0729, They Pierced My Hands
They Pierced My Hands
W.D. Frazee Sermons #0729
Study Given by W.D. Frazee
The hand that was wounded for me. You know it is an interesting thing, friends, that we have to turn to the Old Testament for the specific statement that proves beyond any question that the hands of Jesus were pierced. You've perhaps seen pictures in which some artist's conception is giving us the idea of hands tied to the wooden bars. I presume some crucifixions were carried out in this way. But concerning Jesus, we read in Psalms 22:16:
"They pierced my hands and my feet" — Psalm 22:16.
Yes, His hands and His feet were pierced with those spikes that the soldiers drove through the tender flesh that fixed Him to the tree. This 22nd Psalm, which we will use as the basis for our meditation this evening, was written about a thousand years before the birth of Jesus. It is very interesting that many details which we find in this Psalm concerning the final sufferings and the death of our Lord. It begins you notice with the very cry which ten centuries later was to ring out from those parched lips at 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon.
"My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me?" — Psalm 22:1.
Yes, this is the cry from the cross. And this is the Psalm from the cross. David wrote it, but He wrote it by the spirit of prophecy, and he wrote it looking ahead to the crucifixion and death of Jesus. And the Spirit of God put in these words, penned a thousand years in advance, the very thoughts that were to go through the suffering soul of Christ as He hung there on Calvary that dark Friday of the crucifixion.
Now the words that Jesus actually spoke from the cross are few. Seven times the Gospel writers report that He spoke. We shall not have time to notice all those this evening. He may have spoken at other times through the six hours that He hung upon the cross — we do not know, but those seven times are recorded. But in the 22nd Psalm, we doubtless have many of the thoughts that went through His mind that may not have found expression in words. But enough is recorded in the Gospels to show the fulfillment of this Psalm. So let us notice some of these expressions.
"My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Why art Thou so far from helping Me, and from the words of My roaring? O My God, I cry in the daytime, but Thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent" — Psalm 22:1-2.
Jesus at this point in His experience on the cross, is not receiving any answers from Heaven. The Father has hidden in the darkness. He has turned His face away because Jesus was suffering in our place. And so as Christ entered that darkness, the darkness of God abandonment, that fellowship that He had enjoyed with the Father from the days of eternity was broken. He couldn't see the Father's face either literally or in His mind. All He could see was that dark black veil that hung between Him and God.
During His life here on earth, He had walked in the sunlight of His Father's acceptance. There was a voice that spoke to Him at His baptism and said, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). The heavens were opened on that occasion, and the dove descended upon Him. But there is no voice that speaks from Heaven here at the cross. There is no dove that descends. There is no glory that shines from Heaven above. All is dark. He has gone out into the darkness of separation from God for us.
And so He is crying out His heart here in this darkness. Yet, through it all He seeks to justify the Father. While He cries, He does not condemn. While He calls, He does not complain. He asks why there is no answer, but I repeat, He seeks to justify the Father. So in the third verse, He says, "But Thou art holy, O Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel."
"I cannot understand, Father, I do not know why, why there should be this separation. It is terrible. I long that it shall not be. Father, why can You not answer Me? Why can You not sustain Me? Even in Gethsemane, You sent the angel to help Me but now is silence and darkness. Father, why hast Thou forsaken Me? I cry in the daytime while the blazing sun is upon Me, and in this night time during the day as the sun is blotted out at midday, I cry." But there seems to be no response. "And yet, Father, I know Thou art holy, Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel."
Then He turns to the past. He seeks to buoy up His faith, strengthen His hold by referring to God's dealings with His people.
"Our fathers trusted in Thee: they trusted, and Thou didst deliver them. They cried unto Thee, and were delivered: they trusted in Thee, and were not confounded" — Psalm 22:4-5.
And then, looking at His own abject condition forsaken by men and apparently forsaken by God, He says:
"But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see Me laugh Me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver Him: let Him deliver Him, seeing He delighted in Him" — Psalm 22:6-8.
These were the exact words that were hurled at Him a thousand years later as He hung upon the cross. Strange that the men who hurled those words at Him, they knew these scriptures by heart. Isn't that a strange thing? There they were, fulfilling the very scriptures that they prided themselves in knowing. Yet they were going about to hurl in the face of Jesus these words of reproach, and derision, and scorn, and sarcasm.
"He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver Him: let Him deliver Him, seeing He delighted in Him" — Psalm 22:8.
Yes, Christ felt the hurt of those words as they were hurled at Him. He knew that He was being reproached, that His unity with God was being derided, His claim to that unity. He felt it all. But again, He reasons with the Father that whatever men may say, however, men may doubt He knows, He knows that God is true.
"But Thou art He that took me out of the womb: Thou didst make Me hope when I was upon My mother's breasts. I was cast upon Thee from the womb: Thou art My God from My mother's belly. Be not far from Me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help" — Psalm 22:9-11.
This was literally true at Calvary, wasn't it? All had forsaken Him, and now He is pleading with the Father.
"Many bulls have compassed Me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset Me round" — Psalm 22:12.
Those men around the cross seemed like angry beasts, vicious animals ready to tear Him in pieces. Such indeed they seemed.
"They gaped upon Me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion" — Psalm 22:13.
Can you see them there about the cross? That mob spirit is there and led by the religious leaders of that time, the people were pouring upon Jesus the contempt and mockery, the abuse that the Devil inspired them to do. Christ felt like a man surrounded by angry bulls or terrible lions.
"I am poured out like water…" — Psalm 22:14.
You remember Isaiah says, "He hath poured out His soul unto death." Isaiah 53:12. His life was just being poured out like water out of a pitcher.
"I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint" — Psalm 22:14.
In addition to the agony that was caused by the wounds in His hands and feet as He hung suspended by those nails. The very position He was in threw unnatural strain upon the muscles and the bones and the nerves, and so as He hung there in that unnatural position suspended by those nails, He says, "All My bones are out of joint."
"My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of My bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and My tongue cleaveth to My jaws" — Psalm 22:14-15.
Yes, since the Passover supper the night before, He had tasted neither food nor drink. He had gone through excruciating agony. He had been pushed to and fro there by the mob in Gethsemane, in the various trials, and in between the trials. Twice He had been tortured by the scourge. Through it all, nothing to eat, nothing to add energy to His body, and no water, nothing to drink. So He says:
"My tongue cleaveth to My jaws; and Thou hast brought Me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed Me" — Psalm 22:15-16.
Again His mind returns to that multitude around. He had spoken of them as if they were like angry bulls, or like ravening lions, or wolves. And now He compares them to dogs. The dogs of Palestine were not as we think of today as pets, they were scavengers, and many of them were ferocious.
"For dogs have compassed Me: the assembly of the wicked have enclosed Me: they pierced My hands and My feet. I may tell all My bones: they look and stare upon Me. They part My garments among them, and cast lots upon My vesture" — Psalm 22:16-18.
Was that literally fulfilled? Just exactly what happened. They took Jesus' clothing, and the Roman soldiers threw the dice for it there at the foot of the cross. There He hung exposed to that curious staring multitude. He was not only in terrible sorrow but in shame, in agony.
"But be not Thou far from Me, O Lord: O My strength, haste Thee to help Me. Deliver My soul from the sword; My darling from the power of the dog. Save Me from the lion's mouth" — Psalm 22:19-21.
See how He pleads with God, pleading that there shall be something to help Him. Then He declares out of the midst of all this darkness with no visible evidence of any kind, and with no change of feeling, no lifting of the darkness, His faith breaks through, and notice what He says.
"Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns" — Psalm 22:21.
Now in this, Jesus was carrying out exactly what He had told His disciples. You remember in the eleventh of Mark and the 24th verse Jesus had taught His disciples when they prayed to do what? Believe.
"What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them" — Mark 11:24.
And so here He practices that which He had taught. Having urged His petitions, having reasoned, having pled, having supplicated, having cried — by faith and faith alone, He presses up His hand. Not the literal hand that is nailed to the tree, but the hand of faith He presses it up through the darkness, and He says, "Father, Thou hast heard Me."
Ah, don't you know every demon in hell said, "He hasn't heard You!" He says, "Thou hast heard Me." And notice how as He does that, His mind goes forward by faith to the victory, not merely of Himself, but of His brethren, His church, those that were to be saved by His sacrifice.
"Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns. I will declare Thy name unto My brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise Thee…"
This is all by faith, my friends.
"…Ye that fear the LORD, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel. For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard" — Psalm 22:21-24.
This is all by faith.
"My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear him. The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the LORD that seek him: your heart shall live for ever. All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is the LORD's: and he is the governor among the nations. All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul. A seed shall serve him" — Psalm 22:25-30.
You remember Isaiah writes it:
"He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied" — Isaiah 53:11.
He shall see His seed. How did He see His seed? By faith. By faith, He saw a multitude of the redeemed in the kingdom of God. He saw you and me, friends, that is what nerved Him to go ahead and make this sacrifice.
"A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this" — Psalm 22:30-31.
You notice the last word there is a supplied word. It is in italics. That means that particular word is not in the original. The translators supplied it. But those that have made a careful study of the original suggest that leaving off that last word which is supplied that those last three words can well be translated, "It is done, or It is finished."
Now you remember that those were the closing words of Jesus on the cross, you remember that, don't you? And it has been suggested, and I think it is well that this entire twenty-second Psalm gives us the thoughts that were going through the suffering soul of Jesus between that cry which begins in the first verse, "My God, My God, Why hast Thou forsaken Me?", to the closing cry, "It is done, or It is finished." where by faith, and faith alone, that the plan of salvation was made eternally sure.
I like to think of it this way tonight, dear friends, I like to read through this 22nd Psalm and seek in reading it to get a little clearer understanding of what went through the soul of Jesus as He hung there upon the cross. First that awful darkness of God abandonment, in the midst of an angry tormenting mob. The physical suffering that He endured as we have seen; the shame, the reproach of it all.
The scorn and the abuse, the mockery, His being dared to come down from the cross, the suggestion, "Why didn't God deliver you?" and all of those things. Through it all every demon of hell urging upon His soul the temptation to desert the human race and leave them and go back to Heaven; the suggestion that if He goes down into that dark pit that it will be forever — never come back, never come back.
Yet through it all, while He pleads for some ray of light, while He longs for some answer to His heart-broken cry, and none comes. By faith, by faith, by faith, He claims that the Father has heard Him. By faith, He asserts that God has heard Him. By faith, He sees a seed. He sees His children borne through this travail of soul. He sees them in the kingdom of God. And by faith, He praises God for that great ingathering of souls and finally ends in the trumpet call of victory, "It is finished! It is done!"
May we bow our heads in prayer?
Our heavenly Father, we thank Thee tonight for this cry from the cross. We thank Thee that Jesus was willing to take our darkness that we might have His light. That He took our death that we might have His life. That He took our shame that we might enter in into His glory. We pray that tonight that Thou wilt give us a love which responds to the great sacrifice and a faith that enters in with His faith into the glorious results and rewards that shall come from that sacrifice at the cross. Bless us as we meditate together and respond from our hearts. In Jesus' name, amen.
[Testimony service and appeals from Elder Frazee follow]
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