“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?” (Psalm 22:1).

This is the first verse in Psalm 22, surely one of the most remarkable prophetic chapters ever penned, describing in detail the awful sufferings of Christ on the cross a thousand years before it happened. The verse itself is the heart-rending cry of the Lord Jesus during the terrible supernatural darkness when even His heavenly Father had turned His back on Him. Why could such a thing be, when He had always been “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” even though He had been “tempted [or, more accurately, ‘tested’] in all points like as we are” (Hebrews 7:26; 4:15).

The reason why is because His Father had “made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (II Corinthians 5:21), and God in His essential nature is “of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity” (Habakkuk 1:13). His beloved only begotten Son had willingly allowed Himself to be offered as the sacrificial “Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Although He was neither “roaring” nor “moaning” outwardly, He was indeed roaring inwardly (compare Psalm 32:3) with the infinite weight of all the world’s sin on His soul.

What an amazing transaction—He suffered and died for our sins so that we could be set free to enjoy the fruits of His perfect righteousness eternally! Now we can say with Paul: “I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). We live for Him, who died for us! “For the love of Christ constraineth us . . . that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again” (II Corinthians 5:14,15). HMM