Psalm 22
This psalm is called the Psalm of the Cross. It has been given this name because it describes more accurately and more indepth the crucifixion of Christ than any other portion of the Word of God. It corresponds, needless to say, to the twenty-second chapter of Genesis and the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah.
In Psalm 22 we have an x-ray which penetrates into His inner life. In this psalm we see the anguish of His passion; His soul is laid bare. In the gospels is recorded the historical facts of His death, and some of the events that attended His crucifixion; but only in Psalm 22 are His thoughts revealed. It has been the belief of many scholars that actually the Lord Jesus, while on the cross, quoted the entire twenty-second psalm; but since it is not recorded in the Bible that belief is placed in the category of conjecture.
Instead of standing beneath the cross and listening to Him, we are going to hang on the cross with Him. We shall view the crucifixion from a new vantage point—from the cross itself. And we can look with Him on those beneath His cross, as He was hanging there, and see what went on in His heart and in His mind. We shall see what occurred in His soul as He became the sacrifice for the sins of the world. As He was suspended there between heaven and earth, He became the ladder let down from heaven to this earth so that men might have a way to God.
We were there, if you please, on that cross as He was made sin for us— “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21). We were as truly on that cross as He died as we today are in Christ by faith. Peter put it like this: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:24).
This is an unusual psalm in that there is no reference to sin as the cause of the trouble, no plea of innocence, no claim of righteousness, and no vengeance. Therefore the words are peculiarly appropriate when applied to our suffering Messiah, although in their primary meaning they are based on some experience of David.
PRAY
Father, awaken in me a renewed passion to know Christ’s passion! Help me to identify with His sufferings and to know what His sacrifice means better than I have.