The Messiah and the Ritual of Israel (Continued)

David and the Psalms

Psalm 69 is also Messianic and it gives us another image of what the Saviour experienced in bearing our sins in His own body on the tree.  The Psalmist prayed: “Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul.  I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me” (Ps.69:1,2). The restless sea has long been considered an image of sinful humanity. On such a sea there is no place to stand - it will engulf you. Jesus was different. The sinless, spotless Son of God walked on water. But on Golgotha He carried the sins of the world and there the weight of sin sank the unsinkable.

But there was deliverance for the Messiah. The second unit of the twenty second Psalm ends with a prayer. “Deliver my soul from the sword, My only life from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth” (v.20). This is a prayer that was answered, but as a deliverance out of death, not a deliverance from death. “Save me from the lion’s mouth”, initially points us to Satan, the ‘roaring lion’, but it also reminds us of Daniel. The best man in the kingdom, Daniel, was unjustly accused and sentenced. The law was immutable and Daniel was thrown to the lions. But in the morning when the stone was rolled away, Daniel emerged from the cave, the death sentence had been served.  Similarly, in the morning, after the stone had been rolled away, the Messiah emerged from the tomb after the death sentence had been served. Jesus was delivered from the tomb, not the cross.

As always, a sacrifice will need a priest to offer it. The ultimate sacrifice of the ‘kingdom of priests’ will need a king/priest to present it. And so it was. David spoke prophetically of a High Priest of the order of Melchizedek, linking the King/Priest of Genesis 14 whose emblems were bread and wine with the coming Messiah who would use those same emblems to refer to the blood sacrifice to be offered on Golgotha. “The Lord has sworn And will not relent, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek”  (Psalm 110:4). The writer of the Hebrew letter confirms this: “For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness. Because of this he is required as for the people, so also for himself, to offer sacrifices for sins. And no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He who said to Him: ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.’ As He also says in another place: ‘You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.’” (Heb. 5:1–6). This title is repeated in 6.20 where Jesus is identified as a “High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Heb. 6:20).

More next time