center of our Saviour's suffering, so he turns his pleading in that direction. He does not ask that the dogs may be called off, nor that the bulls may be driven away; but his cry is, «Be not thou far from me, O Lord.»
Psalms 22:19-21. O my strength, haste thee to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.
He recollects former days wherein God had helped him, and he prays that the Lord will help him still, and bring him safely through this terrible trial, as indeed he did.
Now the tone of the Psalm changes. A gleam of sunlight plays across the scene. The agony is over, the life is poured out, and now the Saviour begins to contemplate the result of his suffering. Think, dear brothers and sisters, how the Lord thought of you; he says,
Psalms 22:22. I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.
The risen Christ is in the midst of us; he has come hither to tell us of his Father's love; he has told it to us by his death, and now he bids us praise the Lord, and himself leads our song. This is the reward of his passion, that he and his brethren should bless and praise the Lord for ever and ever.
Psalms 22:23-24. He that fear the LORD, praise him; all ye, the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel. For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.
Is not this delightful? Your Lord has gone through the black darkness, and has come out into the light, and when your turn comes to go through the darkness, you, too, shall come out into the light even as he did. Therefore, rejoice in his name. If the Head has conquered, the members shall conquer, too. You shall all share in your Saviour's joy, as you are partakers of his sufferings.
Psalms 22:25-26. My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear him. The meek shall eat and be satisfied:
He thought of you, poor, timid, trembling ones, you who are humbled before God under a sense of your sin. Because he died, because he accomplished your redemption, you «shall eat and be satisfied.»
Psalms 22:26-27. They shall praise the LORD that seek him: your heart shall live for ever. All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.
See what solace Christ derives from the spread of the faith, the conquest of the world by his death.
Psalms 22:28-30. For the kingdom is the LORD'S: and he is the governor among the nations. All they that be fat upon earth shalt eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul. A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.
This is in accordance with Isaiah's prophecy: «When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed.»
Psalms 22:31. They shall come,
The passion of Christ shall work for a certain deliverance for his people; what he has purchased, he shall surely have: «They shall come,»
Psalms 22:31. And shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.
Or, «it is finished.» When our Lord had uttered these words, «he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.»