The Messiah’s Vicarious Suffering
Hear Me, O Lord, answering Him favorable; for Thy loving-kindness is good, comforting and gracious; turn unto Me according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies, drawing near to Him in unmerited favor; for He was not merely playing a part, but was actually laboring under the burden of sins placed upon Him.
V. 17. And hide not Thy face from Thy servant, in unforgiving anger; for I am in trouble, in the distress and anguish of the guilt tormenting Him; hear Me speedily, an urgent cry for early deliverance, like Psalm 22, 1.
V. 18. Draw nigh unto My soul, for the purpose of rendering His divine assistance, and redeem it; deliver Me because of Mine enemies, who were upon Him to take His life.
V. 19. Thou hast known My reproach and My shame and My dishonor, the result of the sin imputed to Him according to the divine counsel of love for the salvation of mankind; Mine adversaries are all before Thee, no one being more familiar with the enemies and their plans, with the devil and his host, than the omniscient God.
The Messiah’s lament grows in urgency as His distress increases. V. 20. Reproach hath broken My heart, the jeering slanders which struck Him from all sides crushed His soul; and I am full of heaviness, weak, failing under the burden; and I looked for some to take pity, waiting for sympathy and condolence in His unexampled misery, but there was none; and for comforters, men whose show of understanding kindness might serve to alleviate His anguish, but I found none. He had to tread the wine-press of God’s wrath all alone.
V. 21. They gave Me also gall for My meat, for food in the midst of His sufferings; and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink, offering Him this astringent liquid when His body was racked with the most unbearable thirst.
Such was the awful misery, the untold agony; the immeasurable anguish of Christ’s suffering, in His capacity as the Substitute of mankind, as the Redeemer of the world.