Scripture Reading: Psa. 69; Psa. 70; Psa. 71 Psa. 72
In this message we will consider Psalms 69 through 72. Whereas Psalms 69 and 72 are on Christ, Psalms 70 and 71 are typical examples of psalms that are the pious expressions uttered out of the complex sentiments of the psalmists.
Psalm 69 is on the suffering Christ typified by the suffering David, and Psalm 72 is on the reigning Christ typified by the reigning Solomon. David was a warrior who won victories and gained territories for God's kingdom, yet his life was a life of suffering, and in his suffering he was a type of the suffering Christ. Psalm 72 is actually a psalm on King Solomon, a type of Christ as the reigning One. Thus, David, the father, typified one aspect of Christ, and Solomon, the son, typified another aspect of Christ. After His life of suffering on earth, typified by the sufferings of David, Christ ascended to the heavens where He is now reigning as the King, typified by Solomon. From this we see that the suffering Christ has become the reigning Christ. The subject of this message, therefore, is "The Suffering Christ and the Reigning Christ."
Let us now go on to consider Psalms 69—72 one by one.
Unlike Isaiah 53, which speaks of Christ's sufferings in a general way, calling Him the Man of sorrows, Psalm 69 speaks of Christ's sufferings in a detailed way.
In Psalm 69 Christ is typified by the suffering David (vv. 1-3, 19-20, 26).
"More numerous than the hairs of my head/Are those who hate me without cause" (v. 4a). This verse, which indicates that Christ was hated by many without cause, was quoted by the Lord Jesus Himself in John 15:25.
Psalm 69:7 says, "Because for Your sake I have borne reproach;/Humiliation has covered my face." Verse 9b, quoted by Paul in Romans 15:3, says, "The reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me." Christ suffered in bearing reproaches for the sake of God.
"For the zeal of Your house has devoured me" (Psa. 69:9a). This verse is quoted in John 2:17 in relation to Christ's cleansing of the temple.
In this psalm we see also that Christ suffered much and that no one took pity upon Him (vv. 29a, 19-20; John 16:32).
Christ suffered in His weeping and entreating God to deliver Him out of the waters of death (1-2, Psa. 69:10, 13-17). Speaking of Christ, Hebrews 5:7 says that He "offered up both petitions and supplications with strong crying and tears to Him who was able to save Him out of death."
Psalm 69:21a says, "They gave me gall for my food." In Matthew 27:34 we are told that Christ was given gall as His food while suffering on the cross.
"In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink" (Psa. 69:21b). While the Lord Jesus was suffering on the cross, He said, "I thirst," and mockingly they gave Him vinegar to drink (John 19:28-30).
"They persecute him whom You have stricken,/And they recount the pain of those whom You have wounded" (Psa. 69:26). This indicates that Christ was stricken and wounded by God (Isa. 53:10a).
Christ was betrayed by one of His disciples (Psa. 69:25; Acts 1:16-20a).
Even in such a good psalm concerning Christ, there is a portion that falls short of the divine revelation. I am referring to Psalm 69:22-24, 27-28, verses which are the psalmist's expression from his complex sentiments concerning his enemies.
Psalm 70 is a prayer of the psalmist.
In verses 1, 4, and 5 the psalmist seeks for God's deliverance. There is surely nothing wrong with this. On the contrary, here we have a good example of seeking God's deliverance, His salvation. In verse 1 the psalmist prays, "O God, hasten to deliver me;/O Jehovah, hasten to help me." This prayer is quite good. In verses 4 and 5 the psalmist continues his prayer, saying, "May all those who seek You/Be glad and rejoice in You;/And may those who love Your salvation/Say continually,/May God be magnified!/But I am poor and needy;/O God, hasten to me./You are my help and my Deliverer;/O Jehovah, do not delay."
"May those who seek my life/Be put to shame and confounded;/May those who take delight in my misfortune/Be turned back and humiliated;/May those who say, Aha! Aha!/Turn away because of their shame" (vv. 2-3). These verses, which surely are inferior to the prayer for deliverance in verses 1, 4, and 5, are another instance of the psalmist's expression from his complex sentiments concerning his enemies. David found it very difficult to forget his enemies.
Psalm 71 is about the psalmist's trust in God and his praise to God.
Verses 1 through 12 are about the psalmist's trust in God. In verse 5 he says, "You are my hope, O Lord Jehovah,/My trust from my youth."
Verses 6b, 8, and 14 through 24 are the psalmist's praise to God. In verse 6b he says, "My praise is continually of You," and in verse 8 he declares, "My mouth is full of Your praise, /With Your glory, all day long."
Even in this good psalm about trusting in God and praising Him, the psalmist does not forget his enemies. In verse 13 he says, "May those who are the adversaries to my soul/Be put to shame and consumed;/May those who seek my misfortune /Wrap themselves in reproach and humiliation." This word is a repetition of 70:2. Once again, this is the psalmist's expression from his complex sentiments concerning his enemies.
The reigning Christ is typified in Psalm 72 by the reigning Solomon, the son of David (Matt. 1:1; 22:42), in his prosperous and flourishing time. This is indicated by the title of this psalm, "Of Solomon," and by the first verse: "O God, give Your judgments to the king,/And Your righteousness to the son of the king.
The reign of Christ typified by Solomon will be in the millennium in the age of restoration (Rev. 20:4, 6; Matt. 19:28).
"He will judge Your people in righteousness,/And Your poor with justice./The mountains will bear peace to the people,/And the hills, in righteousness" (Psa. 72:2-3). This indicates that the reigning of Christ will be in righteousness and in justice for peace. He will be feared by the people throughout the generations as long as the sun and the moon endure (vv. 4-5).
As Christ reigns, He will drop like rain upon mown grass and like abundant showers dripping on the earth for the flourishing of the righteous and for abundance of peace on earth as long as the moon lasts (vv. 6-7).
Verse 8 says, "He will have dominion from sea to sea/And from the River unto the ends of the earth." From "sea to sea" means from the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea. The river mentioned here is the Euphrates. As Christ exercises His dominion, all the nations will serve Him (vv. 9-11).
Verses 12 through 15 speak of Christ's favor to the needy and their response to Him. He will deliver the needy when he cries, and the poor when there is no one to help him. He will have pity on the weak and needy and will save the souls of the needy, redeeming their soul from oppression. Verse 15 tells us of the response of the needy to the reigning of Christ. "He shall live and to Him shall be given/The gold of Sheba; /And prayer shall be made continually for Him;/He shall be blessed all the day long."
In verse 16 we see that the reigning of Christ will be a blessing to all the earth in prosperity. "There will be an abundance of grain on the earth,/Even at the tops of the mountains./Its fruit will wave like the forests of Lebanon,/And those of the city will blossom like the foliage of the earth." Then in verse 17 we have the response of the blessed ones to Him. "His name will be forever;/As long as the sun endures, His name will spread;/And men will be blessed in Him;/All the nations will call Him blessed."
"Blessed be Jehovah God, the God of Israel,/Who alone does wondrous deeds;/And blessed be His glorious name forever;/And may His glory fill the whole earth./Amen and Amen" (vv. 18-19). This is the psalmist's blessing to God as the closing word of Book 2 of the Psalms. Thus, verse 20 concludes, "The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended."
In the remainder of this message, I have the burden to say a word concerning the relation of the Psalms to the book of Job. Apparently these books are not related, but actually they are closely related.
Readers of the book of Job can easily understand that this book is about Job's sufferings. After reading this book, many Christians might think that Job is a good pattern for us today. Although he suffered so much, he did not blame God but still praised Him. These readers would agree with the following word from the book of James: "You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen his end from the Lord" (5:11). It is, of course, not wrong to use Job as a pattern of suffering with endurance; however, this understanding of Job is shallow.
Why did Job suffer? We know from the first two chapters of Job that God allowed Satan to damage Job, taking away his possessions and his children and even touching his body. Much of this book is the record of a long debate involving several parties: Job, his wife, his three friends, and Elihu. Eventually God came in to speak, asking Job one question after another in order to convince him that he was foolish and did not know anything and that he should stop his speaking. Job did not know God's purpose in allowing him to suffer, and in the entire book no answer is given to the question of why Job suffered so much.
The book of Job is a good match to the Psalms. Perhaps nearly half of the one hundred fifty psalms are the pious expressions of the complex sentiments of the psalmists, mainly complaining to God and asking Him to destroy the psalmists' enemies. We all need a clear view of this negative side of the Psalms. On the positive side, many of the Psalms give us a revelation concerning Christ. This revelation is mainly on Christ's person, work, exaltation, and position.
However, in the Psalms there is not much revelation, if any, on Christ's being life to us, Christ's dwelling in us and making His home in us, and on our living Christ in order to magnify Him. There is not such a thought in the Psalms. Instead, the Psalms give us the impression that we have to be godly, to fear God and to trust in Him, to keep the law, to maintain our integrity, and to be righteous, upright, just, and perfect. Seemingly, all this is right. Actually, the concept that we need to fear God, keep the law of God, and be just and righteous is wrong, for it is not according to the divine revelation. It is worthwhile for us to study the Psalms to appreciate Christ but not to appreciate other matters such as trusting in God. Apparently, the matter of trusting in God is right, but the way we trust in God may be wrong and the purpose of our trusting in God may also be wrong.
The basis for my speaking about the Psalms in this way is the New Testament with its twenty-seven books. The New Testament tells us that we have been crucified (Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20). Since we have been crucified and even buried (Rom. 6:4), there is no need for us to fear God. However, many of us live day by day as if we have not been crucified and buried. If this is our situation, then we are today's psalmists holding mistaken concepts about such matters as trusting in God, keeping the law, and being righteous.
We need to see the vision in Galatians 2:20: "I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me." Since we have been crucified and Christ now lives in us, it is no longer a matter of "I" fearing God or trusting in Him. The bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19) is not for us to fear God or to keep the law but for us to live Christ in order that Christ might be magnified (vv. 20-21). Christ must be our fear, our trust, our righteousness, our integrity, our perfection. To be perfect outside of Christ is wrong, and God condemns this kind of perfection just as He condemns imperfection. Only the living person of Christ is acceptable to God, justified by God, and approved by God.
I hope that one day your eyes will be open to see this. Then you will say, "God, now I know that You do not want anything of me. You want nothing but Christ. You want me to realize that I have been crucified, terminated, finished, so that I can live Christ and magnify Him."
In the upcoming Life-study of Job, we will see that much of what was spoken by Job, his wife, his friends, and Elihu was along the line of good and evil. This means that their speaking was according to the line of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. None of them, including Job, was along the line of the tree of life. At the end of the Bible, we see the tree of life (Rev. 22:2, 14). The tree of life is a matter of Christ, not of integrity or perfection.
May we all look to the Lord for His mercy that we may study the Psalms in the proper way. The Psalms present us a picture showing us that the human race is wrong in holding to the concept that God wants us to fear Him, to keep the law, and to be righteous, just, upright, and full of integrity. This concept is wrong; it is altogether the concept of the Old Testament under the law according to the knowledge of good and evil.
The concept in the New Testament is very different. The New Testament reveals that Christ came to die an all-inclusive death. When He died, we died; and when He was buried, we were buried. This is the reason that our believing in Christ needs to be followed by our being baptized into Christ and into His death (Rom. 6:3). The baptistry is our tomb, and we should remain in this tomb. Since we are dead and buried, how can we still fear God and keep the law? It is impossible for one who is dead and buried to do such things. Death has liberated us from the law (Rom. 7:1-6).
The New Testament also reveals that when Christ died, He ended the old creation. On the third day He was resurrected, and through His resurrection He regenerated us (1 Pet. 1:3) to be a new man, not a man of Adam and in Adam but a man of Christ and in Christ.
Many, however, are devoid of such a revelation. Lacking this revelation, you may come out of your tomb and go back to Adam and try to correct Adam, to build up Adam, to change Adam from bad to good. This is what you are doing when you try to keep the law in order to be perfect, righteous, and just and to have integrity. You are actually trying to improve fallen and degraded Adam. Many of today's Christians are doing this very thing.
Also, you may meet with the church without knowing the purpose of the church. You may think that the church is helping you to be good. No, the church is helping you to remain in your tomb so that you will no longer be the one living but that Christ will be the One living in you. In the church we are being helped to realize, with Paul, that we have been crucified, that it is no longer we who live, that Christ lives in us, and that now we should care only for one thing — to live Christ that we may magnify Christ.
Whereas many of us are remaining in Job or in the Psalms, we need to be brought by these two books into the New Testament economy. I would ask you to compare Job and the Psalms with the fourteen Epistles of Paul. If you make such a comparison, you will realize that Paul's Epistles are vastly superior to Job and the Psalms.
Before Paul was saved, he boasted in the righteousness of the law, but after he was saved he considered that kind of righteousness as dung, as refuse (Phil. 3:8-9). Can you say this about your own goodness, righteousness, justice, and integrity? Do you hate these things and count them as dung? On the contrary, you may treasure these human virtues. But these are the virtues of a dead person, and God does not want them, for they are something of Adam and in Adam. God wants only those virtues that are in Christ and of Christ, the virtues that come by living Christ and magnifying Christ.
If you see this, you will repent not only for being bad but also for being good. Both are of the same tree — the tree of the knowledge of good and evil — and both are rejected by God. As we go through the Psalms message by message, I hope that this will become increasingly clear to you.
My concern in all these messages is for the divine revelation. I hope that you will receive this revelation and thereby come to know what God's eternal economy is. God's economy is to terminate us and to put us into the tomb so that we may receive Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God. Having received Him into us, we should let Him live in us, no longer caring for our righteousness, justice, or integrity but caring only for Christ, the living One. It is a great thing to see that we have been crucified and that it is no longer we who live but that it is Christ who lives in us. If we realize this, we will care only for Christ, and we will eagerly receive the revelation in Paul's Epistles concerning Christ.
