Article December 18, 1909 Issue

FULFILMENT

A. W. HEBER PERCY.

A light seemed to be thrown on this subject during the study of one of the Lesson-Sermons, and on comparing Psalm xxii., of which these words are the beginning, with the account of the crucifixion in Matthew xxvii., it was seen how several of the prophecies in this psalm were fulfilled; namely, "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." In Matthew we read: "Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, ... He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God." Again, in this psalm we find these words: "They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture;" while Matthew says, "And they ... parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet."

It seems then that Jesus must have been dwelling on the words of this psalm as he hung on the cross, watching and noting how their fulfilment was carried out before his eyes; and that, in this crucial experience, he began to repeat the first lines, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," not in any doubt of ever-present Love, but in the absolute recognition of the fulfilment of Truth's purpose. This cry must have been one of true prayer and victory, springing from the knowledge that all the prophecies concerning the Christ-mission had been fulfilled up to that point, and in the absolute certainty that the remainder would also be fulfilled, that the triumph of Truth and the universal acknowledgment of God, into which this psalm so grandly rises, would certainly come to pass in due time, as foretold by the prophetic Scripture: "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. ... 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."

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