From the Cross to the Crown: The Logic of Gospel Victory Text: Psalm 22:22-31
Introduction: The Great Hinge
Psalm 22 is a psalm that every Christian knows, or ought to know. The first half is a harrowing, prophetic description of the crucifixion, so precise that the Lord Jesus Himself cried out its first line from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" We see the mockery, the pierced hands and feet, the thirst, the casting of lots for His garments. It is a raw, brutal, honest look into the abyss of dereliction. If the psalm ended at verse 21, it would be the most profound cry of despair ever written.
But it does not end there. In fact, the psalm pivots on a great hinge. After the cry, "Save me from the lion's mouth," there is a dramatic, instantaneous shift in tone. The darkness evaporates. The cry of dereliction gives way to a shout of declaration. The solitary sufferer is suddenly surrounded by a global congregation. The one who was afflicted and abhorred becomes the leader of an eternal chorus of praise. This second half of the psalm is not an afterthought; it is the necessary and logical consequence of the first half. It is the resurrection side of the crucifixion. It is the crown that follows the cross.
We live in an age of evangelical pessimism. Many Christians look at the state of the world and conclude that the best we can do is hunker down, polish the brass on a sinking ship, and wait for the rapture. They read the first half of Psalm 22, as it were, and camp out there. They see the affliction, the mockery, the power of the wicked, and they assume this is the permanent state of the Church in the world until the end. But they have failed to turn the page. They have missed the logic of the gospel. The cross was not a defeat that God had to somehow salvage. The cross was the victory, and the resurrection was the vindication of that victory. And the necessary result of that victory is what we see in our text today: the conquest of the nations, the feasting of all peoples, and the establishment of a kingdom that will have no end.
This passage is a glorious, postmillennial vision, rooted in the finished work of Christ. It tells us not only what Christ has done, but what He is doing, and what He will continue to do until all the ends of the earth remember and turn to Him. This is not a pipe dream; it is a prophecy. It is the sworn oath of God, and it is the reason we labor with such confident hope.
The Text
I will surely recount Your name to my brothers; In the midst of the assembly I will praise You. You who fear Yahweh, praise Him; All you seed of Jacob, glorify Him, And stand in awe of Him, all you seed of Israel. For He has not despised and He has not abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; And He has not hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard. Of You is my praise in the great assembly; I shall pay my vows before those who fear Him. The afflicted will eat and be satisfied; Those who seek Him will praise Yahweh. May your heart live forever! All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to Yahweh, And all the families of the nations will worship before You. For the kingdom is Yahweh’s And He rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth will eat and worship, All those who go down to the dust will bow before Him, Even he who cannot keep his soul alive. Their seed will serve Him; It will be recounted about the Lord to the coming generation. They will come and will declare His righteousness To a people who will be born, that He has done it.
(Psalm 22:22-31 LSB)
The Vindicated Son and the Great Assembly (vv. 22-25)
The first movement of this triumph song begins with the personal declaration of the resurrected Messiah.
"I will surely recount Your name to my brothers; In the midst of the assembly I will praise You." (Psalm 22:22)
Who is this "I"? This is the Messiah, the one who was just crying out from the lion's mouth. And what is the first thing He does upon His deliverance? He gathers His brothers. He leads the worship service. The author of Hebrews quotes this very verse to make a profound point about the incarnation. "For this reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, 'I WILL PROCLAIM YOUR NAME TO MY BRETHREN, IN THE MIDST OF THE CONGREGATION I WILL SING YOUR PRAISE'" (Hebrews 2:11-12). Jesus Christ, the risen Lord, is our chief worship leader. He stands among us, in the assembly of His people, and leads us in praising the Father. This demolishes all forms of individualistic, "me-and-Jesus" piety. The fruit of the resurrection is the Church, the gathered assembly, the congregation.
From His own declaration, the call to praise explodes outward to encompass all of God's covenant people. "You who fear Yahweh, praise Him; All you seed of Jacob, glorify Him, And stand in awe of Him, all you seed of Israel" (v. 23). This is corporate worship. This is the central, public, covenantal response to the salvation God has accomplished.
And what is the basis for this praise? Verse 24 gives us the reason, the doctrinal foundation for the doxology. "For He has not despised and He has not abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; And He has not hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard" (v. 24). This is the great reversal. The one who cried "Why have you forsaken me?" was not ultimately forsaken. The Father did not despise the suffering of His Son. He accepted it as the perfect sacrifice. He did not hide His face forever, but turned His face back toward Him in the resurrection. God heard the cry of His afflicted Son, and He answered Him by raising Him from the dead. This is the bedrock of our faith. Because God vindicated Christ, He will vindicate all who are in Christ.
The praise, therefore, is not a vague feeling. It is a public testimony in the great assembly, and it involves covenantal obligations. "Of You is my praise in the great assembly; I shall pay my vows before those who fear Him" (v. 25). The vows made in the distress of the cross are now paid in the joy of the resurrection. This is the pattern for us. We cry out to God in our trouble, and when He delivers us, we must come back to the assembly and pay our vows, to testify publicly to His faithfulness.
The Great Reversal and the Global Feast (vv. 26-29)
The celebration that begins in the assembly now spills out into a great, universal feast.
"The afflicted will eat and be satisfied; Those who seek Him will praise Yahweh. May your heart live forever!" (Psalm 22:26 LSB)
This is the gospel feast. In the first half of the psalm, the sufferer was poured out like water, his bones out of joint, his strength dried up. Now, the afflicted, the poor, the meek, are invited to a banquet where they will eat and be satisfied. This is the Lord's Supper in seed form. This is the Messianic banquet where the hungry are filled with good things. And this satisfaction is not temporary; it is eternal. "May your heart live forever!"
But the invitation list is not limited to the afflicted of Israel. The vision explodes to encompass the entire globe. "All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to Yahweh, And all the families of the nations will worship before You" (v. 27). This is the Great Commission in the Old Testament. This is not the rescue of a few scattered individuals from a sinking world. This is the conversion of the world. "All the ends of the earth." "All the families of the nations." This is comprehensive. They will "remember" what they had forgotten in their idolatry, the true God who made them, and they will "turn" in repentance and faith. The result is global worship.
Why will this happen? What is the engine driving this global conversion? Verse 28 gives us the political reality of the universe. "For the kingdom is Yahweh’s And He rules over the nations" (v. 28). The kingdom is not something we are trying to build for God. The kingdom, the dominion, the royal power, already belongs to Him. Christ's resurrection and ascension was His coronation. He is, right now, the Governor among the nations. The history of the world since the resurrection is the story of Him putting all His enemies under His feet. Our evangelism is not a desperate plea; it is an announcement from the reigning King, demanding the unconditional surrender of all rebels.
And this rule is total. It includes everyone, from the top to the bottom. "All the prosperous of the earth will eat and worship, All those who go down to the dust will bow before Him, Even he who cannot keep his soul alive" (v. 29). The rich and the powerful will feast and worship alongside the poor and the dying. Every knee will bow. The gospel creates a new humanity where earthly distinctions are relativized. Whether you are a king or a pauper, you come to this feast the same way: as a sinner saved by grace, bowing before the one true King.
The Generational Conquest (vv. 30-31)
This global kingdom is not a flash in the pan. It is a lasting, generational reality.
"Their seed will serve Him; It will be recounted about the Lord to the coming generation. They will come and will declare His righteousness To a people who will be born, that He has done it." (Psalm 22:30-31 LSB)
The kingdom of God is a covenantal kingdom, and it advances through generations. "Their seed," that is, the children of those who turn to the Lord from all the nations, will serve Him. The faith is passed down. The story of what the Lord has done is recounted from father to son, from mother to daughter. This is the engine of covenant succession. We are not just saving souls; we are building families, churches, and cultures that will serve the Lord for a thousand generations.
The message is passed to "a people who will be born." The gospel has a future. The church is not dying out. We are commanded to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth with godly seed who will carry this testimony forward. Each generation has the duty to declare His righteousness to the next.
And what is the substance of this declaration? What is the final word of this magnificent psalm? It is a simple, profound, all-encompassing statement: "that He has done it."
That is the gospel in four words. It is the summary of everything. It is what Jesus meant when He cried from the cross, "It is finished." The work is accomplished. The victory is won. The sacrifice is complete. Our salvation does not depend on what we do, but on what He has done. Our hope for the world does not depend on our clever strategies or our political maneuvering, but on the fact that God the Father heard the cry of His afflicted Son, raised Him from the dead, and gave Him the nations for His inheritance. He has done it. And because He has done it, all the ends of the earth will remember and turn to Him. Because He has done it, the kingdom is His. Because He has done it, we can go forth in confidence, not to fight for victory, but to fight from victory, declaring His righteousness to a people yet to be born, that He has done it.
Conclusion: The Logic of Victory
So we see the unbreakable logic of the gospel. The suffering of the cross (vv. 1-21) is the necessary cause of the global triumph of the kingdom (vv. 22-31). You cannot have one without the other. To deny the coming victory of the gospel in history is, in a very real sense, to diminish the victory of the cross itself.
The cross was not Plan B. It was not a tragic martyrdom that God turned into a spiritual lesson. It was the D-Day of cosmic history. It was the decisive battle where the head of the serpent was crushed. The resurrection was the announcement of victory, and the history of the Church is the mopping-up operation.
Therefore, we must not be a people of fear. We must not be a people of retreat. We are the servants of a victorious King who is, right now, ruling over the nations. Our task is to live in light of that reality. We gather in the great assembly, with Christ Himself in our midst, to praise the Father. We feast at His table, where the afflicted are satisfied. And we go out to declare His righteousness to our children, and to the nations, telling them the simple and world-altering truth: He has done it.