AN EXPOSITION OF PSALM 22 (2)
Psalm 22

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I. Christ asks why He is forsaken by His God (vv.1f).

1. Christ calls upon "God" by addressing Him with the name meaning "The Mighty One" (Hebrew El). He does not call Him by the familial name "Father", as He had done just a few hours earlier in His High Priestly prayer (John 17:1). Neither does Christ call Him by the covenant name "Jehovah", even though He here was fulfilling His part in the Covenant of Redemption, shedding the "blood of the everlasting covenant" (Hebrews 13:20) and of "My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Matthew 26:28). Rather, Christ here addresses His need of strength in the hour of His greatest weakness: having partaken of no nourishment for some hours, and having been beaten and scourged, and already drained of much of His strengthening blood. He therefore addresses His prayer to "The Mighty One". And He does so because no man would aid Him, and because He refused to call upon the angels who would have come to deliver Him if He so requested (Matthew 26:53).

2. Christ acknowledges Jehovah as "My God" with regard to His humanity, not His deity. Christ is God with regard to His deity, being with God His Father co-equal (John 5:17f, 22f) and co-eternal (John 1:1f). But with regard to His humanity, which He assumed in His incarnation (John 1:14; 1 Timothy 3:16), Christ owns the Father as "My God". God the Father is therefore declared to be "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 1:3).

3. Christ owns Jehovah as "My God" even when He realizes He is forsaken by Him. Some will own Jehovah as their God as long as they believe they will be blessed by Him for doing so. But they will desert Him if they ever feel He has forsaken them. But this is not the case with Christ. He who confesses "From My mother's womb You have been My God" (v.10) will in His death make the same confession. In Christ more than in any other person we find the fulfillment of the promise "you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life" (Revelation 2:10).

4. Christ in crying "My God, My God" employs duplication, a figure of speech expressing increased emphasis designed to certainly obtain the attention of another. For example, Christ's disciples cried out to Him one night when they were in jeopardy on a stormy sea, "Master, Master, we are perishing!" (Luke 8:35). Here Christ cries out in such a manner as to certainly obtain the attention of His God.

" ... why have You forsaken Me? ..." (v.2b). This is not the "why?" of a guilty man questioning the reason for his punishment; Christ was well aware of why He was being punished, and of the justness of it. Rather, this is the "why?" of a lost son who wonders why his father has deserted him, and who longs to behold his father's face again.

1. Christ was forsaken by God justly.

i. The holiness of God requires Him to turn away from sin and sinners (Habakkuk 1:13): "You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness." God therefore declares to sinners that "your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you" (Isaiah 59:2). And Christ who here asks why God has forsaken Him immediately afterward confesses, "But You are holy" (v.4).

ii. Christ on His cross became the sin from which God must turn away. He had no sin of His own. He was born without original sin, being even from birth "that Holy One" (Luke 1:35). Throughout His life He "knew no sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21), "committed no sin" (1 Peter 2:22), "and in Him there is no sin" (1 John 3:5). But on Calvary "[God] made [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Christ was not made to sin, nor transformed into sin or a sinner; rather, He was legally considered as a sinner and treated as sin because the sins of God's elect were imputed to Him, charged to His account. As God now sees the imputed righteousness of Christ when He looks upon His people – though sinners they are in and of themselves, so did He then see the imputed sin of His people when He looked upon Christ – though righteous He ever is in and of Himself. The intrinsically sinless One became the substitute for sinful ones whom God must forsake. (Scriptures speak of this imputation of sin to Christ in many other passages, including Isaiah 53:4, 6, 11, 12, Romans 4:25; Galatians 3:13; 1 Peter 2:24; 3:18; Daniel 9:26.)

2. Christ was forsaken by God momentarily so that His people would be forsaken by Him never. But in that moment God inflicted upon Christ the entirety of the eternal wrath His people deserve. God therefore now says to them, "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5; cp. Isaiah 54:7-10).

i. Christ was not forsaken by God's sustaining arm. Christ here prays in full assurance of God's promise that "I have given help to one who is mighty .... Also My arm shall strengthen him" (Psalm 89:19, 21). And Christ prays in full assurance that "I shall be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and My God shall be My strength" (Isaiah 49:5).

ii. Christ was not forsaken by God's everlasting love. God loved Christ as much when He bore the sins of His people as when He lived in sinless perfection before Him. And because of Christ's work in saving His people, God will love them as much in their native depravity as in their regenerated life (see Jeremiah 31:3).

iii. Christ was not forsaken by God's good pleasure. God was as pleased with Christ as much on His cross of shame as He was at His baptism and His transfiguration, when God said of Christ, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17; 17:5). God was indeed pleased in and with the death of Christ (Isaiah 53:10): "Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him .... And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand."

Here is great comfort to saints. There are times when we cannot see the smile of God's face because of the clouds of the storms that overtake us. But beyond the dark clouds God is still smiling at us, and His sustaining arm is yet protecting us, and His everlasting love is still toward us, and His good pleasure is still being fulfilled in us. Because of what Christ has done for sinners, He can now assure them, "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you" (Isaiah 43:1f).

"... Why are You so far from helping Me, ..." (v.1c). Here is no denial of the omnipresence of God. Rather, here is a question regarding His saving presence. God was far from Christ in this regard because Christ was performing a work that He alone could do, and He must do it by Himself - but afterward receive all the glory. God the Father could not die for sinners, nor save His Son from the necessity of doing so. The Covenant of Redemption to which the Father and the Son had agreed from eternity must be ratified by the shed blood of the Son. The Redeemer must pay the ransom for His people with His own blood. The Surety must pay the bail for His people for which He had from eternity obligated Himself. God would not prevent Christ from doing so!

"... And from the words of My groaning? ..." (v.1d). This "groaning" was probably more a "roaring" (KJV), as the Hebrew word signifies the uttering of the loud deep rumbling cry of the lion (Amos 3:4, 8). This "roaring" of Christ is elsewhere described as His "vehement cries" (Hebrews 5:7).

"O My God, I cry in the daytime, ..." (v.2a). This was fulfilled in the death of Christ: He on the cross uttered this prayer "about the ninth hour of the day" (Matthew 27:46), about 3 PM.

"... but You do not hear; ..." (v.2b). The meaning here is not that God was deaf to Christ's prayer, for Christ had already acknowledged, "I know that You always hear Me" (John 11:42). Rather, the meaning here is that God would not deliver Christ from dying. However, God would indeed ascertain "that through death [Christ] might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Hebrews 2:14).

"... And in the night season, ..." (v.2c). This also was fulfilled in Christ: Although He died "in the daytime" (v.2a), it was nevertheless "the night season", as by an act of God "from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land" (Matthew 27:45).

"... and am not silent" (v.2d). Christ never ceased to pray to God. He therefore was enabled to at last declare, "You have answered Me" (v.21). What an Exemplar He is to His people!

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