We continue our series on the Psalms, Psalm 22. Let’s bow together as we pray. Our Father, we come today to a familiar psalm, a wonderful psalm, a psalm that is familiar for good reasons. It tells us of the Lord Jesus. We pray that you’ll give us eyes to understand the psalm, and through that, eyes better to see our Lord Jesus to deepen our faith and our trust in him and our love for him. We thank you for how you have revealed him to us ahead of time in your word, that we may look back and see your saving purpose. We’re grateful for how you have told us about him in your word so fully, and we are grateful that you have opened our hearts and our minds to see his glory and his beauty and to trust in him. And we pray that you’ll refresh our hearts with this this morning, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Psalm 22, a Psalm of David.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? Oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our fathers trusted. They trusted and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued. In you they trusted and were not put to shame. But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me. They make mouths at me. They wag their heads. “He trusts in the Lord. Let him deliver him. Let him rescue him, for he delights in him.” Yet you are he who took me from the womb. You made me trust you at my mother’s breast. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb, you have been my God. Be not far from me. For trouble is near and there is none to help. Many bulls encompass me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me. They open wide their mouths at me like ravening and roaring lion. I’m poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it is melted in my breast. My strength is dried up like potsherd and my tongue sticks to my jaws. You have laid me in the dust of death. For dogs encompass me, a company of evildoers encircles me. They have pierced my hands and feet. I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. But you, O Lord, do not be far off. O you, my help, come quickly to my aid. Deliver my soul from the sword, from my precious life, from the power of the dog. Save me from the mouth of the lion. You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen. I will tell of your name to my brothers. In the midst of the congregation, I will praise you. You who fear the Lord, praise him. All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him, and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel. For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard when he cried to him. From you comes my praise in the great congregation. My vows I will perform before those who fear him. The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied. Those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord. And all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship. Before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive. Posterity shall serve him. It shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation. They shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn that he has done it.
There’s an interesting book by the title of Hollywood Anecdotes. I have not read the book, but an author that I was reading recently pointed to it and told a fascinating story that I think has a wonderful connection here. Evidently, the censor boards of the movie industry 100 years ago were more persnickety than they are today, but they were no more biblically literate than they are today, evidently. This story is told from 1917, when Cecil B. DeMille had just produced his movie, Joan the Woman. So, an epic about Joan of Arc. He took the film to New York for the censor boards to give their approval, showed the film, and afterwards, the clergyman there on the board had no objections. He said, “This is fine,” but a woman on the board said, “It is fine except for there’s one line in the movie and it has to go.” “What’s that?” “Well, you have Joan of Arc saying, ‘My God, why have you forsaken me?’ God would never forsake anyone.” DeMille said, “Do you realize where that line comes from?” “Doesn’t matter, it’s wrong, it implies God would abandon someone, it has to go.” Well, it didn’t go, and she learned.
This is our line from our psalm today, Psalm 22, verse 1. Another one of David’s lament psalms. This is a lament. I knew that last evening, before putting his children to bed, Jimmy was going to read Psalm 22 with the kids. And so this morning, we had to pick up the grandkids, and this morning on the way to church, I asked, “Did you guys read Psalm 22 last night?” “Yes, we did.” And I said, “What kind of psalm is it?” And little Andrew speaks up with confidence, “It’s a lament.” The first words make that very clear. Well, he’s right.
We have the direct address in verse 1, the direct address to God and the opening lament. That’s the signal that this is a lament psalm. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And then verses 1 to 10, we have these alternating expressions of lament and trust, or lament and confidence, back and forth. We’ll see that as we go through. Then verses 12 to 21, we have lament and petition. This is always an essential part of the lament psalms. They don’t just complain. They make petition. They ask God for his help. And so we see that, for example, verse 19, “But you, O Lord, do not be far off. O you, my help, come quickly to my aid.” And then in verses 22 to 31, we have the standard expression of praise or anticipated praise that is standard to the lament psalms, where he looks ahead to the deliverance that will come and anticipates the praise that he will give. In this case, that anticipated praise is quite extensive, verses 22 to 31.
David’s Abandonment
So verses 1 and following, we have David’s abandonment. Verses 1 to 10, David’s abandonment. And here he gives both complaint, or lament, and confidence, expressions of trust, alternating. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That’s the first verse, but you’ll see that “my God” frames this stanza. We have it again in verse 10. But then let’s look at verses one and two. We have the complaint. His complaint or lament is: God has abandoned me. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning? Oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.”
On the one hand, this expression, “my God,” wonderfully combines something that we find often in the Psalms, and that’s the idea of God’s transcendence—he’s God—but also his covenant relation: he’s my God. Something we find often in the Psalms; he looks to God, recognizes his transcendence, his almightiness, and yet he recognizes that he’s in covenant relationship with him, he’s a personal God, and so he is my God. So it’s a big theme and we find it recurring throughout the Psalter.
But what David finds frustrating here is that he feels like my God has forsaken him. It seems to him by the circumstances that God, who is his by covenant relation, has abandoned him. And so he asks, “Why have you forsaken me?” And he’s not really asking for an answer, I don’t suspect here, as much as it’s a rhetorical device expressing his feelings. He’s seeking now to move God to pity and to move God to action, to intervene on his behalf because of whatever suffering that he’s facing here in the psalm. Now, we’re not told the circumstances exactly of the psalm, what life context it was. We’ll say a little bit more about that a little later, but there’s some kind of serious opposition that’s going on, and it’s complicated by the fact that God doesn’t seem like he’ll intervene. Verses 1 to 5, David is forsaken by God. And then verses 6 through 10, David laments that he’s been forsaken and opposed by the people as well.
Verses 3 to 5, notice the first part of verse 3: “Yet you.” That’s always the signal of a turn in a lament psalm. “You’ve forsaken me, and yet you are… but you.” So here we have the expression of confidence. And he says here that the fathers trusted you and they were delivered. “Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our fathers trusted. They trusted and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued. In you they trusted and were not put to shame.” So David is finding some degree of confidence here in the fact that God has been faithful to the fathers throughout their generations. They trusted you, you were enthroned on their praises, and you delivered them.
And yet that brings the complaint again. Verse 6, he changes: “But I… But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who seek me, all who see me mock me. They make mouths at me, they wag their heads.” So he was feeling abandoned by God, that’s his initial complaint. Now it’s more than that; it’s the people who are opposing him, and that’s why he feels God has abandoned him, because he won’t intervene in this opposition that he’s feeling from the people. And he’s so scorned and he’s so hated that he feels, verse six, like he’s subhuman. “I’m a worm and not a man.” Had a big rain last night and you saw all the worms out in the parking lot. I doubt any of you will be careful to dodge them on your way out driving for fear that you’ll run over them. Subhuman, not worth it. “Don’t worry about it.” And David said, “That’s how I feel.”
In verse 8, they mock him at his worst moments. He’s desperate and alone, but he’s ridiculed. “He trusts in the Lord. Let him deliver him. Let him rescue him, for he delights in him.” So here he is at his very worst moment of opposition. Abandoned, opposed, helpless, desperate, and yet the people have no pity and in fact they ridicule him. Verses 9 and 10 then, we return to his confidence. Notice the shift again. “Yet you,” again, marks this shift toward an expression of trust. “Yet you are he who took me from the womb. You made me trust you at my mother’s breast. On you I was cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.” So you’ve chosen me from the beginning, you’ve made me yours, and while still a nursing infant, I was learning to trust you. And that, of course, is what makes this so frustrating, because though he has learned to trust God, now it seems that God will not, in fact, intervene.
So what we see then is David lamenting, but he’s not lamenting completely without hope. It’s kind of a—we might call it—a doxological lament. He’s not lost hope. He’s still offering God’s praise, but he seems desperate because it seems all is lost, and God doesn’t intervene. That brings us to verse 11. Here he continues his lament, but he also begins a petition, so it’s kind of a transition verse. “Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help.” So we have the petition, continuing the lament. I have no one to help. I’m desperate. I have no one but you. Don’t be far away.
David’s Persecution
Then we come to verses 12 and following where he begins to describe his persecution. Verse 12, his lament describes his enemies in terms of animals. The enemies are like bulls and roaring lions. You might recall that Peter picks up this language of the roaring lion; picks that up in 1 Peter chapter 5, describes Satan that way. Because we have this picture of an ox goring him with horns. It’s poetic imagery, of course, but it’s as though an ox has been goring him with its horns. A lion is tearing him apart. It’s powerful imagery. But again, he’s not identifying the enemy yet. It’s an indefinite “they.” They, whoever they are, he hasn’t told us.
Verses 14 and 15, he describes his own condition. “I’m poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within my breast.” So he feels like a bunch of wax in the sun and in the heat starts to melt and drip away. He says, “That’s how I feel in my life. It’s just dripping away. It’s getting away from me. It’s over.” Verse 16, he again describes his enemies as animals. “Dogs encompass me, a company of evildoers encircles me. They have pierced my hands and feet.” So I’ve been left out to die, and my enemies continue their attack.
Verses 17 and 18, again now he describes his own condition. “I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” So he’s absolutely helpless before his enemies. They are vicious. They’re overwhelming. He has been severely abused, utterly defeated, and now being put to some kind of agonizing death. And so, verses 19 and following, he offers his petition. “But you, O Lord, do not be far off. O you, my help, come quickly to my aid. Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog. Save me from the mouth of the lion. You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen.”
Now again, we see something here that is something we see frequently in David’s Psalms. We move in verse 22 and following to his anticipated praise. In verses 19 to 21, he gives his petition. Now we move to the praise that he anticipates giving after God answers his prayer and delivers him. But we have in verse 21 a brief, kind of a subtle transition to that praise section. Notice verse 21. Here’s the petition: “You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen.” So now he’s speaking as though the deliverance has already come. And with that transitional note, we move into verse 22 and following.
David’s Triumph
And here he gives a confident statement of the praise that he expects to give after God has delivered him from this awful, awful suffering. He talks about the vindication that he will have in universal, perpetual dominion. And we have this praise framed for us in verse 22, “I will tell your name,” and then verse 31 at the end, “They shall come and proclaim his righteousness.” So, what I see coming, he says, is that after all of this suffering, God will in fact intervene, and I will praise, and all kinds of other peoples will praise as well.
Now notice how the tone changes with verse 22. “I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation. I will praise you. You who fear the Lord, praise him. All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him and stand in awe of him. All you offspring of Israel, for he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; he has not hidden his face from him but has heard when he cried to him. From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will perform before those who fear him. The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied and those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nation shall worship before you. For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. And all the prosperous of the earth eat and worship; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive. Posterity shall serve him. It shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation. They shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn that he has done it.”
Now, the opening of the first stanza and the opening then of this last stanza could not stand in sharper contrast than what we have here. He begins the psalm, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And now this last stanza begins, “I will tell your name to my brothers.” And he anticipates this praise that he will give. So verses 22 and following are this anticipated praise. Verses 22 and 23 anticipate a time of vindication in which they will declare God’s praise in the congregation. Notice verse 22, “I will tell your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation. I will praise you.” Then verse 25 anticipates a time when the congregation itself will respond with praise. “From you comes my praise in the great congregation.”
Verse 27 anticipates his deliverance. It will occasion—this is fascinating—he is saying in verse 27 that his deliverance will occasion global conversion. “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you.” So the message of the psalm, Psalm 22, is summarized then for us in this last stanza, and that is that the deliverance that God gives to David will result in praise for him from everywhere forever. He will suffer, but God will rescue. He will vindicate him, and in the wake of his vindication, there will be praise to God from everywhere forever. Verse 31, all generations everywhere will recognize that God has done right by David. In response, they will sing God’s praise.
Well, there’s the psalm. Now, the psalm leaves us as it is with a bit of a puzzle. And of course you know where I’m going with this because you’ve read your New Testament, but the psalm as it is leaves us with something of a puzzle. Although we sense David’s pain and his suffering, the way that he describes that pain and that suffering seems to say too much. He complains, he expresses his trust in God, he petitions God to intervene. Whatever the life setting was, it’s clearly something that’s heart-wrenching, and so he takes it to God. And on that level, this psalm is an encouragement to us. It’s a model of faithful suffering. You take your suffering to God, and you don’t leave out praise when you lament your situation. So on that level, the psalm does that.
And yet, on several points throughout the psalm, we’re left wondering how this suffering that he describes applies to David at all. He employs metaphor, and we expect that in poetry, but it seems like the description of suffering that he gives here is overstated, and there is no—at least as far as we know—there is no point of reference in David’s life where he experienced any of this. Verses 14 to 17: bones out of joint, his body is disfigured, his heart failing, his tongue sticking to his jaws, hands and feet pierced, and in the very pains of death. And then verse 18, they cast lots for his clothing. We don’t know of any experience that David had, anything like this. Give it metaphor, give it imagery, give it poetic excess. It’s not something that we know of, at least, in any of the experience of David. And for that matter, what he describes is a death scene. If it was a death scene, how did he live to tell us about it?
Well, of course, you’ve read Matthew and Mark and Luke and John, and you know that this passage here in Psalm 22 exactly describes the scene of Jesus’ crucifixion. All four of the Gospels make repeated allusions to Psalm 22, describing the passion of our Lord at the cross. Matthew and John in particular seem to build their account around Psalm 22 when they relay the suffering of Jesus at the cross. Let me just give you a quick overview of that. Verse 1, the cry of abandonment. That’s Matthew 27:46, the words of Jesus. Verses 7 and 8, the mockings of his enemies. That’s Matthew 27:43. Verse 14, the agony of his stretched bones. Well, that’s the crucifixion itself. Verse 15, the parching thirst. That’s John 19, where we read of that. In verse 16, the digging holes into his hands and feet. We find that referred to in John chapter 20. 17, the gloating of the crowds. We read that in Matthew 27 verses 39 and 40. And then verse 18, the casting of lots for his garments. That’s Matthew 27 verse 35. Matthew in particular has shaped his account of Jesus’ crucifixion from the words of Psalm 22. Psalm 22, in fact, is alluded to more frequently in the Gospels than any other psalm. And in fact, if you look at verse 22, “I will tell of your name to my brothers.” The writer of the letter to the Hebrews in Hebrews chapter 2 picks up those words and puts them on the lips of Jesus.
So according to the New Testament writers, and according to Jesus himself, this psalm speaks of Jesus. And in fact, Jesus himself on the cross took the words of verse 1 to be his: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Now we’ve talked before about how the Psalms reflect Jesus, how the variety of ways in which the psalmist can speak of him: there can be direct prophecy, there can be mild allusions, there can be typology where David’s experience and David’s words even set a pattern that are picked up with Jesus and Jesus repeats those and we see this typology going on between Old Testament and New Testament. But it seems like this goes further than any of that. David never experienced suffering that he describes here. There’s no pattern that is set. David, here in these words, exactly describes the scenes of a Roman crucifixion. Verse 8, the mockings of the enemies. Verse 14, the bones out of joint. Verse 15, the parching thirst. Verse 16, a piercing of the hands and feet. Verse 18, the casting of lots for the garments.
So David is describing exactly the scenes of Jesus’ crucifixion. What’s significant about that is that crucifixion was a form of execution unknown to David and unknown in the world at that time. Roman crucifixion came centuries later. And so we find here that David is not just a type of Jesus. What we find is that David was a prophet. Peter calls him that, of course, in the book of Acts. Jesus says as much of him in Matthew chapter 22 and Luke chapter 24. And so this psalm may reflect in the background something of David’s sufferings himself. And as such, it does serve as a model for us as to how to suffer faithfully. But this psalm, it seems, above everything else, is given to tell us ahead of time of the saving work of David’s greater son.
Verse 1, it was Jesus who was forsaken. Verse 6, Jesus was scorned by mankind and despised by the people. Verse 7, Jesus was mocked as people made mouths at him and wagged their heads at him and scorned. Verse 8, to Jesus the crowds jeered: “He trusts the Lord, let him deliver him.” Verse 14, Jesus was the one pushed to exhaustion. Or in the words here, “poured out like water, heart like wax, melted within.” Or verse 14, it was Jesus’ bones that were out of joint. Verse 15, Jesus was so thirsty in the dry heat of the sun that his tongue stuck to his jaw. Verse 16, Jesus’ hands were pierced and his feet were pierced. Verse 17, Jesus’ body was so abused that they could count all his bones in his suffering. Verse 17, his enemies stared at him and gloated at him. And verse 18, adding insult to injury, Jesus was stripped naked before the laughing crowds as the soldiers cast lots for his garments.
The description of suffering that David gives in Psalm 22 is not hyperbole, it’s not metaphor, it’s prophecy. David in exact terms tells us the experience that his greater son would endure. Matthew 27, beginning of verse 39: “Those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, ‘You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.’ So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now if he desires him.'” David wrote of Jesus.
Now, if that’s the case, then verse 1 is a question that is just screaming to be answered. Why? “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This is the cry of dereliction. Jesus was David’s promised greater son. God had promised that he would come, he directed all of history to his arrival, and now he’s here. And now that he is here, as God had promised, why would God forsake him? And you can sense the frustration in verse 3: “Yet you are holy.” Here’s the righteous man, suffering. God will not intervene. “You are holy. Why will you not intervene? Why must he suffer like this?” Verse 3 again, you can sense the frustration of it.
To be sure, this was not some unraveling of the Trinity. God the Son is no longer part of the Godhead or something like that, and in fact Jesus had not lost faith entirely here of any kind. He said, “My God,” and yet he did not say, “My Father.” In some sense, in some awful sense, Jesus was forsaken and abandoned. Why? Well, there’s only one answer, one possible answer you can give to that, and that’s the answer that the Apostle Paul gave. 2 Corinthians chapter 5: “He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us.” I think the most stunning, I think you can say it this way, the most awful words in all of the Bible: the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son incarnate, made sin, constituted the great sinner.
And that, of course, is the whole heart of the heart of the gospel. It’s the glory of the gospel that the Lord Jesus came to stand in the place of sinners and to bear their sin. And there he went to the cross, the sinless one, carrying on his back, as it were, all of the sins of all of his people, and there endured the curse of God’s law against sin. As Paul says in Galatians chapter 3, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having been made a curse for us.” Demands of justice are met, but they’re met in the person of our substitute. And so looking back at verse 3, “Yet you are holy.” It is not a point of frustration. It’s the answer to the question of verse 1. Why have you forsaken? Because you are holy. If the Lord Jesus is to come as the sinner’s substitute, and bear their sin and in their place go to the cross, then the demands of justice of a holy God, his righteous demands, cannot be relaxed. The punishment must be meted out. And he suffers in the place of sinners and secures the redemption of all of his people.
And that, of course, is the whole hope of every sinner. When I stand before God in judgment, I will not be condemned. And I will not be condemned. And the reason I will not be condemned is not because I’ve done well, or been sincere, or tried hard, or the good outweighs the bad. The only reason, the only reason I will not be condemned is because the Lord Jesus Christ was condemned in my place. That’s it. That’s all. And so we have to adjust our understanding of verse one in this cry of dereliction accordingly. Jesus did not cry out in despair of absolute abandonment. And he says as much toward the end of the psalm. He went to his cross resolving by his death to fulfill the prophetic word, but also to secure a people for himself.
You see, if the lament of verses 1 to 21 belongs to Jesus, then so does the song of triumph in verses 22 to 31. The Lord Jesus went to the cross—and look at this, verse 22—the Lord Jesus went to the cross in full anticipation that he would afterwards, in vindication, stand in the presence of his brothers in the congregation and sing God’s praise. He went to the cross, verse 25, in the anticipation that the great congregation itself will respond with his praise. Verse 27, his deliverance would occasion global conversion. “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you.” And verse 28 explains, “For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.” That is, the sufferings and vindication of Jesus are the very means by which God would establish his kingdom.
Verse 29, that kingdom will be global in scope. “All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship before him, shall bow all who go down to the dust.” And verses 30 and 31: “Posterity shall serve him. It shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation. They shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn.” And you know what they will say? He tells us here: they will proclaim that he has done it. In fact, verse 31 is exactly the song that his people would sing. He, God, has done it. God has done right by David’s son, and in perfect righteousness, he has finished the work of redemption. They proclaim his righteousness. They say he has done it. He has not lowered the bar. He has saved his people. He’s not surrendered anything about him, but the holy God has met every demand of justice in the person of his son, our substitute. And the church in turn sings, “God has done it.”
And in fact then, if in verse 1 we have Jesus’ fourth word from the cross—”My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”—then in verse 31, Jesus’ sixth word from the cross at least echoes it. God has done it. It’s finished. In the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s redeeming work is finished. And in the wake of his vindication, God’s kingdom thrives, and his praises sound all over the world, and they will forever. God has done it, and in response, the church sings, he has finished the work for us. Amen. Let’s pray.
Our Father, how our hearts leap to hear again of our savior, to be reminded again of what he endured for us in bearing our sin. We thank you for him. We rejoice in him today and we pray that you will accept our worship in his name. Amen.