Psalms 69:4–8

Speaking generally, the psalm gives us the Messiah suffering at the hands of man. That is why atonement is not found here, and why judgment on His adversaries follows His rejection and death. In Psalm 22, on the other hand, we find Him suffering from the hand of God. So there we have atonement, and grace flows out from His death in ever-widening circles.

There was this further aggravation of their sin: the works He had done. Fitting words move some people. Works move others even more deeply — works that show not only power, but goodness, holiness and love. In Jesus the Son of God they had both, in perfect harmony, each confirming the other, as they were never seen anywhere else. But what was the effect? "If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: 'They hated me without a cause'" (verses 24, 25).

His infinite perfection let Him say in an absolute way that they hated Him "without a cause." Those who sought to destroy Him were wrongfully His enemies. What is more, His enemies were many and strong. He had to meet more than one man's hostility. At the cross He met the hatred of a nation, led by its powerful leaders. Of Him the proverbial saying was true: "I restored that which I took not away." As another writer put it, that is the same as saying, "I am treated as guilty, though I was innocent."

Our Lord pleads that He was not guilty of the wrong, yet it was His to make good the right. His causeless enemies were countless; they were as strong as they were false; and where He was unrighteously charged, He walked in grace, seeking at all cost nothing but Jehovah's glory.

If robbing a fellow man is condemned like this, how can the sin of robbing God be met? How can those who are already sinners make restitution to Him? It is impossible. Left to ourselves, we must have stayed under the consequences of our trespasses for ever. But we read in the Psalms of One who said, "Then I restored that which I took not away." He was the trespass offering as well as the sin and burnt offerings. So He has made full and adequate restitution — we can say this, if we believe — for all our trespasses.

Christ was pleased to become Israel's neighbour, and it was against Him that Israel committed the trespass. Under the law of the trespass offering, then, it was Israel who should have made amends and offered the sacrifice. But what could Israel do, lying stripped, wounded and half dead by the road? Though He was the One sinned against, He Himself did what the trespasser should have done. Instead of demanding from them the penalty of their trespass, He took their place and offered Himself as their trespass offering.

That is connected with the trespass offering. There a man had to add a fifth part to what he had taken away. If man has robbed God of His glory, Christ has restored it. But if that were all He had done, man would have returned only to the position he lost by his sin. The added fifth part brings God a revenue of glory. That glory gives a basis for His eternal counsel, and it puts man in a new place in heavenly blessing.

The first man Adam robbed God of His glory. He abandoned obedience to God and dependence on Him. He became consumed with self-interest and self-seeking. The second Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, was marked by complete obedience and dependence. He stood so completely with the interests and glory of God that when anyone wanted to hurl insults at God, the insults fell on His head. So, having taken man's true place, He restored to God as Man the place that was truly His as God.

Here the Lord fully expresses the well-known and well-defined position He is in before God, in His ways as well as in His sorrows. The waters had come into His soul. His enemies were there, and they were mighty. But even here, when He speaks of foolishness and sins, which we know belonged to others and not to Himself, He speaks fully in the presence of God, with everything in the light. "You know my foolishness; and my sins are not hidden from You." His whole case is before God, and God knows it.

He willingly took the place of sin-bearer, and in the language of Psalm 69:5 He confesses our sins as His own: "my sins are not hidden from You." Also, when the work of the sacrifice is finished, Scripture mentions no "atonement for" Him and no "forgiveness." He whose love led Him to take our judgment on Himself could not be forgiven, and no atonement could be made for Him.

Substitution happened only on the cross, as it is written, "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin." Our Lord meant His identification with the remnant at His baptism to be permanent — that is, effective. He also knew what the result must be for atonement. This is so true that in Psalm 69:5 He says, "You know my foolishness, and my sins are not hidden from You." Of course this "foolishness" and these "sins" were those of His people. God had not yet made Him the sin-bearer. But in the purpose of His heart, He had joined Himself to His people so completely that He can call their sins His own from the moment He identified Himself with them.

And who, as the Trespass-offering in the sixty-ninth psalm, "restoring what He took not away," says yet again, "My trespasses are not hidden from You"? Yet here we have only that same truth of representation. Substitution is the result of it in suffering and sacrifice.

There is, first, the direct appropriation of the sin and folly of His people as His own. What He realised on the cross as the Substitute of His people, He is here contemplating in advance as His own. His thoughts were on the hour for which He had come into the world, and His desire is toward those who seek the name of His God. There is a wonderful tenderness and beauty in the order of these verses. Intercession for His own is closely blended with the pouring out of His weary yet willing spirit.

It is easier to feel for God's people when their sinful conduct dishonours them in the eyes of the world. But only some can measure their sin as it affects the holy Name they bear. They go down, take up the sin, make it their own, and tell it all out before God. These are the ones in communion with the mind of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. They share His affections for His own, and they are first and foremost filled with zeal for His glory. Moses, Nehemiah and Daniel are examples of this in their various measures, as well as Ezra. But all of them are only faint foreshadowings of Him who so identified Himself with His people that in confessing their sins He said, "O God, You know my foolishness; and my sins are not hidden from You."

His whole case is before God, and God knows it. It is not merely the sorrows and effects of sin down here. So, as I have said, He pleads for other godly ones. What touching grace in such a case! He must suffer the full depths of rejection, and He has taken it all on Himself. He asks that He may not become a cause of stumbling to the godly, the remnant who waited on God. That was very likely. Men had rejected Him, and few believed His word, so He seemed to be rejected. Hearts were quick to say, "But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel."

He waits on God (v. 3); but there are others who wait on the Lord of hosts. For them He looks to God. He asks that the sufferings of the One they looked to for redemption may not put them to shame and confusion.

Verse 6: He desires that no one may stumble or take offence because of His shame and sorrow (Matthew 11:6). Instead they should learn that He bore it for others. For the affliction of the righteous One will be an offence to those who do not understand and value this. His sorrows from the hand of man were for God's glory in the world. His sorrows from the hand of God were for our atonement and salvation forever.

What He realised on the cross as the Substitute of His people, He is here contemplating in advance as His own. Enemies were around Him, more in number than the hairs of His head. But His thoughts were on the hour for which He had come into the world, and His desire is toward those who seek the name of His God. The order of these verses has a wonderful tenderness and beauty. His prayer for His own is closely blended with the pouring out of His weary yet willing spirit.

In verse 5, then, it is clear that the Lord speaks as the representative of all believers. God knows their foolishness and sins well. So He allows no reason for those who wait for God — believers — to be ashamed or confounded. Just the opposite. It is beautiful, too, that He addresses God not simply as His God, but as the God of Israel — the people with whom He has graciously identified Himself.

Psalm 69. The deep tenderness and aim of this psalm is that "he was heard because of his reverence." We may also notice the gracious use the Lord makes of these things in His prayer. As we have seen before, this deliverance gives confidence to the humble: "When the humble see it they will be glad." So they were the objects of His concern in verse 6.

Our Psalm is not about the sufferings He bore when His soul was made an offering for sin. His atoning sufferings were from God, as we see in Psalm 22. Here the sufferings are endured for God. Verse 7 states it plainly: "For it is for Your sake that I have borne reproach." All through, this is the dominant note. By the spirit of prophecy we see the holy, dependent Man fully identified with God's interests. That is why He went down into death.

This raises the question: what was it that brought Christ into reproach? Psalm 69:7-9 give the answer. There we hear the Lord saying, "Zeal for Your house has consumed Me." He was zealous for God in the middle of a God-hating nation. As a result men treated Him as a "stranger" and an "alien." His zeal brought Him into the outside place of reproach and shame. He represented God in a world that hated God. His presence among men gave them an occasion to express their hatred. They poured out their hatred of God on Christ.

The Lord could say, "For it is for Your sake that I have borne reproach" (Ps. 69:7); but no reproach could be brought against Him for any evil way. On the contrary, men had to say, "He has done all things well" (Mark 7:37). We too are privileged to suffer reproach for His Name, but let us beware of anything in our ways and words unfitting for the children of God.

There are two distinct aspects of Christ's sufferings... One was for righteousness, and brings judgment; the other for sin, and brings blessing... The first aspect of Christ's suffering is from man: it is man against God manifest in flesh. Christ suffered because He was righteous and for righteousness' sake, at the hands of men. He suffered for God. "For Your sake I have borne reproach. The reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me." In all these sufferings, it is our privilege to suffer with Him. Sadly, how little fellowship we have with Christ in His sufferings!

With divine delight His God and Father has glorified the One who suffered reproach for His sake (Ps. 69:7). Now faith sees Him whose "appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and His form beyond that of the children of mankind," in all the beauty, majesty and glory of heaven.

He suffered as the holy victim under the judgment of God: He endured as the patient martyr under the reproach of men. We cannot share His sufferings at the hand of God, but it is our privilege to share the insults He received at the hands of men. He went outside the camp to bear our judgment: we go outside the camp to bear His reproach.

If through any little faithfulness on our part we find ourselves deserted, opposed and insulted, even by many of the people of God, let us remember Christ. In His perfect path He was always faithful to God, and He went about doing good to men. Yet His faithfulness kept Him always in reproach.

Psalm 69 is the righteous One. Here He is not forsaken by God in atonement for sin, as in Psalm 22. He is crushed under man's hatred and reproach. His enemies hate Him without a cause, though zeal for God's house has eaten Him up. Yet He takes it all from God's hand. He owns that God has smitten Him, and so He looks and prays for vengeance, not grace.

This raises the question, what was it that brought Christ into reproach? Psalm 69:7-9 give the answer. There we hear the Lord saying, "Zeal for your house has consumed Me." He was zealous for God in the middle of a nation that hated God. So they treated Him as a "stranger" and an "alien". His zeal brought Him into the outside place of reproach and shame. He represented God in a world that hated God.

Origen said that Scripture nowhere speaks of them as Mary's children, and this learned writer quotes him. The statement is certainly wrong: see Psalm 69:8. Neither of these truly great scholars, presumably, would have denied that this psalm speaks of the Messiah.

To His own brothers (according to the flesh) He had become a stranger (v. 8). John 7:3-5 records the scornful words of unbelief that His brothers spoke to Him. They did not believe in Him until after His sacrifice on Calvary.

This scripture does not mean that we may refuse natural relationships. To be "without natural affection" is one of the features of the "perilous times" (2 Timothy 3). What we have here is completely different. Before His public ministry began He was "subject to" Joseph and Mary, and in that relationship, as in every other, He was perfect, and so our blessed example. But then came His baptism and anointing, and He entered on His service. He had come to do the will of God, and until His work was finished He was devoted wholly to the glory of God. From then on the claims of God absorbed Him, and the zeal of His Father's house consumed Him. So He became a stranger to His brothers, and an alien to His mother's children... When His work was ended, He committed Mary, in the tenderness of His perfect love, to the care of the disciple whom He loved.

David, anointed king of Israel, was used by God to bring a mighty deliverance; but first he had to submit to a long trial of faith. Saul, who should have been the first to acknowledge what God had done by his hand, professed not to know him (1 Samuel 17:56)... "I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother's sons" (Psalm 69:8) tells of the deep sorrow of a loving heart, forced into such isolation by faithfulness to God. In its application to the blessed Lord Jesus it finds its perfect fulfilment in Him alone. He entered more fully than any other into every kind of suffering that can come on the servant of God in the world.

In Psalm 69 He is not absolutely alone. Many a saint has known what it is to suffer from evil men, because he is identified with God's Name and cause. He is immeasurably pre-eminent in this, but there are others.