This Psalm so sweetly and so accurately pictures the inward griefs of our Divine Saviour that it might have been written after the crucifixion rather than so many hundreds of years before it. I call your attention to the fact that this Psalm is followed by the 23 rd, which begins, «The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want;» to remind you that you and I would never have had that sweet 23 rd Psalm to sing if our Divine Shepherd had not been made, with groans and tears, to weep out the 22 nd Psalm, which begins with our Saviour's saddest cry from the cross.
Psalms 22:1. My God, my God! why hast thou forsaken me?
Every word here is emphatic. Take the first two words «My God, my God.» These reveal our Saviour's claim upon God as his God. Why hast thou forsaken me? I can understand that others should leave me, but why hast thou done so?» Then lay the stress upon the last word: «'Why hast thou forsaken me, thine only-begotten Son, thine ever-obedient Son thy well-beloved Son?»
Psalms 22:1-2. Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
See our Saviour hanging on the cross, hear him utter these sorrowful words, and remember that he had come up from Gethsemane, all crimson with the bloody sweat which had oozed from every pore as he had agonized in prayer; yet no deliverance had come to him, for God had left him to die in accordance with the covenant into which he had voluntarily entered.
Psalms 22:3. But thou art holy, O thou that inhabit the praises of Israel.
He will not bring any charge against God, even though he has left him; and, beloved, in your bitterest griefs; never lay any blame upon your God. Like Job, said, «Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.»
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;-
So low did Christ stoop, for our sake, that he became less than man. There is a little crimson worm, to which this passage alludes, which seems to be made altogether of blood; and Christ felt as if he were nothing but a mass of suffering, a poor trodden «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.
It is very easy to read these words, or to hear them read, but it is not so easy to realize the sorrow they must have caused to Christ. He was dying, in unutterable agonies, yet his cruel enemies thrust out their tongues at him, hissed their bitter taunts, and made a jest even of his prayers. If you have ever been in great suffering and have then been ridiculed, you know something of the acute anguish that must have been felt by our Saviour when he was dying amidst mockery and scorn without a friend to help him.
Psalms 22:9-11. But thou art he that took one out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly. Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.
Men recollect how God took care of them in the time of their infancy; and when they are brought very low, they look to him who guarded them in the times when they could not lift a finger to help themselves. The Saviour did so. He was peculiarly born of God, there was a specialty about his birth which entitled him to plead it when he was in his death throes.
Psalms 22:12. Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.
He was looking on the Scribes and Pharisees, and the strong Roman soldiery who made a ring round the cross.
Psalms 22:15. They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.
There was no look of pity, no token of sympathy; they were all eager for his death. The mighty men of the day and the religions men of the day were not content until they had slain the one and only Saviour of men.
Psalms 22:14. I am poured out like water,-
He feels as if he were being dissolved; there is such a sense of faintness upon him that every muscle, every ligature, seems to be turning to liquid, and he cries, «I am poured out like water,»
Psalms 22:14. And all my bones are out of joint:
The jarring of the cross when they dashed it into its place had dislocated our blessed Redeemer's bones. What must his pain have been!
Psalms 22:14. My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
Now the terrible death-faintness comes over him. «The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity;» but when his heart melts, how can he bear the strain any longer? Yet our Saviour speaks of himself again:
Psalms 22:15. My strength is dried up like a potsherd;
The wounds in his head, and hands, and feet and all the tortures of the crucifixion had brought a raging fever upon him, so that he was dried up like the burnt clay of which men make potsherds.
Psalms 22:15. And my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
He felt as if every particle of his body was beginning to separate itself from the rest, and he was turning into dust again while yet alive. It is a fearful picture of pain, and they who understand what the effect of crucifixion is tell us that this is a very graphic, minute, and accurate descriptions of the agonies of one dying as our Saviour died.
Psalms 22:16. For dogs have compassed me:
There is the ribald crowd, the common multitude, howling at him, and eager for his blood.
Psalms 22:16-17. The assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.
They had stripped him, and this was no small part of the Saviour's grief and shame that he hung there a spectacle of scorn to ten thousand cruel eyes that looked and stared at him.
Psalms 22:18. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.
Now he returns to prayer:
Psalms 22:19-21. But be not thou far from me, O LORD: 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 had been delivered before, and he expected deliverance again, and he had it; but he had to pass through the iron gates of death to get it, and to win the victory over death by his own death. Now there is a change in the Psalm. The Saviour's griefs are drawing to an end, and he begins to look at the result of his passion. He sees what is to follow from his crucifixion, and he talks thus to himself:
Psalms 22:22. I will declare thy name unto my brethren:
«I shall live again, I shall see Peter and James and John, and many more whom I have loved, and I will talk with them about my Father.»
Psalms 22:22. In the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.
He knew that he would rise from the dead, and that he would praise God in the midst of his brethren.
Psalms 22:23-24. Ye 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.
He is telling to himself, in the little quiet interval just before he breathed out his soul, what his testimony would be concerning God,-how he did hear him and help him at the last.
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: they shall praise the LORD that seek him:
He is still talking to himself about what would happen after his death and resurrection,-how gracious men would praise the Lord, and how he himself would live again to praise God among them. He so realizes the existence of those whom he has redeemed that he seems to talk to them as if they were actually present; he says:
Psalms 22:26. Your heart shall live for ever.
«I die, but by my death you shall live for ever.» He sees them, as it were gathered around his cross, and he congratulates himself upon the fact that he has bought eternal life for them.
Psalms 22:27. All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD; and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.
The conversion of the nations shall be the fruit of his death.
Psalms 22:28. For the kingdom is the LORD'S: and he is the governor among the nations.
See how he distributes crowns, and talks of thrones, just as he is about to die,-so sure is he that his soul shall not rest in hades, neither shall his holy body see corruption, but that he shall rise again, and be for ever «King of kings, and Lord of lords.»
Psalms 22:29-31. All they that be fat upon earth shall 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. They shall come,-
I should have liked to hear those syllables fall from those dear lips of his. «They shall come,» he says to himself; «They shall come,»
Psalms 22:31. And shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born,
He sees the great host of the regenerate, the twice-born, who shall be saved through his death.
Psalms 22:31. That he hath done this.
It would be a very literal translation if I read these last words thus «It is finished.» Thus the Psalm ends, and so ended the great sacrifice of Christ upon the cross:
«It is finished.» «'It is finish'd!'
-Oh what pleasure Do these charming words afford!
Heavenly blessings without measure
Flow to us from Christ the Lord:
‘It is finish'd!'
Saints the dying words record.»