Psalm 40

Psalm xl. In all these psalms we have had the failing saint (the remnant) looking to a God known in relate mshipand faithful grace, though in failure. In psalm Xl. we have Christ taking the place of patience without failure, and so furnishing a ground for confidence even fmthose who failed, by taking His place with them (who, after all, were the saints upon the earth, the excellent) in their sorrows, and the path of integrity on the earth. Nor does He fail in this to place Himself under the burden of evil and sins under which Israel had brought itself. We, though this be in every sense true for the redemption of Israel, know it in yet a deeper way — such a glorifying of God as gives a heavenly place. This is not looked at here; but the way in which Christ identifies Himself with Israel, though in the integrity of the upright remnant, is profoundly instructive, and leads us into a wonderful apprehension of a special part of His sorrows. His death, and the sorrows of His death, are not viewed as atoning-, bearing of wrath, but as sorrows and suffering and grief. And so they were; though, besides that, atonement was in them, viewed as the drinking the cup of wrath. But there Christ does not bear sorrow with, but for His people; here God is viewed as helping Christ when in sorrow, in which He is, and in which He waits on the Lord. It lay on the remnant, as in Israel’s opposition, because of their faults and departure from God. Christ, who had been, as He states in this psalm, faithful to God in everything, enters into this sorrow in heavenly grace. It is not His own relationship to God, but His entering into the remnant’s as connected with Israel. His own had been perfect: theirs, though founded on Jehovah’s faithfulness on one side, actually the fruit of sin. It is further at the close of His life. It is morally closed as to service. During that He had being doing God’s will in the body prepared for Him, and faithfully declaring God’s righteousness in the great congregation, i.e., publicly in Israel. Now. and as regards man, (and so it will be with the remnant: their trials will come upon them from the proud, because of their faithfulness and testimony, only they will have deserved it, as themselves involved in the sins of the jieople,) because of this faithful testimony, the evils come upon him. So we know it was with Christ historically. His hour was come for it — the hour of His enemies and of the power of darkness. Here (as it is not the atoningcharacter of His suffering* and sorrow, but His association with the remnant — with, as I have said, not for), we have not, “My God, my God, -why hast thou forsaken me?” as in psalm xxii.. where the foundation of righteous grace was to be laid. It is Christ’s perfect life, and sorrows at the close of it, in which He refers to the faithfulness and goodness of Jehovah, so as to lead I Lis people to confide in it, instructing them in this in which His perfection was shown. “I waited patiently for Jehovah;” patience had its perfect work — an immense lesson for us. Flesh can wait long, but not till the Lord comes in, not in perfect submission; and confiding in His only strength and faithfulness so as to be perfect in obedience and in the will of God. Saul waited nearly seven days, but the confidence of the flesh was melting away — his army; the Philistines, the proud enemies were there. He did not wait out till the Lord came in with Samuel. Had he obeyed and felt he could do nothing, and had only to obey and wait, he would have said, I can thing, and I ought to do nothing

till the Lord comes by Samuel. Flesh trusted its own wisdom, and looked to its own force, though with pious forms. All was lost. It was flesh tried and which failed. Christ was tried: He waited patiently for Jehovah. He was perfect and complete in all the will of God. And this is our path, through grace.

This is the great personal instruction of this psalm, save that Christ’s own perfectness is always the greatest of all. Here He gives Himself as the pattern. “I waited patiently for the Lord” — for the Lord — that is, till Jehovah Himself came in. His own will never moved, though fully put to the test. Hence it was perfectness. He would have no other deliverance but His. His heart was wholly right — would not have a deliverance which was not the Lord’s. This is a very important point as to the state of the heart. It would not have another than the Lord’s. Besides, it knows that there is no other, and that the Lord is perfectly right, when His moral will has been perfectly made good, and His righteousness vindicated when needed. There is the known perfectness of His will — His only title, and then perfectness of submission and the desire of only Him. As this is a pattern for the saints, trial is looked at as such, and death is not spoken of save as it may be trial — a horrible pit, miry clay — images of distress, terror, and, humanly speaking, danger. The resource was a cry to Jehovah, and He was heard in that He Feared. Here Christ speaks in His own person, but in verse 3, deliverance enables Him to speak to the remnant — “a new song in my mouth” — even for deliverance from what had come upon them because of their sins. “Praise unto our God,” “many shall see it and fear, and put their trust in Jehovah.” This would let in Gentiles. God had come in to deliver

out of the effect of evil, and set Bis feet upon ;i rock above it and. all its effects. This sure faithfulness of grace — the deliverance <’f God manifested in one who had -’one to the depths of trial, would be a resting place for the faith of others, the rather as lie had pine into it as the consequence of the state of the people in the eight of God. Hence it is applied t<> tlic condition of the remnant, though thus true of every saint in trial by others’ wickedness and the power of evil, perhaps brought on himself. “Blessed is the man that maketh Jehovah his trust, and respecteth not the proud,” the high pretensions of man. and apparently successful wickedness, “nor such as turn aside to lies,” abandon God for other false refuses, and the falsehoods of inlidelity. Then, as man, Christ begins to recite how this most excellent proof Of God’s faithfulness to His people came in, though owning them to all others. They- were numberless towards His people, “to us-ward.” He puts Himself with them. Verse 6, the special and glorious One comes in view, He who could discourse with Jehovah in eternity. The Sou and Word, who was with God and was God and in the beginning with God, according to what was written in the roll of the book, has the place of obedience prepared for Ifim, ears dug. a body prepared, and, according to the divine counsels (and love for us), freely and willing undertakes the same place, the place of obedience; His delight when He has taken it, and is man — has taken the form of a servant, is to do God’s will. God’s law is within His heart. Such is Christ as man; obedient; who in free-will had come, taking the body prepared for Him, and entered into the willing servant’s place, the place of willing and glad obedience. Verse 6 presents the thought and counsels of God, ver. 7 His willing coming to do God’s will according to these counsels. But we must remember He speaks when man, and verses 6 and 7 are the revelation of what passed in the everlasting world (wonderful thought!) telling us how He became a man. But, as in verse 5, so again in 8, Christ speaks again as actually in the place on earth. “I delight to do thy will, 0 God; thy law is in my heart;” that is, His perfectness as man. In ver. 9, 10, we have the perfectness of His service. He has preached righteousness before the whole people of Israel; He has not shrunk from it, nor hid it within His heart — a lesson to all of us, though to be used with divine guidance. It was God’s righteousness, His ways, nature, judgments, judgment of evil, what He was in judging it, His faithfulness, too, and salvation — for Jehovah was this to Israel — His loving-kindness and truth. He had preached righteousness to man, and that perfectly; and he had fully declared what Jehovah was, in all the perfectness of His nature and character towards Israel. All this was accomplished. He appeals to its full accomplishment. But now, He who had freely undertaken this service for God’s glory towards Israel, finds Himself in another position. It has brought the hatred of the nation upon Him, the wishers of evil against Him. But this great controversy, and the need for the saints’ deliverance, raised the question of the state in God’s sight of those that were to be delivered. And without entering here on the ground of atonement, the governmental expression of the view God took of Israel’s sin, in which the remnant had been involved, comes pressing on the soul of Christ, as it will really on the remnant; the iniquities of Israel will take hold upon them as reaping what they have sowed — not condemnation (the burden of that Christ indeed underwent for them in atonement,) but trial, distress, and felt (or, rather, making them to feel the) displeasure of God, but in which true faith looks for the loving-kindness, and truth proclaimed and trusted — in the righteousness proclaimed is felt as a witness against sin, through the distress flowing from it, as Joseph’s brothers before Joseph.