Psalm 22:14-22
‘You have brought Me into the dust of death!… The wicked…pierced My hands and My feet…. They…cast lots upon My vesture…. Save Me!… I will declare Your name!… In the midst of the Congregation, I will praise You!… They that seek Him, shall praise the Lord…. All the ends of the world shall remember, and turn to the Lord!… The nations shall worship before You! For…the Lord…is the Governor among the nations!’… Their seed shall serve Him!… They shall come and shall declare His righteousness to a people that shall be born — because He has done it!’ Psalm 22:15-31.
Calvin comments: “Our Saviour Jesus Christ, when hanging on the cross…, made use of these very words (Matthew 27:46)…. The Son of God…descended even to Hell…. ‘You have brought Me to the dust of death!’… The dreadful encounter of our Redeemer with death…was forced from His body…. (By) His descent into Hell…, He tasted the wrath of God…due to sinners…
“In this Psalm, Christ is described to us by the Spirit of prophecy. The heavenly Father intended that in the Person of His Son, those things should visibly be accomplished…. How can this be applied to Christ?… He was more mightily delivered, than if God had prevented Him from falling a victim to death…. It is a much greater deliverance to rise again from the dead, than to be healed of a grievous malady. Death, therefore, did not prevent Christ’s resurrection!…
“‘All the ends of the Earth shall remember!’… David stops not at his own person, but…under himself as a type he describes the promised Messiah…. David’s name, I admit, was great and renowned among the neighbouring nations. But what was the territory which they occupied, in comparison to the whole world?… The foreign nations whom he had subdued, had never been converted by him to the true worship of God!…. (Through Christ,) the Gentiles…would again come to embrace the true religion from which they had fallen away….
“‘The Kingdom is Jehovah’s, so that He may rule over the nations!’… This passage I have no doubt agrees with many other prophecies which represent the throne of God as erected, on which Christ may sit to superintend and govern the world…. This conversion was effected only under the management and government of Christ…. Christ we know penetrates with amazing speed from the East to the West…, in order to bring into the Church the Gentiles from all parts of the world.
‘Their seed shall serve Him!… They shall come and shall declare His righteousness to a people that shall be born — because He has done it!’… The perpetuity of the Church is here abundantly proved…. God begets and multiplies His Church…. Christ is here expressly invested with authority over the Church…. Our heavenly Father has committed all His chosen ones to the protection and guardianship of His Own Son…. The Holy Spirit…commends to us the publication of Christ’s resurrection!”
As Christ Himself exclaimed: ‘I will praise God for saving Me from all distresses’ — unto absolute victory, beyond the grave! Is that also your expectation?
