Psalm 22 is the anguished prayer of David who suffers unjustly from the vicious and prolonged attacks of enemies from whom the Lord has not yet delivered him. It is the first of several so-called "passion psalms" which describe the suffering and persecution of an innocent victim in terms similar to what is pictured regarding the Suffering Servant of the Lord in the second half of Isaiah.
These scriptures came to be identified with the coming of the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, the great Savior and King, the great Son of David, pictured in the Old Testament as one day coming to deliver God’s people.
All the Israelites looked forward to the coming of this Messiah.
After Jesus arose from the dead, he explained to his disciples how the Old Testament scriptures pointed to him, how that he was the fulfillment of the Old Testament picture of the Messiah to come. (Lk. 24:44ff) There can be little doubt that Psalm 22 was one of those Old Testament scriptures to which Jesus would have referred. New Testament writers were certainly convinced this psalm spoke of Jesus. Indeed, no psalm is quoted more frequently in the New Testament than this one.
So while David apparently wrote the psalm and while it has an immediate application to himself and his own experience, like many of the psalms, it has a wider application and finds its ultimate fulfillment in the life of the great Son of David, the Messiah or Christ to come.
Notice with me how that this psalm so marvelously fits Jesus. The psalm begins with the sad and perplexing cry...
1-2
Here is a question David asked but a question that is also as old as the human race, as contemporary as the pain of someone’s broken heart: "God, why...? Why does it seem as though you have forsaken me? Why do you not give me what I ask for in prayer?" It is the question of the grieving spouse, the grieving parent, the grieving child: "God, why did you let this happen? God, why didn’t you answer my prayer? God, why didn’t you preserve my marriage? God, why didn’t you spare my child? God, why didn’t you save my parent?"
But what is most interesting is that we find these words on the lips of Jesus who quoted them while he hung on the cross. Jesus, as the representative man who was tempted in every way as we, who experienced all that we feel, also asked this question...
Theologians have had a hard time understanding and explaining why Jesus would have asked such a question as this. Wasn’t Jesus God? Didn’t he understand why he was dying and what would happen in his death? Why would he have asked this question? I will come back to search for an answer at the close of this lesson.
But for now, it is sufficient to note that Jesus quotes the first verse of Psalm 22 while he is hanging on the cross. There are seven sayings of Jesus recorded while he hung on the cross. Three of them are quotes from the book of Psalms and one of them comes from Psalm 22:1. By quoting this verse (as well as other psalms), Jesus is at least trying to say that this Psalm is a picture of him. He is the Suffering Servant and the Messiah foreshadowed and predicted in the Old Testament scriptures and particularly in this psalm. Compare Isaiah 53:4-6, 10.
3-5
It is not like David has lost faith in God. He believes that God is on his throne, that he has promised to be with and his people and that he has repeatedly delivered his people who cried to him in the past. This is why he asks the question: "Why have you now forsaken me? Why you are so far from saving me, why you do not answer me?"
6
Compare Isaiah 53:3; Mk. 8:31; Mtt. 26:67; 27:20-23, 27-31.
7-8
Compare Mtt. 27:39-43. Already we see that the crucifixion of Jesus fits this psalm in amazing detail. But there is more.
9-11
David still has the question on his lips. Not only have you always delivered your people when they cried out to you, but I have always trusted you myself - from birth you have been my God. "Why have you forsaken me...?"
12
Here is a picture of mean and vicious enemies surrounding Jesus, encircling him, opening their mouths against him.
14a
Life is ebbing away. His bones are out of joint/ disjointed. "All my limbs give way." (Moffat) It fits crucifixion.
14b
When the soldiers came to break the legs of Jesus and discovered he was already dead, they pierced his side with a spear bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. (John 19:33-34) Certain doctors and physiologists are convinced based on that passage and their study of crucifixion that Jesus must have died from a lacerated, ruptured heart that is sometimes the result of extreme mental agony, that Jesus literally died of a broken heart. (See International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, p. 489.) This fitsthe picture here given of a heart as it were melting or disintegrating within.
15
Compare John 19:28
16
A clear and detailed description of the nailing of the hands and feet to the cross. Compare John 20:25.
17-18
Compare John 19:23-24.
19-21
Here is the picture of someone who has not given up on God, who still looks to God to deliver.
So here we have this Old Testament Messianic psalm most remarkably fulfilled in the crucifixion of Jesus. There is:
22
This verse is quoted in Hebrews 2:10-12 as referring to Jesus proving that this psalm was seen in the early church as a Messianic psalm pointing to Jesus.
23-25
Not only does he relate the deliverance of the Lord. He sees a time when ...
26-31
A worldwide company of persons from every walk in life and continuing through all generations is seen praising the Lord because of the deliverance he provided the suffering servant. As Christians we know that deliverance included deliverance from death, Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. We also know from our vantage point that this worldwide assembly of people who seek the Lord and turn to him and proclaimed his righteous- ness became a reality with Jesus. Truly, this psalm has come remarkably true in Jesus.
But back to the first verse that Jesus quoted while on the cross... Why does Jesus question God? And what does he mean? Does he feel at this point that God has let him down or something? Did he not understand what was going to happen before he went to the cross? Was he expecting God to bring him down from the cross and rescue him there or what?
It is clear that Jesus knew ahead of time that he was going to die a premature and purposeful death for our sins. See Mk. 8:31-32; 9:31; Mtt. 20:18-19; Mk. 10:45; John 12:20-28.
Jesus repeatedly foretold and clearly foresaw his coming death. He knew he was going to die a premature death. He knew how he was going to die. And he knew for what purpose he was going to die. Nothing on the cross confused him or surprised him about this at all. It was all planned and understood ahead of time.
Jesus quoted this verse for the same reason he quoted any other scripture; namely, that he believed he was fulfilling it. It is not as though he merely thought he was forsaken when in fact he wasn’t. It is not as though he merely felt forsaken although he really wasn’t. He spoke of being forsaken because at that very moment on the cross he was utterly forsaken.
Up to this moment, though forsaken by men, Jesus could say. "Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me" (Jn. 16:32) But as he hung on the cross in the midst of the darkness that had descended on the land, Jesus could speak of being forsaken because he at that time was absolutely alone,forsaken even by God. Jesus suffered in both body and soul. Not only did he die in body, he also paid a terrible price in suffering in soul the terrible torments of a condemned and forsaken man.
So, then, while he hung on the cross, a terrible separation took place between the Father and the Son. It was due to Jesus taking on himself our sins and their just reward. And Jesus expressed this horror of great darkness, this God-forsakenness, by quoting the only verse of scripture which accurately described it, namely, "My God, my God, why ...?"
And we can conclude his cry was in the form of a question, not because he did not know its answer (remember he understood the reason for his death etc.), but only because the Old Testament text itself which he was quoting was in that form.
Jesus knew why he was dying. He even knew why God was forsaking him.
His was not the cry of surprise, unbelief, disappointment with God or final despair. He who quoted the first verse of the psalm assuredly knew the rest of the psalm, the victory that followed the suffering, the crown that followed the cross. And some time later while on the cross he utters the final word of victory: "It is finished." "The job is done. I have completed the job I came to do. I have won the victory."
This is why we Christians so much love the story of the cross. It is the story of God delivering someone who is at the end of his rope, who is in such dire circumstances that all he can do is cry, "God, why...?" It is the story of God bringing victory out of apparent defeat, light out of total darkness, joy out of sorrow, life out of death. The cross always reminds us no matter how God-forsaken we may feel, there is hope when we are in this condition.
As we come to the table of the Lord, let us keep fresh on our minds these piercing words of Jesus who has gone where we have not gone, who has suffered more than we will ever suffer, who for us was so completely separated from God that he cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" It is the cry that he cried in our place, that we might not have to suffer the same fate, and go through the same experience of final separation from God in an eternal hell.