Psalms 22:29, commentary and pictures

All the prosperous and the needy alike live only by God's care and bow in worship before Him, for no person has power to keep himself alive. The life within a person is mortal and not immortal by nature, but is subject to death and must be preserved by God. The dead therefore remain unconscious until the resurrection, when God restores life. This bowing belongs to the coming eternal reign of righteousness made sure by the Lord's resurrection, when at the final judgment every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, yet those who chose their own way cannot preserve their own lives and go away into everlasting punishment while the righteous enter life eternal. Psalm 22 is prophecy of Christ's first coming, expressing in full the experience of David's greater Son when the sins of the world were laid upon Him and literally fulfilled in His lowly life, rejection, unjust trial, crucifixion with criminals, agony in bearing human sin, and words spoken on the cross.

Christ Foretold in Psalm

Psalm 22 expresses in the flesh the experience of Jesus Christ, describing what He passed through when the sins of the world were laid upon Him. In measure it was David's own experience, and some of it was reflected in David's life, but it was typical of the experience of David's greater Son. Ultimately, in an antitypical sense, its full agony and sacrifice were realized in Christ alone. This is shown by verses 1, 8, 16, and 18, which give a grand idea of what He endured for us.

The psalm is prophecy of Christ's first coming, to be read in connection with His betrayal, condemnation, and crucifixion, and it can only be understood by its reference to Christ. Its fulfillment is seen in the closing events recorded in the Gospels, where its predictions were literally fulfilled in His suffering and death at Calvary. It foretells details of the Messiah's lowly life, His rejection by His people, the injustice shown Him in His trial, His death with criminals and malefactors, His burial with the rich, the agony of His life as He bore human sin, and His very words upon the cross. The whole life of Jesus fulfills all these predictions, including the tragedy in which Jews and Gentiles together took part when Christ was offered as a sacrifice for sin, helping identify the crucifixion as God's giving of His Son to die for the world. This shows that God fulfills what He has spoken even when fulfillment appears impossible to human reasoning, and after His resurrection He pointed His unbelieving, doubting, discouraged disciples to these Scriptures to show that He was fulfilling all that had been written from Genesis to Malachi.

The psalm reveals Christ's inmost experience, feelings, and life-and-death struggle with the enemy in suffering, and is preeminently prophetic of the Lord in His humiliation. It predicts the prayers of agony which He offered on humanity's behalf and testifies that He poured out His life in death. By meeting in Himself the experiences, trials, and conflicts of humanity, He is shown as fellow-sufferer, fellow-sympathizer, Friend, and Helper to the tempted. His followers share in that experience of suffering so that the faith of Jesus may be developed in them.

In His earthly life Jesus stood in the sinner's place, passing through for sinners' sake what the repentant sinner must pass through and even what the lost must pass through, giving Himself to die on the cross. His sufferings portray God's eternal justice and holiness, the unchanging excellence and binding force of His law, and the great evil and guilt of sin. They honored the divine law and do not give anyone liberty to despise it.

The psalm belongs to the prophecies presenting the Messiah and prophetically depicts His sufferings. It foretells His experiences including suffering and death, resurrection, ascension, and exaltation.

Universal Worship, Mortal Life

All who are well-fed on earth eat and worship, and all who descend to the dust bow before Him, for the prosperous live on His bounty and the needy praise Him for His help, and no one has power to keep his own soul alive. This belongs to the portrayal of the eternal reign of righteousness in which all peoples worship before God, whose complete fulfillment rests on the Lord's resurrection. At the final judgment, when all the books are opened and the vast throng stands around the camp of the saints and sees each life exactly as it was lived and the justice of the just Judge, all who go down to the dust kneel before Christ with every knee bowing and every tongue confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Yet no one can preserve his own life then, because each chose his own way despite all the Lord could do, so the sentence of everlasting punishment follows.

At that judgment all who go down to the dust bow before Christ and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, yet because each has chosen his own way in spite of all the Lord could do to save him, none can keep alive his own soul. Those on the left hand then depart into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels, going away into everlasting punishment while the righteous enter life eternal. No one can keep his own soul alive, for the soul is subject to death and is not inherently immortal or incapable of dying. It must be preserved by God and depends on Him for life.

Here soul means the person's life, which can be lost in death, and no person can keep his own life alive. All have sinned and are subject to death, and human life is not inherently immortal. Human life is mortal and depends on God, and the dead are unconscious until the resurrection.