Nowhere are the thoughts and feelings of Christ more fully revealed than in the Psalms. This is especially what is found in three of them, the twenty-second, the fortieth and the sixty-ninth. In each of these a Sufferer is speaking out of the most intense suffering, opening His heart to God. It is Christ in the very act of being made sin, the One who knew no sin of His own being dealt with for and bearing the sins of others. Each of the four Gospels narrates the crucifixion according to its purpose as presenting Christ, but the three psalms are His own thoughts and feelings in that awful scene. The Gospels were written about Christ; in these three psalms He Himself is the speaker as well as the sufferer.

In psalm 40 we see a man in "a horrible pit," a "pit of destruction" such as that into which Jeremiah was cast (Jer. 38). It is a cistern with a muddy bottom, from which the water has been taken leaving the "miry clay" in the bottom. The sufferer cannot sit, cannot rest; if left there, he must die as Jeremiah was in danger of doing. Of all in Jerusalem only one poor foreigner cared for the prophet and was commissioned to deliver him. We read how he was brought up out of the death trap, and his life preserved. The Spirit of Christ uses this imagery to reveal His sufferings and deliverance. He was in the pit, He cried, waited patiently for Jehovah, was heard and brought up out of it.

There was a rock at the top of the cistern upon which those drawing the water stood. How perfect the contrast between the mud of the cistern bottom and the solid rock for standing. But there was more than even this, a new song put in the mouth of the delivered One. There had been-there could have been-no song like it had He not gone voluntarily into the place of suffering and borne the innumerable evils which compassed Him, making His people's inequities His own so that He could call them "Mine inequities" (verse 12), In no other way could the holy, spotless Lamb of God have used such an expression. (See 2 Cor. 5:21.)

How sweet are the precious words of this psalm 40. With what luster they shine! In them we see the objects of Christ's love of whom He says, "Many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the lord." He has stood in that pit that you and I might be saved from it. Only in eternity shall we have the full realization of what is the meaning of our sins being all gone for ever. How little do saved ones now enter into the reality of what Christ has suffered for them, and the eternal value of it. How infinitely great the blessing of being the objects of Christ's love; of being looked upon by the Father as one with Him, as "in Him."

What a position we have as children of God, kept by His power in the midst of "innumerable evils;" and how great the value of knowing that many as are the evils about us, His thoughts towards us are so many they cannot be estimated, they are far weightier than all the evils. As believers in Christ we have, as our Lord and Saviour, to love, trust and obey the One whose voice is heard in this and its two companion psalms, 22 and 69. The same voice is heard in each; the same Holy One is speaking to God. He has been obedient to the Father's will; that is why He suffered.

He loved us; He gave Himself for us. "We love Him, because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19). The words of the three precious psalms are the words of Him who loves us. What an anchor to hold us in the storm of this world. We see the waves of untoward events rushing all around us; they come in a multitude of ways, but Christ's presence is far more powerful. He holds the winds and waves in His hands. The One who was in the pit is now on the throne. He was in the pit for our salvation; He is on the throne for our deliverance, our constant blessing. Because we love Him we delight in Him. "The water that I shall give him shall be in him a fountain of water, springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:14).

The connection we have with Christ means life; it means an armor and a sword. It means victory, for being one with Him the great Overcomer, we shall be and are overcomers. Loving Him as we do, we trust Him fully because we know He cannot fail. He did not fail God; He cannot fail any of His people. The world had no use for Christ, it rejected Him. Therefore we reject the world. What is the world? The enemy of God. He has placed us here to learn from Him, and the day's events in their relation to us are all under His care.

We have eyes in our hearts to see Him now on the throne. In the psalm He is in the pit, then lifted out of it, His work done. We have to do with the risen and ascended Christ, who was the Man of sorrows, but is now the Man in the glory. Loving Him we are at rest, for having Him we have all that is good and desirable. We, too, can sing the new song; we can praise our God. All around are the people of the world in all their distance from God. There are the problems of the world, the confusion of the world. Seeing Him and loving Him we are kept outside of it all. We can be calm where others are worried and distraught, burdened with care. Christ is taking care of our care, as He has of our sins. Some trust Christ with their sins, but not with their cares. Why not? The cares of His people are no burden to Him. Think of Him in the horrible pit; there out of love for the lost. They are precious to Him, and how He loves His own that are in the world. Are you getting comfort from knowing this? How it rests our spirits to think of His love, to see Him with us, over us, about us. Faith sees; love trusts, rests, praises. The world has to invent ways of killing time; the believer has Christ to fill the heart and mind.

Looking at Christ by faith makes us like Him. The being like Him here in the world is a testimony to the world. They see that it is possible to live like Him here so that people see something of the difference between Christ and the world. J. W. Newton