Psalms 69:9

The sufferings in this Psalm are not the ones connected with His soul being made an offering for sin. His atoning sufferings came from God, as we see in Psalm 22. Here the sufferings are endured for God. Verse 7 states it plainly: "For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach." That note runs all the way through. By the spirit of prophecy we see the holy, dependent Man. He is completely identified with God's interests, and He goes down into death because of it.

The house of prayer for all nations becomes a gathering place for money-changers. They turn the Father's house into a house of merchandise. The Lord deals with this great evil. He justifies His judicial act by claiming His relationship with God as His Father, and by saying that the temple is His Father's house. So once again He displays His glory before His disciples. He acts as the Son, in zeal for the glory of His Father's house, according to the Scripture, "Zeal for your house has consumed me." Now that the Son has come, this psalm takes on a fuller and deeper meaning. It shows us that the rejected Man the psalmist speaks of is none other than the Son.

This very zeal and devotion to His Father's glory was a pledge of His death. The Pharisees asked Him by what authority He did these things. His answer shows He knew where such zeal was leading Him: "Destroy this temple" — take My life — "and in three days I will raise it up."

First, our Lord was devoted to the glory of God and the interests of His house. That devotion lifted Him above every natural claim on Him. This led, secondly, to His complete identification with God and His interests on the earth. He felt everything according to God, and for God. So He said, "the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me." He received everything, not as it touched Himself, but as it affected God and His glory. A reproach spoken against God wounded His heart, because He was here not for Himself, but for God.

The first man Adam robbed God of His glory. He gave up obedience to God and dependence on Him. He became eaten up with self-interest and self-seeking. The second Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, was marked by absolute obedience and dependence. He was eaten up with zeal for God's house. He was so wholly identified with the interests and glory of God that if anyone flung reproaches at God, the reproach fell on His head. So having taken man's true place, He restored to God as Man the place that was truly His as God. He glorified God where the first man had dishonored Him.

In Psalm 69 He is not absolutely alone. Many a believer has suffered at the hands of evil men because they are identified with God's name and cause. He is immeasurably supreme in this, but there are others. That accounts for expressions in the Psalm which apply to those others, but do not apply to Him.

He did that alone; we could have no part in such divine and holy indignation. But in these reproaches we may share, and we will if we are like Him. The zeal that cleansed the temple was needed then. What causes these reproaches is just as needed for the good of God's house on earth now.