AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH July 17, 2011
A Presbyterian Church following the Bible without Qualification
and the Lord Jesus Christ
without Compromise by Faith
THE CALAMITOUS TRIUMPH
IN THE PSALMS
PSALM 22
THE GREATEST GRAPHIC OF ALL TIME
PART II
II The Finding of the Cost
Psalm 22:19-25
THE UPSET 19-21
19-21 Application
It is now ready for action: the tableau is set. To be sure, a Roman centurion and his companions will see Him as He is and confess the Christ (Matthew 27:54), just as one of those crucified with Him did; but those are outcomes. It is still a matter of the divine investment, and the income from it, for the situation to yield the complete victory. Pity is not assassinated; and if the donkeys hee-haw at Him, yet "Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing!" is the historic cry of the enduring love of the heart of Christ. There are no qualifications, exclusions on the fervour and ferment, the force and the depth in this entreaty; for the love that sent is the love meant, for one as for all (Luke 23:34).
You can add to the word of God, but you cannot subtract from His heart!
Equally you can add to those saved and redeemed, but you cannot secure more than God has done. He gave all for all; but only in the places where it is received is the essential payment of redemption made as in Deuteronomy 29. As it was in Israel, so is the transfer principle amid the Gentiles (Romans 8:32, cf. Matthew 26:28). When the gift is received for those in whose place Christ was delivered up, then as directly stated, these have all things. Reception at this level is redemption, and this is eternal (Hebrews 9:12, 10:10,14, 6:19, John 5:24, Romans 5:1-2), despite the will-o'-the-wisp flickers of a false faith that never comes to flame (Matthew 13:14,18-20). Accordingly, the 'delivered Him up for us all' of Romans 8:32 represents those reached, chosen and paid for, in company with Paul, precisely as in Isaiah 53:1-6, those healed by stripes ('we') are that group whose sins He bears ('the sins of us all').
Christ is offered TO all, but when it is true He is for you actually delivered up, that is final. It is as useless to add to the word of God in order to add to His kingdom, as it is to subtract from His love to make the chosen into mysteriously eligible souls, with a dark hinterland of mere abandonment sadly left out. The actual case: those passed over are the very ones perceived to prefer darkness in the very presence and knowledge of God from before time, deeds or the sins of mankind were there. Light has converts not conscripts.
God is who He is; and making Him what He is not, this is an abandonment, not of souls, but of His word. He gave all for all (I John 2:1-2), and it has reached many according to His word, with eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12,15). Sacrifice did not avail without the hands of faith, laid on the lamb, as it does not without faith, redeem any. Nor is it at the hands of any, but God who knows all, acts, finding from the all sought, the some saved (John 1:12, 3:15-17, Romans 8:29ff.).
The agony of the Messiah, in the predicted realms of the vindictive, the vicious, the swaggering cursers and the dark-souled detractors, is at this point nearly completed ({s.22:1-21). The height of virtue having been viewed as vermin, and the wonder of truth as fiction, the glory of sacrificial love as weak, the cry goes up, and the curtain is about to fall, not only on His act of redemption, but as torn apart in the Temple; for it is HE who NOW has made open the way to the holy of holies where the blood has been placed for centuries: His own now once and for all the payment. Time is now nearly up, so He cries to His Father, "Save Me!"
21 Answer
"You have answered Me."
Never forget that call and answer. In it lies the base for spiritual life and the pathway for faith in His disciples. In Him it was perfected. As He called on His Father WHO ALWAYS HEARD Him, at the tomb of Lazarus, not that there was then any doubt about that delayed and therefore more sure resurrection of His friend, a call made so that the people might see the due sequence and be taught a laboratory lesson about prayer and its efficacy: so now He calls for His own sacrifice to be concluded. The funding of the cost now reaches to the power of God in the resurrection of Christ. This seeming rag of ruin, despatched, despoiled, degraded, butt of impudence, scene for horror aghast, vicarious ruin of sin, its very display unit, is now to be resurrected, in normal intense purity and utter vindication; and more, index of our future who believe in Him (cf. Isaiah 26:19, I Corinthians 15, Romans 1:4)! What then did He do ? He cried to His Father. And what did HE do ? He held His Spirit and resurrected His body, as predicted, three days later with the utmost resolve and despatch.
The answer met the cry, as left hand meets right hand, when the hands are clasped.
III The Fishing for the Found
Psalm 22:26-31
THE TRIUMPH AND THE PRAISE 22-29
22 His Declaration
This feat of God is to be featured, focussed. So when God heals you, as He has done at various times some of my own bodily vulnerabilities, you should not hide it. My right eye was in imminent danger, and the specialist confessed he had no adequate answer. But on the third day, in answer to prayer and anointing as in James, it was fully restored and has been ever since, an excellent thing for vision, which he has assessed (admittedly with glasses), in the figure, 100 out of 100. Praise God.
Then, many years later, my heart became irregular in test after test. Confidently and assuredly the specialist prescribed the often used rat poison with its close medical supervision. But in my heart, I was able to see no way such a life could allow the work for Christ that I am doing. Then again in our small church, we cried to the Lord: IF you want these things done, please give the heart required. The technical tests showed the situation restored, indeed excellent. There was no need for any drug, for the heart was now both regular and strong as shown in the delving ECHO test, and further cardiogram work. In both cases my GP confirmed, Yes, it was a miracle.
It is good at times to have testimony meetings in Church, for God is marvellously kind, and if He tests, it is not without limit, and if He humiliates the saved sinner, yet it is not without a great product. Blessed be God both for His travails and His triumphs, for His disciplines and His tests, for wisdom is His, and we are here to serve in whatever way, so that the wheat be the more readily harvested.
As predicted, CHRIST TOLD THE BRETHREN WHAT HAD HAPPENED and so
the proclamation of the Christian Gospel proceeded, and has done so ever since.
23-24 His Repatriation - glory to God
Look at what the Lord has done! He challenged. Take heart, you afflicted , "for He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted." This is the love, there is the power, that was the outcome, after pain, triumph, after ignominy, elevation. Cry, don't sigh. Seek Him in heart, and do not swerve from His holiness in depths, but surfacing, rejoice!
25 His Praise
Praise God then, and do not enter into the swamp land of ennui, disenchantment, but rather praise Him who calls you, and serve Him who sustains you, and rejoice in the Lord, for it is fitting for such a God as HE IS.
Rejoice that He can rightly say, I AM WHO I AM, so that we might rightly say, WE ARE BECAUSE HE IS, and this, We are saved because He has paid, and faith has taken what the offer was, in the profound wisdom of God, who has swept what wept to the arms of love. In the great assembly (as with the 500 brethren as in I Corinthians 15), and all but innumerable times since, it has been declared, and it is Christ who by His Spirit sends the news, and has done, for some 2000 years. Short ? not very. Long for His longing ? assuredly, but it ends and the time comes, and it is now near (Answers to Questions 5).
26-30 Prediction of Outcome
The world in its entirety will remember, whether by the very dating system so many use, founded with His birth as the target, or the Christmas which celebrates His birth, valued even where it is not understood, and not dissociated yet broadly, even where Satan rules, from His name. From every nation, His worshippers come. Rich and poor alike find in His memorial, the symbol of His satisfaction of death's claim and guilt's goad (Isaiah 53, I Peter 2). None has the answer but He, for life and death, as in His ministry and in His Person, are in His hands (cf. John 2).
Posterity ? does He have a posterity ? Yes He does, it is a generation, not of a few, but of millions down the ages, wrought in many, seen as one: THEY will be accounted to Him as a generation, the regenerate, begotten by the Spirit through the word (I Peter 1:23-2:8).
THIS generation, spread over centuries, will come and declare what God has done; and in missions and milling cities alike, in jungle and entangling weeds, over rushing rivers and in the deserts as with missionaries, Mildred Cable and Francesca French, they go.
There is the witness, that He has done this.
There is to be a poor in spirit family who will be given abundant provision. Constituted of serious seekers, this will be a praise team indeed, for as it was to be, so it is. Eternal life is now as natural as terrestrial life was, in test times. This is a Psalm of divine provision, and we are not being exhorted to live forever, as if competent for such a result, but TOLD that this is the case, as in Ephesians 1:11, I Peter 1:5ff., John 5:24, 6:50ff., I John 5:11-12. "Those who seek Him will praise the Lord. Your heart will live forever." Again the Authorised Version has it right.
A vast crusade, Spirit-led and applied, will sweep the earth, and the memory of all this being now refreshingly set before the eyes, many will turn to the Lord. Indeed, all nations will be so occupied, for the Kingdom IS the Lord's and what was immanent is now permanently perceived. Such is the prediction. Such is the prediction of the rule of His return as in Psalm 73, Isaiah 11, 59:20. The sheer incompetence of going to dreamy hopes (cf. Jeremiah 23) while yet standing up for one's imaginary rights, when wrong, is now dismissed objectively, and worship will become earth-wide, the norm.
THE NEW SET AND THE GOSPEL
30-31
30 Generation and Regeneration
Let us take it more personally for Christ. There is as the Authorised Version without addition to the words of the text, correctly translates, to be a posterity which will serve Him. It will be accounted by the Lord for a generation, indeed the spiritual generation to come. Here are His children throughout the age. No children of His own leave this gap to be filled; but here is the regenerated crew of the Vessel of Christ, who are born not of the seed of the flesh, as with man, but of the seed of the word of God (I Peter 2), to make of them a spiritual generation, an enlarged family. It is the entire family of Christ, redeemed, to live forever, a generation OVER time, from every Age.
This is HIS generation, born by regeneration, the family of the Lord of which He and He only is the head, whether in heaven or on the earth (cf. Matthew 23:8-18, Ephesians1:22-23, Romans 12). He would have all but He DOES have all of these, a vast troupe! Now He sees of the travail of His soul and is satisfied (Isaiah 53:10-11), yes for each by faith making of His soul, the substitutionary sacrifice: even that of Him who, 'heard', is bodily risen (Romans 10:9)!
31 Proclamation to the future world
This family will in every Age, declare what He has done to each successive generation who comes to the earth, a massive mission force, before as time comes for each, being transferred in spirit to heaven (cf. Col. 1:13, Eph. 2:6), in His presence to await the resurrection of the body.
CONCLUSION - THE LONG DIVISION IN THE RESULT
The declaration has an implication. There is the group which constitutes the new people, race, generation, found by their partaking of the triumph; but there are those who are not so found, for whom the exhibition of Christ on the Cross is a net description of what THEY face, if they reject Him, it and the goodwill of God beyond it.
The generation with its regeneration, to become a people, implies an isolation, also seen on the Cross in Christ, for those who wilfully reject His eternal cost, and so share with each other their own eternal loss.
For these: If HE took pity on you, is it too much to ask that you take pity on your own soul (Proverbs 1) ? All men are sinners, falling short (Romans 6:23), if not of their innate sense of self-glorification, a wanton and absent-minded sin, yet short of the glory of God in whom realism is undeviating, and who is the truth. None can save himself or herself, the fault being innate and endemic, so that His salvation is dependent in all things on the love, mercy, power and saving thrust of the Lord. We have nothing to contribute: He all!
As Jonah declared (Jonah 2:9): "Salvation is of the Lord!" (Revelation 7:10 echoes it). The swirling contents of the inner compartment of the great fish, the sea-weed wrapping itself about him, the sense of being in the belly of hell, with the bars of the earth closed about him forever, these left him in no doubt. Jonah could pout and complain (Jonah 2, 4), but of this there was no doubt: from that hell inflicted because of sin, only one escape was possible, and that itself, it was both a miracle of mercy and a work of intricate and vast power. He understood, he cried to the Lord, and was saved.
Yet some do not come and call upon Him as He is and has definitively revealed Himself in Jesus Christ to be, and refusing, their souls are swirled to their just and obscured result in everlasting destruction (II Thessalonians 1:9). If on the other hand, by faith you have found in Christ crucified, "yes rather, that is risen again,"(Romans 8:34), the very type, rule and task force of your mercy, then find in Him also the depiction beyond doctrine, in life, of what it cost to prepare you for eternity, and in that cost, glory (Galatians 6:14), for it is the final testimony of love, that of God, whose love is beyond all human love, its source and its benediction.