I SINK IN DEEP MIRE … DEEP WATERS … THE FLOODS OVERFLOW ME

The foundation of the gospel message is that ‘Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures’, 1 Cor. 15. 3. Only a divine person could know and fulfil all the prophetic scriptures relat­ing to the sufferings of Calvary. The Lord was able to ‘tell them what things should happen to him’ on the way to Jerusalem Mark 10. 32-39. In His explanation, He revealed that He would be ‘baptized’. For the believer, baptism involves immersion in water, but the Lord was contemplating the sufferings that would immerse Him on the cross.

Psalm 69 foretold the experience of the suffering Messiah. On the third day of creation, God commanded that, ‘The waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place’, Gen. 1. 9. At Calvary, the waters of judgement were brought to the one place and our Lord was immersed in them. It is possible for a man to swim or even float in deep waters but at the cross there was also ‘deep mire’ that drew the Lord deeper and deeper into His sufferings. And, as He sank further down, the floods overflowed Him.

Yet, even in the midst of such suffering, the Lord was fully aware of the purpose of His death. The psalm contemplates the Lord as the answer to the trespass offering - And he shall make amends for the harm that he hath done in the holy thing, and shall add the fifth part thereto’, Lev. 5. 16. The Lord had no need to ‘make amends’ for Himself. His enemies had no cause for their hatred.

But the harm and the offence caused throughout the history of mankind was so great that it required the intervention of a divine person. All that Satan and Adam had brought into the world would be brought to Calvary for judgement. ‘Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out’, John 12. 31. The Son of God would ‘make amends’ and ‘add the fifth part thereto’ and by dying bring forth ‘much fruit’. He waited on His God because He understood that there would be a definite point when His sufferings would come to an end - ‘then I restored that which I took not away’, v. 4.