Psalm 40:6-106Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. 7Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, 8I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. 9I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest. 10I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation. (Psalm 40:6‑10); Isaiah 50:4-54The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. 5The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. (Isaiah 50:4‑5); Exodus 21:2626And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake. (Exodus 21:26)
Both the latter scriptures are connected with the first. That which makes the Psalm so wonderful and so blessed is that in the 7th verse we are taken into the secrets of eternity. Is it not wonderful grace in our Father and God to permit us to stand as it were in His council chamber of eternity, and to listen to the communications which passed between Himself and the eternal Word?
This is what we find in the opening verses of this Psalm.
In the 6th verse the blessed One says, “Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire . . . then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do Thy will, O my God: yea, Thy law is within my heart”: that is, He proposes Himself in eternity, to do what the sacrifices and offerings which would be instituted in time could never do. How blessed to sit before Him, the glorious One who could discourse with Jehovah in eternity! God had no pleasure in the blood of bullocks and goats, they could not satisfy His holy, righteous claims, they could not discharge the conscience of a sinner. It has been truly and blessedly said as to this, that “The Son 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 Him, ears dug, a body prepared, and according to the divine counsels (and love for us) freely and willingly 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 written 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.”
The grace of God, beloved reader, stands out strikingly before the heart, when we think that creatures like ourselves, poor worms of the earth, should be brought into such blessed nearness and relationship to the Father in the Son, and then graced to listen in adoring wonder to such communications as these.
Now in the 6th and 7th verses we are in eternity; in the first we have the thought, and counsels of God, in the other the voluntary mission of the Son, to give accomplishment to the will of God in accordance with those counsels. In v. 8 the blessed One speaks as being actually in the place of dependence and obedience as man. His words, “I delight to do thy will, O God: thy law is in my heart”; express in all their preciousness His own perfection as a man; but not only have we this, but elsewhere He is set before us as the poor and needy one on the earth, waiting patiently for Jehovah, and making Him His trust and hope; oh that the hearts of His own might by His grace discern this place that He was pleased to be in, and thus enjoy the blessedness of the next Psalm, even that of “he that considereth the poor.”
The place of perfect dependence as man which the Lord Jesus was pleased to take is a blessed theme for holy contemplation. Observe well how the will of God was the spring and motive of all that was in His heart: this was the character and nature of His obedience, “the obedience of Christ.” Man as such is characterized by his will, and this is in its essence sin, but “in him was no sin.” I would here for a little refer to Luke 23:4444And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. (Luke 23:44). As to the “ninth hour” there spoken of, I believe it was the hour of prayer; if this be so, does it not point, to the fact that now in the Savior’s death an acceptable evening sacrifice was offered to God, the savor of which had reached the very presence of God? How blessed to dwell upon it Further, in the gospel of Luke, we find the blessed One as man, superior to death, while submitting to it; full of strength, the Savior commits and commends His spirit to His Father, and expires; in the presence of such moral glory how the heart thus expresses itself—
“We adore thee evermore; Hallelujah!
Savior for thy boundless grace; Hallelujah!
For the cross whereby to us; Hallelujah!
Sure is made eternal bliss; Hallelujah!”
It is specially interesting to the heart to observe the words which the Holy Ghost uses in the gospels in recording this transcendent moment.
In Matthew’s gospel, where He is set forth in an especial way as the victim, the words used for “yielded up the ghost” are ×N−6,< JÎ B<,Ø:".
In Mark’s gospel, where He is seen throughout as the servant prophet, the word used is ¦>XB<,LF,, His service is closed as it were in its greatest act. In Luke’s gospel, where He is seen as man all through it is ¦>XB<,LF,<. This along with the blessed words “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit,” gives us the truth so preciously set before us here in these words, viz.; It was death in absolute faith which trusted in the Father, death with God in faith.
In John’s gospel, where a divine person is presented to us throughout, the words are B"DX’T6,< JÎ B<,Ø:" these set forth His divine competency, He Himself delivered up His Spirit.
Let us in conclusion look at the other two scriptures for a little in Isa. 50:44The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. (Isaiah 50:4). His life service is set before us in its own perfect, patient, dependent nature, He ever waited for and on the word of Jehovah. Let us not be wanting in true adoration as we hear Him say—“He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.” Yes, truly such was His grace that He stooped to become a man, and as such had given Him a disciple’s tongue and a disciple’s ear.
May our hearts adore Him as we dwell upon all His perfections, in the place He was pleased to take becoming a man, “the Word became flesh”—as in all His lowly and lonely path of suffering and service here below.