THE application of Psa. 41 to Christ is one that has been naturally shrunk from. Yet I would venture here to recall attention to it, as what alone gives proper meaning to this close of the wonderful first book of the " Pentateuch of David."
It is by their connection with one another that the Psalms find for the most part their full significance. The forty-first is in the closest possible relation with the fortieth; the two together forming a kind of moral to the book, in strictest keeping with its character throughout. It is the book in which Christ is seen in the midst of the people, in that humiliation into which grace brought Him on our behalf; and thus in the fortieth psalm-a number, too, which speaks of perfect testing-the full perfection of His obedience is seen: " Lo, I come to do thy will, 0 my God." This is tested by the itself of which Psa. 40 gives as much cross the burnt-offering aspect, as Psa. 22 does the sin, or Psalm 69 the trespass-offering. Psa. 40 exhibits to us in its "poor -man," without any doubt whatever, the One who, " though he was rich, for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich."
But this being so, who is the " poor man " of Psa. 41, which comes in such necessary connection with the preceding one? Here is One, who assures the happiness of all who attentively " consider " Him; Jehovah will deliver such in the time of trial. Is this any other than the same voluntarily humbled One? or what brings this blessing anything beside the faith which under all appearance of humiliation discerns the glory of the only-begotten?
For Israel too-and to Israel assuredly, though none the less ours, these psalms belong,-how necessary a warning as to the character of that suffering which has been their stumbling-block! Come to His own, no intimacy of divine goodness could win their faith. Alas, " mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me." This reference to Judas is another indication of who is here.
The "poor man" of Psa. 41 is thus far different however from the one of the fortieth, that whereas the latter is the one " afflicted " or " in humiliation," the One of whom we are now thinking is (literally) the " weak " or " exhausted" one. The word is an ambiguous one in this respect, that the " weakness " may be the result of affliction from without or of disease from within. This ambiguity is in fact that upon which the point of the psalm largely depends. Was the cause of this state external or internal? Was there more than "the likeness of sinful flesh "? Faith would say one thing; unbelief another. So again with the words which follow in the fourth verse, where the full difficulty presses. Who is it that says: " Jehovah, be merciful to me! Heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee"? Is this one with sin in him or on him only? Is this a soul that needs healing for its wound or for its disease? Even so that awful cry, " My God, my God, why halt thou forsaken me? " might have seemed to justify the taunts flung upon the holy Sufferer. For when had the righteous been forsaken? And here His own lips proclaimed Him this.
So with the psalm before us: " All they that hate me whisper together against me An evil disease (say they) cleaveth fast unto him; and now that he lieth he shall rise up no more."
Thus as to this poor man, faith and unbelief are in conflict, as still and ever they nre. He has come down so low that that humiliation may be taken up against Him; aye, the heel of one of His own creatures lifted
up! Faith, attentively considering, not stopping at the outside, sees with the centurion that this lowly sufferer is the Son of God. " The Son of man is glorified, and God is glorified in him." Happy assuredly is he who thus " considereth the poor."
May we not apply this now even to those who have believed in the Son of God? When the " three men " stood before Abraham, that wondrous day of Mamre, had he not had faith to realize who was indeed there, would it have been aught to him but a visit of " three men "? Faith knew this lowly appearance to be indeed divine intimacy, and we have been given to learn fully that lesson since Godhead has taken-never to give it up-a human form. But are we always, as we ought to be, ready to see this same God in the lowly and the little-the petty circumstances of life into which He delights to come to fill them with His presence, and to keep us ever in mind of the intimacy that He seeks with us? Alas, how much we lose of this, that would be of untold happiness for us if we enjoyed it! How it would redeem the meanest life from littleness to realize this, and how it would put restraint For Israel too-and to Israel actings of divine power and love thus about us day by day!
Meanwhile, still Christ is the test everywhere. Still the stumbling-stone is stumbled over. The written word, too, as is the living Word. And men have their day and their vaunt, and perish, alas! as wise men taken in their own wisdom. The moral of the psalm abides, not only for unbelieving Israel, but for unbelief everywhere. God has been manifested in flesh-the heart of God in a perfect man: but the heart of man also has been thus manifested. Happy he who, accepting the sentence which the cross has written upon him, finds thus the meaning of the cross itself.
F. W. G.