One With Our Lord in Resurrection
This is the twenty-second verse of the twenty-second Psalm, the Crucifixion Psalm. But the twenty-second Psalm is more than a crucifixion Psalm; it is a resurrection Psalm as well. This twenty-second verse that the Spirit uses to prove that Jesus is one with us is the first verse of the resurrection half of the Psalm. When our Lord rose from the dead he said, “Go unto my brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God” (John 20:17). This was the first time that our Lord linked those words “my Father and your Father.” For in his resurrection he was in a new way “the firstborn of many brethren.” “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee,” was not spoken of the eternal generation of the Son of God, the living Word who was not begotten on a day but was before all time. Neither do the words refer to the glad day when the babe was born of the Virgin. They refer to that glad resurrection day when in a new way he declared God’s name unto his brethren. This is made clear in Acts 13:32, 33: “And we bring you good tidings of the promise made unto the fathers, that God hath fulfilled the same unto our children, in that he raised up Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.”
We are one with our elder Brother, then, in death and resurrection, and here is the death-blow to Satan’s lie of universal brotherhood and universal fatherhood. The firstborn of many brethren is brother only to those who share in his death that they may share also in his new birth.