January 14
“Dogs have surrounded Me; the congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet; I can count all My bones. They look and stare at Me. They divide My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots,” Psalm 22:16-18.
Earlier in Psalm 22, the promised Messiah spoke of being surrounded by a group of people who acted like a herd of wild animals. Now He returns to speak of a similar crowd: “Dogs have surrounded Me; the congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me.” He calls them a congregation of wicked people who are acting like a pack of wild, vicious dogs, barking, snarling, and showing their teeth in anger and threatening to devour Him.
During the days of His public ministry, the Lord Jesus could look all of His enemies in the eye and ask, “Which of you convicts Me of sin?” John 8:46. Then He pointed out that they were boasting of the fact that they were descendants of Abraham. They said, “Abraham is our father,” John 8:39. Indeed, Abraham was their father according to the flesh. They also insisted that, spiritually, they had one Father. They said, “We have one Father – God,” John 8:41. To this, Jesus responded, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me . . . You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me,” John 8:42-45.
In this life, we are surrounded by a host of liars. Many people in business, industry, education, government, and every other walk of life try to make a living by lying. Likewise, in churches and spiritual matters, there are also many religious leaders who lie about the way of salvation and how one can get to heaven. Jesus says that the devil is the father of lies. He has many followers throughout the world.
The word “crucify” is not used in the Old Testament. However, the Old Testament vividly portrays the scene of the crucifixion. In Psalm 22, the Messiah takes us to the scene of Calvary and says, “They pierced My hands and My feet.” The soldiers nailed His hands and feet to the cross. The evangelist John reports, “Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments and made four parts, to each soldier a part, and also the tunic. Now the tunic was without seam, woven from the top in one piece. They said therefore among themselves, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be,’ that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says: ‘They divided My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots,’” John 19:23-24.
The crowd at Calvary looked and stared at what was being done to Him of whom Pilate said repeatedly, “I find no fault in Him at all,” John 18:38, and, “I have found no reason for death in Him,” Luke 23:22.
If Pilate was telling the truth, then why did Jesus have to die? The prophet Isaiah answers, “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. 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,” Isaiah 53:5-6. Jesus paid the price to redeem us from sin, death, and the power of the devil. We are invited to believe and trust in Him as God’s Son and our only Savior, and we are promised that we will be saved.
“Hark, the cry that peals aloud,
Upward through the whelming cloud!
Thou, the Father’s only Son,
Thou, His own Anointed One,
Thou dost ask Him – can it be?
‘Why hast Thou forsaken Me?’” Amen.