(Psalm 69)
(Continued from p. 22.)
"The sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow," as we learn from 1 Peter 1:11, was the subject of prophetic testimony. Nowhere are those sufferings more vividly portrayed than in the book of Psalms.
This presentation is unique, since in the Psalms we are privileged to hear the thoughts and know the feelings of our blessed Lord expressed in His pathway of humiliation.
Three psalms especially present His sufferings:twenty-two, sixty-nine, and one hundred and two. The first in His substitutionary sufferings; our present psalm, the sufferings of the Righteous One at the hand of unrighteous men; while Ps. 102 shows His sufferings as the rejected Messiah, cut off in the midst of His days.
Our psalm bears a title, and the remarks made on the title of Psalm 45 apply with equal force here.
We have already seen Christ in association with the remnant of Israel to be the key to a right appreciation and understanding of the Psalms, and nowhere is this more important to remember than here. For example, the sufferer says (ver. 5), "0 God; Thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from Thee." How impossible to understand these words, save as we hear them as the voice of the remnant. Of course, primarily, the words are those of David, but the psalm, taken as a whole, can leave no question in our minds that it was the Spirit of Christ speaking through him, voicing sentiments that could only be true of a greater than he (see vers. 20, 21). It will be evident that Ps. 49, while leading up to the three last hours of our adorable Lord upon the cross, does not present atonement, while giving the circumstances in which atonement was made. Expiation was involved in the place He had taken, as we clearly see in verses 22-29.
Our psalm demands our careful and prayerful attention. In the beginning, He is seen in the deepest distress:"Save Me, O Elohim, for the waters are come in unto My soul. I sink in deep mire where there is no standing. I am come into deep waters where the floods overflow Me." Into this distress His faithful love had T led Him. The holy, spotless, sinless One, here in grace, having linked Himself with God's erring and wayward people, is made to realize the misery and wretchedness of their condition. "In all their affliction He was afflicted, the Angel of His presence succored them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them, and carried them all the days of old" (Isa. 63:9). But the sorrow is borne alone! He takes it upon Himself, no one shared His feelings, though He was bearing it for others. It has been aptly said that the true spirit of grace is to bear alone for others what others do not even know we are bearing, for their good-the credit of it all with God alone.
In this solemn and striking psalm we view the godly man in the midst of Israel acknowledging sins as his own, yet the sins of the nation. This brings Him into suffering, and He is reproached for the name of the God of Israel. Yet He prays in an acceptable time, and is heard in that He feared. This is in direct contrast to Psalm 22 where there is no response to His agonized cry. There is no forsaking by God in Psalm 69, but the Holy Sufferer is seen in the deepest extremity through the enmity and bitter hatred of men. He is hated without cause and His enemies heap insult and injury upon Him.
In verse 5 the Righteous One in perfect faithfulness calls upon Adonay (Lord in blessing) Elohim (God in power), that the godly ones may not be stumbled by Him. The Faithful One, in the midst of unfaithfulness, exposed to all the fierce hatred of His enemies, is, outwardly, left to suffer to the full that which His position entailed.
The reproach He bore was for Jehovah's sake, "Because for Thy sake I have borne reproach;" again, in verse 9, "The reproaches of them that reproached Thee are fallen upon Me." The Righteous One in the hands of unrighteous men, in deepest distress, is found, in effect, going without the camp-the sin offering. This psalm was brought to the minds of the disciples when Christ cleansed the temple:"The zeal of Thine house hath eaten Me up" (John 2:17), and in that Gospel especially the blessed Lord is viewed as rejected and outcast at the outset (John 1:10, 11).
How really "He learned obedience by the things which He suffered!" Overwhelmed by His sorrows, weeping, and chastening His soul, the "song of the drunkards," He cried to "Jehovah in an acceptable time," and was heard, in striking contrast (as we have seen) to Ps. 22, where He cries out and is abandoned-the essential point of that psalm because there seen as the Sin-bearer.
It is evident from verse 14, "Deliver Me out of the mire and let Me not sink:let Me be delivered from them that hate Me, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon Me," that, in the psalm, the sufferings are almost wholly from the hands of men; they are His adversaries, and it is from them the Holy Sufferer prays for deliverance. In all this, the Lord perfectly identifies Himself with the godly remnant, suffering with them in all they will endure, suffering because of their integrity. It is only when they see Him that the work of atonement will be appreciated by them.
Gethsemane is surely seen here with its overwhelming sorrow, the blessed Lord entering anticipatively into all that was entailed in the position He had voluntarily taken. Satan pressed upon His spirit what it would mean to come into contact with that which His holy soul abhorred, and in His unspeakable suffering His anguish wrung from His holy brow the bloody sweat. His voice is heard, "Hear Me, O Lord, for Thy loving-kindness is good; turn unto Me according to Thy tender mercies, and hide not Thy face from Thy servant:for I am in trouble, hear Me speedily" (vers. 16, 17). From that garden, strengthened by angelic ministry, He went forth for the full accomplishment of God's holy will. "This is your hour and the power of darkness," were the terrible words spoken to the nation-to man. That hour had come, when at last man could fully express all the enmity and hatred of God that dwelt in the human heart.
Delivering Himself up into their hands, every insult and taunt fell with titanic force upon the Holy Sufferer, until He says in spirit, "Reproach hath broken My heart and I am full of heaviness. I looked for some to take pity and there was none, and for comforters, but I found none." "They all forsook Him and fled," is the testimony of Mark (chap. 14:50). There was no one to take pity, no one to deliver; He had taken the cup of bitterness from the Father's hand, and must drink it alone.
In the intense thirst incidental to the cruel death of crucifixion, He said, "I thirst." Someone responded to the cry, and verse 21 of our psalm was fulfilled, "They gave Me also gall for My meat, and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink." This scene of anguish was but the prelude of those darker hours when the Sinless Substitute bore the full weight of divine judgment against sin. However we view Him, whether tested and tried by man and Satan, or taking from the Father's hand the cup which our sins and theirs had filled, nothing but perfection is seen. What a work! What a workman! How it bows our hearts in adoring wonder as we view Him in the perfection of His Manhood, and we worship as we acclaim Him, "My Lord and my God." J. W. H. N.
(To be continued, D. V.)