3. Darkness to the End (vv. 14–19)
After Christ brings His distress before God in the first and second sections—and is not heard—suffering reaches its height. Although He cries out in the morning, there is no answer[9]. He feels that his soul is rejected—this may refer to the first section (cf. v. 4). And God had hidden His face from Him—this refers to the second section. He could no longer experience God and enjoy fellowship with Him. But why? “For the LORD is righteous, He loves righteousness; The upright will see His face” (Psalms 11:7b), and can be seen by him. Christ was the perfectly Upright One. But because He was made a curse for us, He was forsaken by God.
Now Christ looks back: From youth onward, the sufferings He sensed beforehand stood before Him. Our Savior knew from the beginning what awaited Him on the cross. We worship Him because He nevertheless came to earth and set His face to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51). But now, on the cross and in the darkness, the sufferings no longer stood before Him; rather, He bore the terrors, and that made Him “confused”.
The expressions in verses 17 and 18 describe a continuous and complete judgment. During the three hours of darkness, the flames of God’s wrath swept over Him. It was God’s righteous wrath over sin—over the sin of those who believe in Christ. And He let them pass over Him. The terrors surrounded Him “all day long,” throughout the entire three hours of judgment; and they surrounded Him “altogether.” Not a single terror was absent. That is why the Savior laments that they have destroyed Him—a complete, unsparing judgment—to the end.
And even in this, the familiar people were darkness. As a curse on the cross, He was separated from everything that could give hope and joy.
(No) Darkness
Thus this psalm ends just as dark as it began. This psalm has no ray of light, no blessing. It describes the curse and ends with death and loneliness.
But Christ’s work was necessary so that neither the remnant nor believers of other times would have to experience what Christ experienced in those three hours. He has “redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). Because He endured all the waves of judgment, no wave remains for us to fear. And because He went into death, the remnant in the kingdom of peace will sing of the Lord’s mercies and praise his wonders. We find that in Psalm 89. This psalm shows the blessing and the ray of light that emerges from the bitter suffering that Christ endured when He became a curse for us. And for His great, difficult work on the cross, we too want to praise and worship Him.
He was crushed by all God’s waves, and blessed be God that it is so, for no wave of God remains that could crush us.
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