Psalm 22 Shows Us What The Cross Cost God

The opening line of Psalm 22 is not a distant religious quote, it is the cry Jesus chose for the cross. We sit with the words “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and ask what they actually mean, not just emotionally, but theologically. If Christians say God is Trinity, what happens at Calvary when the Father turns his face away from the Son? This is where the seriousness of sin and the determination of God to forgive collide, and Psalm 22 gives us language to face it honestly.

From there we follow the psalm’s unnerving specificity: mocking crowds, bones out of joint, hands and feet pierced, garments divided by lots. Is this simply David processing personal suffering, or is it prophetic Scripture that points beyond David to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ? We talk through why the details matter, how the New Testament reads Psalm 22 on Jesus’ lips, and how this strengthens confidence in the Bible’s unified storyline.

We also hear lived experience of the cross at work in the real world: a new believer who cannot read, a Bible bought with unexpected generosity, rejection from church, kindness from market sellers, and a life redirected through grace. The humility of “I am a worm and not a man” becomes more than a phrase as we consider Christ’s silence under insult and the way the cross still changes lives underground in mines and high above the clouds.

Psalm 22 does not finish in despair. It turns towards worship, family, and future joy, echoing Hebrews 12 as we consider how Jesus endures by fixing his eyes on what comes after suffering. If you want a deeper, more grounded view of the cross, prophecy, suffering, and hope, press play, then subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review with the line from Psalm 22 that stayed with you.

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Transcript

Setting Up Jesus In The Psalms

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Jesus in the Psalms, book by book, that's what we're doing today. I'm Richard Bughes greeting you from Sandown Park on the edge of London, England. And with me here in Book by Book is, well, Stephen Lungo from Africa, from Harari, from he's really a team leader of the African Enterprise work that's going on there. And then Paul Blackham, who is a theologian and Bible teacher here in Britain. And I think what we'll do, first of all, is to come straight to the Psalm that we're going to look at today, Psalm 22. Oh my,

Reading Psalm 22 At Calvary

SPEAKER_01 1:33

it's the great psalm. I can't read all of it, but I'll read some of it. And the moment I start reading, you'll see that we're thinking about Jesus and the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me? So far from the words of my groaning. Oh my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent. Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One. You are the praise of Israel. In you our fathers put their trust. They trusted, and you delivered them. They cried to you and were saved. In you they trusted and were not disappointed. But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people. All who see me mock me. They hurl insults, shaking their heads. He trusts in the Lord. Let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him. And then it goes on later on, verse 15 My strength is dried up like a pot's herd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death. Dogs have surrounded me. A band of evil men has encircled me. They have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. People stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing. Well, we know exactly where we are. Anyone who is a bit of a Bible student, we feel very close to Calvary at this moment. And I'd like to ask my friends here to give us now some further help as we look at this Psalm. So, Paul Blackham, shall I start with you? What is hidden in that terrible cry at the beginning of Psalm 22? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

The Trinity And Forsakenness

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Well, immediately we're aware that it's the Trinity at the cross. That if we if we're going to understand the depth of what happens at the cross, we have to understand what happens in the Trinity, that this is the one true God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That's what his very being is. And yet at that time, we're here told that between the Father and the Son, the Father forsakes the Son. It just can't be. Because that is what God is, the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Is this the end of God? On the cross, there's nothing that has ever happened from everlasting or ever will happen to everlasting, remotely so significant as this, that the very life of the living God, his very existence is almost called into question because the father turns his face away from the Son. It just doesn't seem possible because this is the very life of God. So when we come to cross and to these sort of words, as Jesus allows us into what is going on between the Father and the Son in that time, because we never get more into it than in this psalm. I think we tremble. And I think the whole of creation trembled at the cross when this happened. And certainly we do. Yeah, absolutely. As it because the fact that God is so serious about sin, but so determined to find a way to forgive it and deal with it, that he's prepared to put a question mark over his own life and say this relationship with the Father and the Son, he will turn his face away. There's never that the love of God and his seriousness about sin is so powerfully shown to us as the fact that this is what is going on within the life of God at the cross.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

This is the life of God in the cross. And

A New Believer Left Alone

SPEAKER_01 5:11

uh, Stephen Lungo, when we think about that, and I remember playing tennis with you at the Victoria Falls some years ago when we were practicing our backhands. Mr. Do you remember? And uh you described to me then what it was like when you were a new believer, hardly knew a thing, illiterate, um, and yet you felt the power of Calvary, of Jesus love was covering you. Because there was no one to do any follow-up at first after that mission, that tent. No one covering you, no one saying, Let's sit down and read the Bible. You had nobody. How is it that Christ was looking after you then?

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Well, the way it started was that uh when the police uh forgave me, um the police officer gave me money to buy myself a Bible, which I didn't know how to read. I only enjoyed flipping the pages. And you said it smelt so nice. Yes, yeah. Um and and so um I started witnessing it in the marketplaces, in the buses, and the trains, and so forth. But then I went back to my own Presbyterian church where um I said I'm a child of God, I've been born again, and I expected that the church would hug me, love me, give me shelter, but they just said, God bless you. And I left. And that was the most painful thing in my life. I felt rejected by the church. And so I struggled in the places where I used to witness, and the people who were selling their produce in the marketplaces, they were the ones who helped me to feed me. But by God's grace, some months, almost a year in the streets, God, in his sense of humor, he brings not a black man but a white person to adopt me in his home. And it was through this man that we struggled together for almost 15 years.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

And then reading and all of that stuff, you know, study. Yes, it was the struggle. It seems that you were being covered wonderfully by the Lord, despite the like the sort of like when Saul first became Paul and became a Christian, the church was nervous of him. That's right. And uh and it's so painful when that happens.

Was David Just Having A Bad Day

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Hey, Paul Blackham, sometimes people say things like this. This psalm is written by someone who is praying about their own suffering, and Jesus simply borrowed it on the cross. Now, what about what do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Well, that well, that's true, that sometimes, particularly if we're having evangelistic conversations as well, person would say, Well, you know, this isn't anything, this is perhaps just David who was having a rough day.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

This is a man having a rough time.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Yeah. He's having a he's having a rough day, and he wrote a song about it. Why get all excited? Well, I think it is worth us noting the detail of the psalm that what is described in this psalm just doesn't apply to the life of David at all. Uh, do you remember? I always remember when Peter's preaching on the day of Pentecost, and he turns to Psalm 16 on that day, and he says, Look at that psalm of David. That didn't happen to David, so he couldn't have been writing about himself. That's the very argument that Peter uses to show that. And I think that's a great strategy that the Apostle shows us. Look at the psalm. Could this have been about David? Well, it couldn't, could it? Because let's well, we we we heard it. Did it his pierce, his hands and feet were they pierced? No. Uh what about his garments? Were they divided up by people? No. Was there ever a case where everybody was against him, like in those earliest? No. None of these, all these experiences. I mean, David had his own problems. He suffered and he had got enemies. So when he wrote this, he must have written it with tremendous empathy. And he must have left to be able to share in, like learning from Christ how to pray about his own sufferings. But nevertheless, these particular sufferings that are prophetically given by the Holy Spirit of Christ are not his. And I think that's important to point that out to when when people might might try to reject this psalm and dismiss these prophecies of Christ, say, no, no, let's look at the details carefully. The details are very specific and accurate about Jesus on the cross.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

And it's also interesting how Jesus himself uh talks about Psalm 22, how in Hebrews chapter 2 that bit there, when in verse 11, both the one who makes them holy and those who are made uh holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers, and then he quotes from the Psalm. He says, I will declare your name to my brothers in the presence of the congregation, I will sing your praises, I will put my trust in him. So Christ is quite clearly addressing himself and putting himself in that psalm.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Jesus says it's like quoted, it doesn't even say David said, and then Jesus found those words quite useful for his own situation. Jesus says, So the writer of the Hebrews just says, Oh yeah, that that psalm, that was Jesus speaking.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Yeah. So the whole picture here, you know, just portrays the cross. Oh yeah. Um what happened to Christ, they were how when they sold his clothes, they exchanged all everything, mockery. Oh yeah. Um eight say he trusts in the Lord. Let the Lord risk you and let him deliver him. And that's exactly how they shouted at the cross.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

They did, they jeered at him with those very I mean, that is incredible that they were saying those things and didn't realize they were quoting from Psalm 22. That's right. It is amazing.

The Worm Image And Humility

SPEAKER_01 10:39

This worm thing, you know, when it says I am a worm and not a man, when I was reading that, I was it was occurring to me that you might have something to say about that as well, um uh Stephen, because how could such a person, the anointed one, say, I am a worm and not a man? Uh and indeed, do other Christians who themselves walking in the in the in the footsteps of Christ, do we sometimes feel that as well, that we're put down a little bit and uh made to feel like that? What's your experience of of the whole of the the shame of the cross and the buffeting that we received?

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Well, um calling himself a worm was like he he he lowered him so low, himself so low, that through the suffering, God they could insult him, he was God, they could beat him, spit on him, he was still God, and uh they could beat him, they could say all the things. The challenge was that when the Pontius Pilate asked him questions, he was silent. Uh that puzzled him because he expected that he as someone who would defend himself. He was a worm, humbled himself. And right through the crosses, they whipped him and fell down three times with the cross and went up to the cross. That humility as God uh humbled him so much, so low, to become like a worm. A worm is almost like it doesn't have bones, doesn't have uh you know muscles and so on, but he was God. It's really a picture of humility that God could lower himself so low as God.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

You've preached this in all the gold mines and places like that, haven't you? What's the reaction to that when you preach the cross?

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Well, um, the cross is always a stumbling block to those who don't believe, but it's so exciting when you see the the power of the cross changing lives, then that is one of the most exciting things. Because the other hand, people may insult you, may say all sorts of things, and I've seen the power of cross that whenever I traveled or under underground the mine, I've gone there, witnessed, and when I'm flying, the unfortunate person is the one who sits next to me. I share about the cross, and people have surrendered their Lord, their lives to the Lord. And you know, you see the power of cross that when you sit down and I remember flying from Toronto to Chicago, and here was this lady. As I shared about the cross of Jesus Christ, she was she was she was angry with me. And you know, as white people, when they get angry, they become red.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

You get pink.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

Yes. So she she was very aggressive with me, but went through a heavy storm, and I said to her, if this thing crashes, are you ready to beat God? She said, Please don't talk about, you know. So I put in the cross and started speaking about the power of the cross, and it changed me, and this lady was in tears. And how we prayed together and she accepted the Lord uh right above the clouds, the power of the cross.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Yeah, so underground in the gold mines or high above the clouds? That's right. That's right.

Joy Set Before Him And Our Hope

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Stephen. Hey, Paul, this then, as we look at the Psalm, what does it teach us, this Psalm 22, about how Christ managed to keep going through the suffering of the cross?

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Hebrews 12, verse 2 is an excellent verse, where how did he manage it to be a word like a worm, even those of the living gone? He tells us he kept the joy that was before him always in front of his mind and his heart, because that's the only way he can endure such suffering. And we actually see it in the very Psalm from verse 22, Psalm 22, verse 22, and onwards, he's actually turning his mind to the future and what's going to happen in the aftermath of the suffering that he's in. And it makes it and he starts to actually praise in the terrible situation that he's in because of this joy that's ahead of him. And what is the joy? What is he looking forward to? It's a remarkable thing. I will declare your name to my brothers in the congregation. I will praise you. He's looking forward to sharing time of worship with us, the Christian church. He's looking, that's what the joy was. It wasn't just something like, oh, it'd be nice to be on my own and have some peace and quiet sometime. Saying, I'm looking forward to being in a huge assembly of believers at the middle of that, leaving them all in the worship of the Father. So even then, he's thinking of the glory of the Father, even at that very time. That was the joy that he longed for. And then that's great for us because when we're in the suffering, the thing is not to focus in on the suffering, it's to fluctuate, look ahead. We have got a future that is brighter than we can ever imagine. And he and we can follow the very example of Christ set for us here. Say, look at that resurrection morning in the new creation. We'll all be gathered together in this tremendous act of praise with Jesus at the centre.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

When you look at uh verse 29, Stephen, end of verse 29, all who go down to the dust will kneel before him. So there seems to be that element of those who go to death, but also in worship.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

It'll be glorious. Wow, it'll be glorious. All the rich of the earth will feast and worship, and who go down to the dust will kneel before him.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

What a glorious time it will be.

Glory After Suffering And Farewell

SPEAKER_01 16:28

It will be a glorious time, and that's where we're going to end off our little period of this program. But uh hoping that you have got the Bible with you there, maybe some study materials to do a bit further work on this strange mixture of suffering and glory and joy. The two go hand in hand all the way through the Bible. God bless you.