Psalms 31, 38, 40
“Into Thine hand I commit My spirit” (Psalm 31:5, KJV).
In this Golgotha psalm is found the last words of Jesus. These are the words of faith, Jesus’ prayer of faith. Christ gave Himself up in a special manner to God, the Father. Christ resigned Himself entirely to His keeping. Rather than come down from the cross to save Himself, as He was tempted to do, He was obedient unto death (Matthew 27:39-43; Philippians 2:8). In total submission to and through faith in the Father, Christ died. He voluntarily made Himself an offering for our sins. He died that we might live. He was “made to be sin for us” so “that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Not only do we have Christ’s dying words, we also hear His words in confession in the process of dying:
“Have mercy on Me, O Lord, for I am in trouble; My eye wastes away with grief, Yes, My soul and My body! For My life is spent with grief, and My years with sighing; My strength fails because of My iniquity, and My bones waste away. I am a reproach among all My enemies, but especially among My neighbors, and am repulsive to My acquaintances; those who see outside flee from Me” (verses 9-11).
In previous verses Christ appealed to God’s righteousness, and pleaded His relation to Him along with dependence upon Him. Here He appeals to God’s mercy. The remembrance Christ makes of His condition is like that of every human being. His troubles were deeply embedded in His mind and nervous system, and made Him a Man of sorrows (Isaiah 53:3-6). So great was Christ’s grief, that His very soul was consumed in it, His life was spent by it, and He continually sighed because of it. Christ was intimately acquainted with grief. He was often in tears.
His body was affected with the sorrows of His mind (Psalm 31:10). He confesses sin as though it was His own. This was your sin and my sin in which He had no share, but which He took upon Himself as His own. He confesses this sin as though He deserved the affliction that came upon Him. He freely confesses this iniquity as having been the cause of all His trouble. The sense of sin touched Him to the very core of His being, and wasted Him more than all His calamities. Christ’s appearance became repulsive to those who looked at Him.
Psalm 38, the third of seven penitential prayers, is typical of the deep sorrow one experiences in heart-felt repentance for sin. Here is witnessed the pouring forth of depressed feelings. Here is seen and felt the distress of mind and body because of sin. Both mental and physical disorientation are described. David, author of this psalm, wrote of his agony because of personal sin. His experience is representative of mankind when convicted of sin.
But more than this, David’s experience of repentance foreshadowed Christ’s experience when He would be “made to be sin for us.” David not only was the father of Christ’s humanity, he was also a figure or a type of Christ. Jesus experienced soul anguish to a degree that none other can experience, for He took upon Himself all the sins of mankind. This psalm must be studied in the light of Christ’s repentance.
In the psalms the Holy Spirit speaks in the person of Christ. In several He testifies in clear words that Christ “has” sin, but it’s not His own. These are the words of a suffering Christ as He was made guilty for the sins of the world. These are not the words of an innocent person. To study Christ in the psalms is to study Christ the Public Man, the Representative Man, the Corporate Man. He is the second Adam. He became the Head of a race that willed to sin. Christ was “made to be sin for us.”
In the first two verses of Psalm 38, arrows as instruments of death symbolize judgment and condemnation. Beginning with verse 3 we read of the condition of human nature: “There is no soundness in my flesh.” There is a weakness or a tendency to sin in human nature that comes to everyone through the law of heredity.
The reality of the awfulness of sin is also described.
There is “no health in my bones because of my sin” (no shalom, no “peace” or cessation from suffering). “Christ suffered for us in the flesh.” “He learned obedience from the things which He suffered” (1 Peter 4:1; Hebrews 5:8). Depression affects the bone marrow where most of the white and all the red blood cells are produced. Thus depression affects the body’s disease fighting mechanism. “A broken spirit, “writes the wise man, “dries the bones” (Proverbs 17:22).
From where did Christ get sin? The Father “made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us.” “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (2 Corinthians 5:21; Isaiah 53:6). Christ took our sins as His own. Psalm 38:4, “My iniquities have gone over My head; like a heavy burden they are too heavy for Me.” This verse emphasizes the meaning of verse 3. In Psalm 40:12 we read the prophetic utterance, “They are more than the hairs of My head.”
Sin is compared to waters that threaten to drown a person. The unbearable burden of sin is like the pounding waves of the sea. The sin of the world overwhelmed Christ and flooded over His head. This may suggest confusion of thought and dullness of mind from the pain and weight of the guilt of sin. His heart gave out because of this enormous weight of guilt and condemnation caused by sin.
Not all the psalms about Jesus are pleasant pictures concerning Him. Many present Him “touched with the feelings of our infirmities.” Our sins became His. They were considered as festering, foul smelling wounds. A more literal reading of Psalm 38:5 is: “My sores have come to stink or smell badly and have decomposed.” They are likened to wounds or bruises or as marks from a blow that send forth an offensive putrid odor (compare Isaiah 1:6; 53:5). To “stink” means to give off a strong unpleasant odor. Sin is abhorrent and offensive to Christ who must bear it.
The cross stank. It was a scandal. It represented sin so offensive that it offended or shocked the moral feelings of a community. Christ, made to be sin itself, was an offensive odor to those around Him and loathsome to God. But out of that foul odor comes to us sweet smelling incense, even the righteousness of God.
Christ recognized He was in trouble. Entering into Gethsemane, He staggered like a drunken man. His countenance changed. His thoughts troubled Him. His knees knocked against each other more than did Belshazzar’s when he saw the handwriting on the wall. “I am troubled [literally ‘bent down’], I am bowed down greatly” (verse 6). He was bent down from depression and heart sickness. There was a convulsive drawing together of His body. He was bent down and sank with sorrow. Especially was this so in His Gethsemane experience. Bent in a fetal position Christ shook with a nameless terror as waves of nausea and panic swept over Him. In that position His internal muscles and organs seemed on fire. An intense burning, like a fever, spread throughout the body (verse 7).
There came over Him an almost total lifelessness, like the rigidity of a corpse. See Him being brought into the condition of a crushing violent dissolution. His groans were more like the roaring of a wild beast than of a man, expressing the raging pain in His mind and soul (verses 8 and 9; compare Psalm 22:1, 2).
Forsaken by family and friend, not one wanted to be associated with Him, while His enemies desired His death (verses 11 and 12; compare Luke 23:21; Deuteronomy 21:23; John 19:7).
In verses 13-16 we read of His response to the charges against Him. He pays no attention to the plots of His enemies. The consciousness of guilt and resignation closes His lips, so that He is not able nor does He wish to refute the false charges of His enemies. He has no counter-evidence by which to vindicate Himself. In the consciousness of imputed sin He is obliged to be silent, and renouncing all self-help, He abandons His cause to God. Here we observe “the faith of Jesus.”
Next we read of His repentance.
Mental pain and alarm, anxiety, fear and terror, all are depicted in the following passage: “I am ready to fall, and my sorrow is continually before me” (Psalm 38:17). “Surely He has borne our iniquities and carried our sorrows. … He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4, 5).
In the six months preceding the baptism of Jesus, the preaching of John the Baptizer stirred Judah. Many came to be baptized by him. They came in repentance, “confessing their sins” (Matthew 3:6). Others went through the motions of repentance and confession in order to become part of that growing movement of believers who anticipated the soon coming of the expected Messiah. With keen spiritual eyesight, John called on those so-called professors to bring forth fruits of repentance.
Jesus also at the call of God made His way to where John was baptizing. As Jesus took the steps in conversion preceding baptism—repentance and faith, John held back from baptizing Him. John sensed the purity of this Man. He felt he should be baptized by Jesus. Christ then spoke to John of the importance of doing this. “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15).
True repentance has faith within itself. While the convicted but believing mind despairs of itself, it does not do so of God. So it was with Christ.
Psalm 38:18 records, “I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin” (NRSV). Christ was fully conscious of the guilt and punishment of sin unto death. He reaped man’s sowing. Strength of life, prosperity, good health comes to the wicked, but weakness and death to Christ. This is what Christ chose when He decided to become a human being.
But was not Christ innocent?
Personally, yes. But when He became flesh, He became guilty, condemned, and subject to the curse as He took the place of mankind. “And the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). All the committed sins of the world were placed upon Him. And through the law of heredity, sin in its tendency was also laid upon Him.
Because He took upon Himself our fallen nature, His righteous character had to be by faith. The righteousness of Jesus was not by human nature, but by faith alone. Christ always followed that which is good (Psalm 38:20). This was the reason for the intense hatred against Him. Man could only stand three and a half years of His faith-righteousness. They rendered evil for His sinless life.
Christ’s life of righteousness by faith was a stumbling block during and after His personal mission on earth. It was a stumbling block for His family and for His people. Family members attempted to break His faith in God. But Christ refused to follow them in evil.
In Psalm 38:21,22 we read His last appeal. He closed His petitions with sighs of agony for help. But none came. Christ died as He lived—with faith. Christ’s life was one of faith. He was born by faith. He was sanctified by faith. In short, He lived by faith. And Christ writhing in the agonies of death, died in faith.
Psalm 40 predicts the coming of Christ into the world to do God’s will: “Burnt offerings and sin offering You did not require. Then I said, ‘Behold, I come; in the scroll of the Book it is written of Me. I delight to do Your will, O My God’” (Psalm 40:6-8). Hebrews 10:5-9 verifies Christ in this psalm:
“Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure. Then I said ‘Behold, I have come—in the volume of the book it is written of Me—to do Your will, O God.’ Previously saying, ‘Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor had pleasure in them’ (which are offered according to the law), then He said, ‘Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God.’ He takes away the first that He may establish the second.”
Psalm 40 predicted Christ’s voluntary submission to the Father’s will in the words: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; My ears You have opened” (verse 6). Exodus 21:1-6 records the relationship between a voluntary slave and his master. After serving a certain number of years, the slave was to go free during the year of release. But if he chose to stay, the master bore a hole through his ear. This signified that the servant’s ears would always remain open to the command of the master. The servant would always obey. In coming to this earth Christ took the form of a servant. In our human nature His ears were always open to obey the word of God. And through His obedience we are made righteous (Romans 5:19). Christ delighted to do the Father’s will because His law was written on His heart.
And when we are born from above we are brought into harmony with God’s law. Never are we justified by obedience to the law; neither are we justified from keeping it; but we are justified in order to obey it. Justification by faith carries the law of God on the face of it. This justification is the law incarnate in Christ and then placed in us by grace when we accept Christ. To be made righteous means to be brought into harmony with God’s law of righteousness.
We see clearly that the Holy Spirit applied Psalm 40 to Christ. Christ is pictured as taking our sins as His own. This is what broke His heart.
“I delight to do Your will, O My God, and Your law is within My heart. I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness in the great congregation; indeed, I do not restrain my lips, O Lord, You Yourself know. I have not hidden Your righteousness within My heart; I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation; I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth from the great congregation. Do not withhold Your tender mercies from Me, O Lord; let Your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve Me. For innumerable evils have surrounded me; My iniquities have overtaken Me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of My head; therefore My heart fails Me” (verses 8-12).
Christ did not sin, but He took ours as His own. Christ gave Himself for our sins (Galatians 1:4). “The Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). Because of the pressure and stress of the burden of the guilt and condemnation from our sins that were laid upon Him, His heart gave out. Our iniquities, which He took as His own, were more than the number of the hairs on His sacred head. And although He could not look up because of the weight of those sins, yet the faith of Jesus was triumphant. In the verses that follow we read the praises that poured forth from the mouth of Jesus:
“Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver Me; O Lord, make haste to help Me! Let them be ashamed and brought to mutual confusion who seek to destroy My life; let them be driven backward and brought to dishonor who wish Me evil. Let them be appalled because of their shame, who say to Me, ‘Aha, aha!’ Let all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; let such as love Your salvation say continually, ‘The Lord be magnified!’ but I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinks upon Me. You are My help and My deliverer; do not delay, O My God” (Psalm 40:13-17).
From this we may learn that because Christ was made to be sin for us, God will not turn from any person whose iniquities are more than the hairs of his head! To the one who is burdened down with guilt and condemnation from personal sin, Christ offers to take the weary load. He understands from experience what it means to feel guilty and condemned.