“In You, O Lord, I put my trust; let me never be ashamed; deliver me in Your righteousness. Bow down Your ear to me, deliver me speedily; be my rock of refuge, a fortress of defense to save me. For You are my rock and my fortress; therefore, for Your name’s sake, lead me and guide me. Pull me out of the net which they have secretly laid for me, for You are my strength. Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.” (Psalm 31:1-5 NKJV)
Psalm 31 holds a special place in Christian history because it is one of only two psalms that are explicitly quoted by Jesus on the cross. The other, Psalm 22, is frequently cited in our sacred remembrance of the passion, but it is here in Psalm 31 where we find the last spoken words of Jesus according to the Gospel of Luke: “Into Your hands I commit My spirit” (v. 5; Luke 23:46 NKJV). However, there is a little detail that you should notice when comparing the two passages. Psalm 31 addresses Yahweh [Lord], the sacred covenantal name of God. It is a name so exalted and holy that the Jews would not even pronounce the name. It is rendered in the Hebrew Bible with only four consonants: YHWH. However, Jesus precedes these words from Psalm 31 with the most intimate term imaginable when He says, “Father, into Your hands, I commit My spirit.” The movement from YHWH to Father is, in seed form, one of the greatest summaries of the gospel message and is why Jesus came to earth. Before the coming of Christ, God was distant and unapproachable. His name could not be spoken. Now, through the intercession of Christ and His redemptive work, we who were once “far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13).
Indeed, it is fitting that at the very moment Jesus was, quite literally, shedding His blood for us, He addressed God as Father, thereby modeling for us the new and living way that was being opened to all of us through the gospel. Now, we can all cry, “Father” for, as Paul declares, “you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by Him we cry, ‘Abba, Father’” (Romans 8:15). This is the good news that is ours through the work of Jesus Christ!
-- Timothy and Julie Tennent in “A Meditative Journey Through the Psalms”
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