Preaching Christ in All of Scripture by Edmund P. Clowney

Author:Edmund P. Clowney
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Christian, Christian Ministry, General, Religion, Preaching, Biblical Studies, Christology, Sermons, Christian Theology
ISBN: 9781581344523
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2003-06-05T22:00:00+00:00

(Psalm 22:1)

SPIKED TO A CROSS BEAM on a hilltop, he cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” From the prisons and torture chambers of human savagery, victims still scream. Yet Jesus on the cross was not a victim. His lifting up on the cross was part of that lifting up by which he would draw all men to him. His cry came not from the pain of the spikes, nor from the crushing pressure on his chest, but from the agony of his soul.

His heavenly Father forsook Jesus on the cross. God does sometimes forsake sinners, giving them up to their rebellion, lust, and pride. In the folly of their delusion, they do not know the joy they have lost or the hell they have gained. But the cry of Jesus was the agony that bore the curse for us.

A CRY FROM THE DEPTHS

A Cry of Anguish

The cry from the cross was a cry from the depths. The twenty-second Psalm is a psalm of the lament of an individual. David was the author of many of these psalms. In his years in the wilderness, pursued by the jealous King Saul, David called on the Lord for deliver-132

PREACHING CHRIST IN ALL OF SCRIPTURE

ance. Later, surrounded by hostile kingdoms, David continued to seek the presence of the Lord, his refuge, his shield, his strength. He claimed the promise that the Lord would never leave him nor forsake him. In Psalm 22, David alternates the description of his suffering with confessions of trust in Yahweh.

The vivid figures of his suffering that David used we now see to be prophetic of the agonies of crucifixion—the thirst of the Crucified, the piercing of his hands and feet, the shame of his nakedness, and the gambling of the soldiers for his clothing. His thirst is the very dust of death.

A Cry of Abandonment

Mockers of the suffering King ridicule his claims. Let God save him, if indeed God delights in him as his chosen (Ps. 22:6-8; Matt. 27:39-44). They surround the Sufferer like savage bulls, wild oxen, dogs, or lions. In their jeering at the Crucified, we see the malice of the prince of darkness. Yet the taunt, “He saved others, himself he cannot save,”

is gospel truth (Matt. 27:42). Because he came to save others, he would not save himself. There was no other way, as Jesus knew in Gethsemane.

In the crush of persecutors his helpers are gone. “My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague, and my nearest kin stand far off ” (Ps. 38:11, ESV; 88:8). “And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things” (Luke 23:49, ESV). Yet the cry of Jesus does not lament the absence of his friends, but the absence of his Father. His Helper is gone! God had promised never to forsake his own: “Call to me and I will answer you” (Jer. 33:3, ESV). The saving power of God’s right hand was never shortened so that he could not save (Isa.

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