Psalms 22:9–11

Though the perfect Sufferer saw the power of man and Satan, He took the cup straight from the hand of God... He felt their "scorn," the shaking of the head, and the mockery of saying, "He trusted in Jehovah that He would deliver Him; let Him deliver Him, since He delighted in Him."... But He told God what men said and did, and added, "You are He who took Me out of the womb: You made Me hope when I was on My mother's breasts."

The One whom men despised, and God forsook, was the only fully righteous Man. From the moment He came into this world, perfect confidence in God marked Him, for He could say, "You made Me trust, upon My mother's breasts." He was also perfectly dependent, for He could add, "I was cast upon You from the womb." And He was perfect in His subjection, for He says, "You are My God." Yet He is the only One whose confidence in God, dependence on God and subjection to God were perfect from the beginning of His life on earth to the end. And He is the One found in deepest trouble with "none to help."

The New Testament says very little about the childhood and hidden life of Jesus... Here, as He is about to lay down His holy life, His holy mind looks back over it. He goes back to its beginning, when He was a baby on His mother's breasts. He trusted in God. There was never another baby like that... In the small, helpless state of infancy, He was cast upon God. What pleasure that must have given God. Babies are not very old when they begin to show signs of self-will. A temper will display itself in the tiniest child. Never did it show itself in the Lord Jesus.

He was as absolutely dependent upon God as He was obedient to Him... He never for one moment abandoned the attitude of entire dependence upon the living God... He breathed the very atmosphere of dependence from Bethlehem to Calvary. He was the only Man who ever lived a life of uninterrupted dependence upon God, from first to last. Others have depended partially, He did it perfectly. Others have occasionally or even mainly looked to God; He never looked anywhere else. He drew everything from God, not some things or most things.

The Man Child seems to speak of His utter dependence upon God... As the Man Child He never moved from the place of dependence upon God; He did not exercise an independent will. His life was one unbroken obedience.

The care which watched over Him was unceasing from the womb to the grave. His Spirit had said so long before in the prophets: "I was cast upon You from the womb. You are My God from My mother's belly." "You made Me hope [or, You kept Me in safety] when I was on My mother's breasts." It was tireless throughout... It watched over Him that very night when the angel warned Joseph to flee into Egypt.

Christ speaks of the people's mockery of His trust in God as His unfailing Helper, but He knows that from the womb He had been chosen and preserved by God. And He still calls upon God not to be far from Him in His trouble, but to help Him, for there is none else.

Righteous men may indeed have suffered martyrdom, but never before had a righteous man been forsaken by God… Yet the One whom men despised, and God forsook, was the only completely righteous Man. From the moment He came into this world He showed perfect confidence in God. He could say, "You made me trust, upon my mother's breasts." Further, He was perfectly dependent, for He could add, "I was cast upon you from the womb," and perfect in His subjection, for He says, "You are my God." And yet this is the one Man whose confidence in God, dependence upon God, and subjection to God was perfect from the beginning to the end of His life on earth. He is found in deepest trouble with "none to help."

He was as absolutely dependent upon God as He was obedient to Him. He could say, "Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge" (Ps. 16). And again, "I was cast upon you from the womb" (Ps. 22). He never for one moment let go of complete dependence upon the living God… He breathed the very atmosphere of dependence from Bethlehem to Calvary. He was the only Man who ever lived a life of uninterrupted dependence upon God, from first to last. Others have depended partially, He did it perfectly. Others have looked to God now and then, or even most of the time; He never looked anywhere else. He found all His springs, not some of them or most of them, in God.

He was subject to His God and went His pathway trusting in Him and in devotion to Him. This was His attitude right from the beginning: "I was cast upon you from the womb; you are my God from my mother's womb" (Ps. 22:10).

But in verses 9 and 10 the Lord Jesus appeals to the fact of His own birth by the intervention of God — we know, a virgin birth. When God had so intervened in man's affairs to prepare a body for His Son, could this whole matter have ended by death and oblivion? Certainly not! He says, "From my mother's womb You have been my God." Could this change now that He is crucified?

So while He suffered for sin, our Lord confessed that His God had forsaken Him. Yet He still called Him "My God." This relationship of Jesus went back to His earliest infancy. In this very Psalm, He declares, "You are my God from my mother's womb" (v. 10). From the manger in Bethlehem right onwards, He, the perfect and blessed Man, recognised God as the One whom He obeyed and on whom He depended. But here it was a time of darkness at noon, and the difference was beyond measure. His God, in whom He trusted, had forsaken Him! And why?

He had been the dependent One from the very start, and He never turned aside from that attitude. So more than anyone He had the title to divine support, now that all others had forsaken Him. This was the hour of trouble when most He needed the sunshine of the face of God.

The One whom men despised, and God forsook, was the only fully righteous Man. From the moment He came into this world He showed perfect confidence in God, for He could say, "You made me trust you at my mother's breasts." He was also perfectly dependent, for He could add, "On you was I cast from my birth." And He was perfect in His subjection, for He says, "From my mother's womb you have been my God." Yet this One — whose confidence in God, dependence on God, and subjection to God were perfect from the start of His life on earth to its end — is in deepest trouble with "none to help."

These troubles were deep and real, but they were outward, and they came from man. From these He turns to God. Here we find the true subject of the psalm and His unfathomable suffering. He looks to God in the trials, and there was no comfort in the cup He had to drink. He prays, "Be not far from me, for trouble is near." Then, as sorrows press Him harder, He says again, "O LORD, do not be far off!" Even so, these were still only outward pressure from the hand of man. He was not stopped by them. He was going on through them to the cup which His Father was going to put into His hand.

In Psalm 22 He speaks of all the external troubles, but then He says, "Be not far from me" — the very thing He was!

There was no outlet to His grief, no comfort from man. Here we see the meaning of "Be not far from me, O my God!" Those He came to in love cast Him out with scorn. Those He came to save pressed in and closed Him in. So His soul turned to God. But God had hidden His face from Him. He now found the darkness and wrath to the uttermost. There was no response on any side: deep hatred of man around Him, and darkness from above. Everything fell away but the power of love. Love sustained Him. Love was greater than all, and it was set on us.

Well might He say: "Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But for this purpose I have come to this hour" (John 12:27). So also in Psalm 22:11. He, the One who knew no sin, is to be made sin for us. He enters into all that judgment — God's own full judgment against sin and against our sins. He alone was able to bear it. He alone could measure what God is in His nature against all sin and evil. And He alone could bear the condemnation of that sin and evil in a nature as holy, in itself and forever, as the nature of the God who was judging.

Here we find the one exception in all God's ways with the righteous. One with no callousness describes the whole long agony, keenly alive and sensitive to it all. Yet through it all He turns to the God on whom He had been cast from birth, and pleads against the one sorrow far beyond all others: "Be not far from me!"

Note also the deep difference between the sufferings of Christ from man and from God. The first were for righteousness, the second for sin. The result of the first (Psalm 21) is that He will make His enemies like a fiery oven in the day of His wrath. In the second He was bearing wrath, and the result is pure blessing, and nothing else, as its fruit. (See Psalm 22:11-23.)