Psalm Of The King (part 1)

O Lord, the king rejoices in the strength You give; he takes great delight in the deliverance You provide. – Psalm 21:1 (NET)

The first seven verses of the twenty-first Psalm is an amazing passage of Scripture that serves to point us directly to our Lord Jesus. While the twenty-second Psalm generally gets far more attention for its part in directing us to the cross of Christ, from its opening cry of “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (22:1a), through the remainder of the Psalm that seems to point quite explicitly to the ordeal of the cross to which Jesus would be subjected, the twenty-first Psalm deserves similar consideration. If Jesus could look upon the twenty-second Psalm, seeing Himself in order to gain insight into what it was that awaited Him at the end of His human journey, then the twenty-first Psalm strengthened Him for the purpose of taking on that mission.

Because the record of the Gospels has Jesus referring to Himself as the Son of God and the Son of Man, which were both messianic titles that spoke, in general, of Israel, and more specifically, of Israel’s king, we can know that Jesus understood Himself to be the long-awaited Messiah for Israel. Because of that, Psalms which spoke of the king of Israel would naturally and understandably be a great source of direction, comfort, strength, and encouragement for Him. As He looked forward to what it was that He would be and do for Israel, He could quite easily insert Himself into this Psalm, trusting implicitly in the covenant God of Israel and say, “O Lord, the king rejoices in the strength You give” (21:1a). To willingly endure the Roman cross, which was the direction that Jesus knew that His life and work were taking Him, would take a great deal of strength; and we know that this strength was delivered to Jesus by the Holy Spirit.

With a full measure of a gifted faith, Jesus could stand in confident assurance in the deliverance that His God would provide (21:1b). What deliverance would that be? The deliverance in which Jesus would be able to take great delight was the assurance of the deliverance from death. Jesus trusted that, as He took Israel’s curse upon Himself, as Israel’s King and representative, and entered into death (exile from life), that God would be faithful to deliver Him, to redeem Him from that exile, granting Him a new life on the other side of the grave. Of course, because God’s Messiah was not only Israel’s King, but a King for all nations and all peoples, when Jesus, as the Messiah, entered into death on behalf of Israel, He also entered into death on behalf of all mankind. When He was delivered from death and its curse, all mankind was delivered as well, with the seal of that deliverance predicated on believing in Him. From then on, all that would come to be in union with Christ (believing Him to be the crucified and Resurrected Lord of all by the faith gifted by the Holy Spirit), would have gained the ultimate victory over death and its corruption.

In the Resurrection, God’s kingdom on earth was inaugurated, as His will would begin to be done on earth as it is in heaven by those who would be equipped by God for service to His glory. Though all those so equipped would continue to meet with the corruption that comes with living in this world that still awaits the return of Christ and the final consummation of the kingdom of heaven, and though they would still go to their deaths, they can grip on to the promise that just as Jesus was raised up from the grave with a new body and a new life here in the midst of God’s creation, with Resurrection power that serves to push back the forces of evil here in this world, so too would they, one day, be raised up from the grave, with a new body and a new life, here in God’s fully restored and renewed creation.

Jesus, above all things, sought to do the will of the Father. He sought to be the One through Whom God would fulfill the covenant with Abraham and bless the world. He sought to be the second Adam---to be the first truly human being, rightly bearing the image of His Creator---that would set all things right, regaining the dominion over the created order that had been given to Adam, and reversing the curse, through His faithfulness, that had been brought into creation by Adam’s faithlessness. He sought to be the light for the world that had been God’s intention for His chosen people Israel. With such intentions, Jesus could be emboldened by the Psalmist’s declaration in regards to Israel’s king that “You grant him his heart’s desire; You do not refuse his request” (21:2).