To the choirmaster upon the Doe of the Dawn. A Psalm of David.

¹My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Far from saving me, far from my words of groaning?
²O my God, I call by day, and you do not answer,
and by night, and there is no repose for me.
³And you are holy,
sitting on the praises of Israel.
⁴In you our fathers trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
⁵To you they cried and were rescued;
in you they trust and were not ashamed.

⁶And I am a scarlet worm and not a man,
reproached by man and despised by people.
⁷All who see me ridicule me,
opening their mouths, shaking their heads.
⁸“He is rolled up with the LORD; let him deliver.
Let him rescue him for he delights in him.”
⁹For you brought me out from the womb;
you made me trust at my mother’s breasts.
¹⁰On you I was cast from the womb,
and from my mother’s belly you are my God.
¹¹Be not far from me,
for trouble is near, for there is no help.

¹²Many bulls surround me;
mighty bulls of Bashan encircle me.
¹³They open their mouths at me,
a lion ripping and roaring.
¹⁴I am as water poured out,
and all my bones are separated.
My heart is like wax,}{melting within my belly.
¹⁵My strength is dried up as a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws,
and in the dust of death you have set me.
¹⁶For dogs surround me;
a gathering of evil encircles me as a lion at my hands and feet.^1
17I count all my bones;}{they look and see me.
¹⁸They divide my garments among them,
and for my clothing they cast lots.
¹⁹But you, O LORD, are not far off!
O my strength, hasten to my help!
²⁰Rescue my soul from the sword,
from the paw of the dog my only begotten life!
²¹Save me from the mouth of the lion,
and from the horns of the wild oxen you have answered me!

²²I will tell your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the assembly I will praise you!
²³You who fear the LORD, praise him!
All the seed of Jacob, glorify him,
and fear him, all the seed of Israel,
²⁴for he has not despised or detested the affliction of the afflicted,
and he has not hidden his face from him,
and when he cried to him, he heard.
²⁵From you is my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will complete before those who fear him.
²⁶The afflicted will eat and be satisfied.
Praise the LORD, you who seek him! May your hearts live forever!

²⁷All the ends of the earth will remember and repent to the LORD,
and all the families of the nations will bow before you.
²⁸For kingship is to the LORD,
and he rules over the nations.
²⁹All the fat of the earth will eat and worship;
before him all who go down to the dust will bow, even the soul who does not live.
³⁰The seed will serve him;
it will be told of the LORD to the generations.
³¹They will come and proclaim the righteousness to people begotten,
for it is finished.

Few psalms are so clearly about Christ as Psalm 22. David is the author, but these are no doubt the words of Christ, not just in a figurative sense, but literally. The gospel writers record the words of Jesus on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It is the opening line of a psalm that gives a play-by-play detailed account of what would happen to Christ.

Some even speculate that Jesus may have sung the whole psalm during the crucifixion. John records that Jesus’ last words were, “It is finished.” One could very easily translate the last line of the Psalm, “he has done it,” with these words. If this is the case, if Jesus sang these words on the cross, there is no wonder the centurion said, “Surely this man was the Son of God.” Prophecy was being fulfilled before their very eyes, and Christ himself was making that reality unmistakable.

There are two main sections. Verses 1-21 are pleas for mercy, and verses 22-30 are praise. The first section is almost dialogical, alternating between first and second person. The order is as follows:

1. Why have you forsaken me? (vv. 1-2)

2. You are holy (vv. 3-5).

3. I am a worm, not a man (vv. 6-8).

4. You took me from my mother’s womb (vv. 9-11).

5. Bulls surround me (vv. 12-18).

6. You are not far off (vv. 19-21).

Each “you” section is an answer to an “I/me” section. The praise section is much simpler, subdividing into two subsections: the vow (vv. 22-26) and the call to worship (vv. 27-31).

The Journey of the Cross

The first section of pleas for mercy give us an experiential description of the cross, telling us the heart of Christ as he died for his people. Interestingly, as the Son prays, the Father never answers directly, but the Son, who has perfect knowledge of the Father, gives himself assurance.

Forsaken by God

The psalm begins with the famous line: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The words must be carefully considered here. There is a line of interpretation that suggests the fellowship between the Father and the Son was somehow broken here, but our doctrine of God, drawn from the whole of Scripture, will not allow that interpretation. We are not tritheists. What does it mean then? The following lines clarify: God is far away from helping. He does not answer, and the psalmist has no rest.² Kidner that this is a practical separation, not an ontological separation:

“It is not a lapse of faith, nor a broken relationship, but a cry of disorientation as God’s familiar protective presence is withdrawn (as it was from, e.g., the blameless Job) and the enemy closes in.”[@kidner1973 123]

Christ, thus far, has enjoyed immediate communion with God, but now, there is a perceived distance.

The cause of his sense of forsakenness comes in verse 3: “you are holy.” God is holy, clean, unstained. He cannot be in the presence of sin. Christ, on the other hand, has taken on all the sins of the world. On the cross, he stood in the stead of sinners. He was literally outside the camp, on a hill outside Jerusalem. Furthermore, he was ritually unclean, covered in all sorts of filth. Though he was personally sinless, on the cross, he was reckoned as a sinner, and unworthy of God’s presence.

However, there is a glimmer of hope here, because Christ remembers God’s great acts of redemption. Though he is now unclean, he knows that God is gracious to unclean people, and he will redeem those who trust in him. Christ understands what is going on. God will not only redeem him from death, but his death will also mean the redemption promised to the fathers is finally executed.

Just a Worm

In the next “I/me” section, Christ reflects on the unholiness he has taken on. He considers himself to be subhuman. There is a sense in which this is true of all fallen men. Man is created in the image of God, but in the fall, we lost the perfection of God’s image. Man is made to glorify and enjoy God, but when we fail in our task, we fail to live up to what humanity entails. The mockers agree as well; verse 8 is explicitly fulfilled in the mocking of the crowds (cf. Matt 27:42). Christ is reflecting on this reality on the cross, but then he remembers another truth.

The “you” section is a reminder that Christ is truly a man. Though he has taken on sin, not all is lost. He remembers his origin; he was born of a woman. Thus, there is the hope that God will restore his complete manhood, that he will finally fulfill his purpose.

This is true of all believers. Though we sometimes live like animals, we have the hope that we will one day be restored. God has granted us a sense of the divine and has promised full restoration in the resurrection. Though the image of God in us is now distorted, it will be clear and full in the last day. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor 13:12).

Animal Enemies

Having reminded himself of his own humanity and the promise of restoration, the psalmist considers his enemies as animals. He is surrounded by bulls, lions, and dogs, and he is unable to defend himself. The description given is a mirror image of the cross. Jesus would have almost certainly experienced dislocation of his joints on the cross. That was, in fact, partially how death occurred. When the cross was lifted upright, the impact of the cross falling into the hole prepared for it would cause the shoulders to dislocate.[@terasaka] Jesus also dealt with extreme thirst (John 19:28). The beating he endured would have cut to the bone, revealing his ribs, and of course, his hands and his feet were pierced. And during the crucifixion, he watched the soldiers cast lots for his clothing (John 19:24).

This helpless state gives rise to one final plea: “be not far from me!” There is an indication here that enough suffering has happened. The psalmist is totally defeated. God was far off because of his holiness, but now the punishment is complete. In verse 20, the psalmist refers to his life as yA.hiyd>, which means something like “only begotten son,” a clear reference to the Son, the second person of the Trinity. God may now return to care for his Son because the righteous requirement of the law has been met in the Son’s total defeat. This gives rise to the great turn in the psalm toward praise.

The Covenant Fulfilled

The first section of praise in verses 22-26 deal with an apparent agreement between the Father and the Son. In verses 22-23, Christ calls his people to praise God and rejoice before him, but the grounds for praise are given beginning in verse 24. In verse 24, we have a description of what God has done. God has redeemed the afflicted. Where there was a practical separation between the Father and the Son at the beginning of the psalm, there is now a reunion. God has seen and heard the pleas of righteous.

Now, in response to that answer, Christ says he will “perform his vows” before the assembly in verse 25. This is a reference to one kind of peace offering in the Levitical law, the votive peace offering.³ The process for this offering begins with a vow made by the worshiper. He would vow to perform the duties required to achieve some goal, and the expectation would be that God would help him. Once the vow was completed, and both God and man had performed their duties, a peace offering was required. This peace offering would be sacrificed after the sin and ascension offerings. But while the sin and whole burnt offerings were consumed by fire, the peace offering was distributed between God, the priests, and the worshiper. The worshiper who had made the vow would then take home his portion of the offering to share it with his family and friends in a feast. This is the result being described in verse 26: “the afflicted will eat and be satisfied.”

This is a vivid description of the covenant relationship between the Father and the Son. Larger Catechism 31 tells us: “The covenant of grace was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed.” A covenant is an agreement between two persons, a mutual vow. This covenant being enacted upon Christ’s death is now sealed by the same death as a peace offering. In other words, Christ’s death was simultaneously a sin offering, an ascension offering, and a peace offering all bound up in one.

That Christ is a peace offering is precisely the way in which the benefits of redemption are administered to us. Christ is the substance of the covenant. There are many benefits joined to the covenant, but they all come through the person of Jesus Christ. For example, we do not receive justification arbitrarily, but we are justified because we are joined to Christ. This is why Christ says,

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” (John 6:53-56)

We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 5:1). We receive grace for eternal life by eating and drinking of the peace offering.

In this life, the Lord’s Supper is the highest expression of this principle. Reformed theology insists, against memorialist approaches, that believers truly eat and drink the body and blood of Christ in the Supper. The reason is that to deny that fact is to deny the plain words of Jesus along with the ordained means of receiving salvation. Of course, we qualify that by clarifying that we do not eat “after a corporal and carnal manner, but by faith” (WSC 96). Furthermore, since we eat and drink by faith, the Supper is not strictly necessary to feed on Christ. As Augustine puts it: “Believe and you have eaten already.”[@NPNF 1-07:164]

But the Lord’s Supper does provide us with a uniquely potent experience of feeding on Christ as a mirror image of the Levitical peace offering. The body of the sacrifice, Jesus Christ, is sacramentally distributed to the people of God so that they might participate in the peace and reconciliation procured by Christ on the cross. This typology is also why we call the Lord’s Supper a sacrifice of thanksgiving. It is not, as the Romanists suggest, a sin offering. The atonement aspect of the sacrificial system was completely fulfilled once for all in Christ’s death, but the peace offering extends beyond the death into the feast. Though the sacrifice for sin is complete, the peace offering is continually offered to all who believe.

A Call to Worship

The final section of Psalm 22 is a prophetic call to worship. Christ has died and purchased the benefits of redemption for all who will feed on his sacrifice. But the final section turns to the final purpose of Christ’s death.

The language here is universal in a variety of senses. First, there is spacial universality (vv. 27-28). All the ends of the earth will remember and worship. The grace of Christ extends beyond the borders of ethnic Israel to all nations. Second, there is social universality (v. 29). Both the prosperous and the poor will gather to eat of Christ’s peace offering. And finally, there is temporal universality (vv. 30-31). The blessings of Christ will be proclaimed throughout generations.

There is a certain approach to Scripture that is doubtful of these promises. Some would suggest that when Christ returns, there will be but a small remnant church, just a handful of Christians who truly believe the gospel. But that is not the biblical model. Psalm 22, along with many other passages, suggest to us that the faith will actually be widespread, that kings and nations, rich and poor, young and old, will all bow before Christ and receive his benefits. This is something we are called to strive for and expect. Even the Great Commission is a command to evangelize “the nations!”

In Leviticus, the peace offering is not merely about peace between an individual and God. It’s about a communal restoration. Through our peace with God, we also have one another. We are forgiven as we forgive our debtors. Christ’s death was not merely intended to save a few people from Hell, but to bring peace and reconciliation between all peoples through their union with Christ.