God’s Word for You
Psalm 40:11-12 My sins on the cross
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Thursday, October 6, 2022
11 As for you, O LORD,
you do not hold back your mercy from me;
let your mercy and your faithfulness always protect me!
12 Troubles without number surround me.
My sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see.
My sins number more than the hairs of my head,
and my heart fails within me.
This is a Messianic Psalm, which means that the content of the words can and should be seen from the lips of the Savior, especially in this case during the hours of his suffering. In verses 9-10, he declared that he did not hold back God’s righteousness or any other preaching from the people, and here he asks the Father not to hold back his mercy.
How should we understand verse 12 as words of Christ? How could he ever say that his sins overtake him, he who is sinless (Isaiah 53:9; 1 Peter 2:22), and that they are uncountable? This is because the sinless Son of God took up our sins on his own account. He did not sin at all, but our sins are like a massive storm of locusts, “too many to count” (Jeremiah 46:21). Paul says: “God made him who had no sin to be sin (or a sin offering) for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). In the suffering of Jesus his Son, the Father “reconciled us to himself through Christ” (5:18), “not counting men’s sins against them” (5:19). He was the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 2:2) because he was put to death as the sacrifice by the Father. It was the Father who sent and offered his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:10), but we can also say correctly that Christ himself was the High Priest who made atonement for our sins with the sacrifice of his flesh on the cross (Hebrews 2:17).
When we meditate on his suffering, we are confronted by the two natures of Jesus. He is human, and he is God. This simple statement is so easy to misunderstand that we must modify it right away: He is truly, fully, completely human, born of a human mother, and he is also fully, truly and completely God, without any human father, without the seed of any ancestor passed down through a husband to his mother (Hebrews 7:3). His obedience is at the same time both his suffering under the burden of our uncountable sin (Psalm 40:12), and also his spontaneous willingness to be subject to the law in our place. He himself is Lord over that law, since he was the lawgiver on Sinai (Psalm 68:17-18), but he willingly placed himself under that law and kept it perfectly while in the flesh of humanity. On account of his obedience, he made perfect satisfaction for us. Gerhard elegantly says: “One must note that the active and passive obedience are most intimately connected, because his passion was active and his action was passive” (On the Person and Office of Christ §323).
This gift of Christ, the righteousness of the holy and divine Son of God, is offered to us by the Holy Spirit through the gospel and the sacraments and comes to us through faith.
Does this seem like heavy stuff? It is indeed heavy, so very heavy and dense that we must realize that it is the very bedrock of our faith. There are churches that treat the banquet of the Bible’s teachings as if they are a buffet, that they can skip parts they don’t want or that they are afraid might be too strong for their delicate palate. But there is no buffet selection in any of the doctrines of the Holy Scriptures. They are here for our salvation, not for us to pick and choose like a herd of goats nibbling at all of the thistles but none of the flowers. But since there is no reconciliation with God without full atonement for sin, we must recognize our complete sinfulness and set aside any attempt to approach God on our own merits. He cannot condone sin: “With you the wicked cannot dwell… you hate all who do wrong” (Psalm 5:4-5). We must recognize Christ as more than a mere example, but rather our substitute for sin. “He will provide satisfaction… my just servant will justify many, for he himself carried their guilt” (Isaiah 53:11), and he became the curse for us (Galatians 3:13).
When Christ’s heart ached on the cross because of his burden and he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), he was suffering the torture of hell in our place, the torture our sins deserved. It was the pain of being separated from the love of his Father. That love was affirmed on the Mountain of Transfiguration just a few months before (Matthew 17:5), but on the cross the Father said to him, in effect: ‘I tell you the truth, I don’t know you” (Matthew 25:12). The obedience of his life and the blood of his body redeemed us.
What is the result of this redemption we have through Christ? Luther summarizes it for us in his explanation to the Second Article of the Creed:
“I believe that Jesus Christ… has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death.”
My troubles, my sins, were on the cross with Jesus. But when he died, the payment was done. I am now God’s child and an heir of everlasting life. Trust in Jesus always.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.