But what pen can describe the predictions and the fulfilment of His sufferings, the sufferings of the Holy One! Here we behold what it cost Him to redeem us. Here we have the full description of what His atoning work meant. Here we see the full meaning of the sin-offering.
Well may we bow our heads and hearts here and worship as we gaze upon this picture. The opening word of the Psalm expresses the consummation of all the sufferings of Christ, that word which came from the darkness, which surrounded the cross and in which we are face to face with the unsearchable depths of His atoning work. “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me.” He who was ever with the Father, one with Him in all eternity, who could say on earth “I am not alone” was left alone. He was forsaken of God. But more than that. Jehovah bruised Him; He put Him to grief. The spotless One bore the wrath of God alone. It was then that He who knew no sin was made sin for us. How significant it is then that the Holy Spirit puts that word of the Lord Jesus Christ before the predictions of His physical sufferings. They tell us what our redemption cost Him—the awful price, forsaken of God. The Psalm also emphasizes what man under the terrible instigation of Satan did unto Him. We glance at some of these sufferings as expressed by His own Spirit.
“But I am a worm, and not man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people” (verse 6). This is His own complaint. No longer a man but writhing on the ground like a worm, the substitute of sinners, thus the Holy One felt when He was numbered among the transgressors. The Hebrew word “worm”, means the small insect, the coccus, from which the scarlet color is obtained by death of this worm, that color which was used in connection with the tabernacle. Thus He died as our substitute that our sins though they are as scarlet might be white as snow. Men reproached Him; His own people despised and rejected Him. Then we read how He was mocked and scoffed at. They “laugh me to scorn,” they “shoot out the lip,” they “shake the head.” The very language of the leaders of the people as they surrounded the cross is given by the Spirit of God. “He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver Him, seeing He delighted in Him” (verse 7). What depths of the depravity of the human heart they reveal! And in all this, while He suffered thus from man His sole trust was in God (verses 9-10). His whole life was to trust in the Lord to lean upon Him, till that moment came when God could no longer know Him as His own, when the sword, the sword of judgment awoke against the Man, the fellow, the companion of the Lord of hosts (Zech. xiii:7). What that sword did to Him is expressed by the cry of the forsaken One.
And what else do we find here? We can follow the whole story of the cross in the first part of this Psalm. His enemies are described, the bulls and the ravening and roaring lion.—“I am poured out like water.”—“All my bones are out of joint.”—“My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.” Like fire melteth wax so His heart melted in the fire of wrath against sin. The strength of the mighty One, who fainteth not and knows no weariness, failed. His tongue cleaves to His jaws. “Dogs” and “the assembly of the wicked”—Gentiles and Jews were there. “They pierced my hands and feet;” crucifixion, unknown among the Jews when David lived, is here predicted by the Holy Spirit. “I may tell all my bones” as well as the words “all my bones are out of joint” refer to His suffering on the cross. Then after they hung the Prince of Glory at that cross we read “they look and stare upon Me” (verse 17). “They parted my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.” What man did to Him, what He suffered from man and from Satan’s power is here described. Yet it was God who bruised Him. Concerning man the sufferer spoke what “they” did unto Him; but He also addresses God “THOU hast brought me into the dust of death.”
And thus He suffered and died for us. Our sins were laid upon Him and He bore them in His own body on the tree. At what an infinite cost we have been redeemed! What a price has been paid! The Father did not spare His only begotten Son, but delivered Him up for us all. The Son of God, was made sin for us, smitten, stricken and forsaken of God.
Jehovah bade His sword awake—
O Christ, it woke ’gainst thee!
Thy blood the flaming blade must slake;
Thy heart its sheath must be—
All for my sake, my peace to make;