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Did Psalm 22 actually predict the crucifixion of Jesus, or are Christians reading the cross backward into an ancient Jewish lament?

In this teaching, we conclude the Christology series by examining one of the most important Old Testament texts associated with the Passion of Christ: Psalm 22.

Jesus quotes the opening words of the psalm from the cross:

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

But the connections between Psalm 22 and the crucifixion extend far beyond that single statement.

We begin by examining Psalm 22 within its original setting as the lament of a righteous sufferer.

We then examine the remarkable parallels between Psalm 22 and the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion.

And Jesus Himself takes the opening words of the psalm upon His lips.

Special attention is given to the famous textual problem in Psalm 22:16 concerning the reading "they pierced my hands and my feet" versus "like a lion, my hands and my feet."

We compare the Masoretic Hebrew tradition, the ancient Greek Septuagint, and the Hebrew manuscript evidence from Nahal Hever.

We also consider Justin Martyr's accusation that Jewish scribes altered messianic passages and explain why the Christian interpretation of Psalm 22 does not require a theory of deliberate textual corruption.

The teaching then addresses one of the most important theological questions surrounding Jesus' cry from the cross.

Did the Father actually abandon the Son?

We examine the common appeal to Habakkuk 1:13, the internal movement of Psalm 22 itself, and the doctrine of Trinitarian unity.

Psalm 22 eventually declares that God did not hide His face from the suffering one but heard his cry.

Christ therefore genuinely experiences human suffering, anguish, sin bearing, and death without requiring an ontological rupture within the Trinity.

We also examine the popular "crimson worm" interpretation of Psalm 22:6.

Finally, we follow Psalm 22 from suffering to vindication.

The psalm begins with apparent abandonment but ends with praise, divine deliverance, and the nations turning toward the Lord.

The Christian claim is not that Psalm 22 loses its original historical meaning.

Also available through YouTube Music as an episode of Theophilus Podcast.

Research and Further Study

This teaching draws from the following papers:

• Psalm 22: A Prophetic Foreshadowing of Christ's Passion: Theological Implications and the Debate Over Messianic Interpretation

• Psalm 22 and the Crucifixion

The academic study examines Psalm 22 within Jewish and Christian interpretation, the textual problem surrounding Psalm 22:16, the Septuagint and Nahal Hever manuscript evidence, the Passion narratives, early Christian interpretation, Trinitarian unity at the cross, and the theological movement from suffering to vindication. Your papers specifically frame the debate around the "pierced" versus "like a lion" reading and the question of whether Christ's cry implies divine abandonment.

Defend the Word Ministries

DefendtheWord.com

Academic Papers

GeneWilliamsJr.academia.edu

Remember these wise words I once took to heart when studying Scripture:

"If it's weird, it's important. What you know may not be so."

Think carefully. Follow the evidence. And let's see where it leads.

#Psalm22 #JesusChrist #Christology #Crucifixion #MessianicProphecy #Septuagint #TextualCriticism #PassionOfChrist #HypostaticUnion #BiblicalTheology #Apologetics #DefendTheWord

Production Note

This teaching is presented using an AI digital twin of Gene Williams. The research, arguments, and teaching content are his own.

Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.

How can Jesus be fully God and fully human without either His divinity overwhelming His humanity or His humanity diminishing His divinity?

In this teaching, we examine the Integrated Hypostatic Union Model, or IHUM, a theological framework I developed while wrestling with one of the most difficult questions in Christology.

Historic Christianity confesses Jesus Christ as one person possessing two complete natures, fully divine and fully human. The Council of Chalcedon established the essential boundaries of that confession, while the Third Council of Constantinople affirmed that Christ possesses both a divine will and a genuinely human will.

But those definitions raise further questions.

How can Jesus grow in wisdom while remaining the omniscient Logos?

How can He possess a complete human mind without creating two centers of personhood?

How can His human will remain genuinely human while existing in perfect harmony with the divine will?

How can the eternal and immutable Son enter temporal human experience without God acquiring new knowledge or undergoing ontological change?

IHUM attempts to address these questions without abandoning classical Christology.

The model distinguishes nature from person, mind from conscious subject, and the possession of divine attributes from their expression within the economy of the Incarnation.

The teaching then explores Christ's two wills, the prayer in Gethsemane, kenosis in Philippians 2, Selective Communication, Mark 13:32, and the relationship between divine omniscience and genuine human experience.

We examine B Theory of time and the classical concept of God's Eternal Now. The Incarnation occurs genuinely within created history, but God's knowledge does not develop sequentially.

IHUM is not presented as a new doctrine or replacement for the historic councils. It is an explanatory model intended to operate within their boundaries.

The goal is not to eliminate the mystery of the Incarnation.

The goal is to distinguish mystery from contradiction and ask whether the historic Christian confession of Jesus Christ can be understood as metaphysically coherent.

Also available through YouTube Music as an episode of Theophilus Podcast.

Research and Further Study

This teaching draws from the following papers:

• The Integrated Hypostatic Union Model

• God in the Flesh: How Jesus United Heaven and Earth in One Person

• Two Ship Breakdown Based on IHUM

• Why These Papers Exist: A Coherence Narrative for the Integrated Hypostatic Union

• B Theory of Time: A Defense of God's Eternal Now in Christian Theology

• God's Eternal Now: Understanding Time and God's Relationship To It

The academic studies examine Chalcedonian Christology, dyothelitism, consciousness and personhood, kenosis, Selective Communication, divine immutability, Christ's human and divine minds, B Theory of time, and the metaphysical coherence of the Incarnation in greater detail.

Defend the Word Ministries

DefendtheWord.com

Academic Papers

GeneWilliamsJr.academia.edu

Remember these wise words I once took to heart when studying Scripture:

"If it's weird, it's important. What you know may not be so."

Think carefully. Follow the evidence. And let's see where it leads.

#Christology #JesusChrist #HypostaticUnion #IHUM #Incarnation #Chalcedon #ChristianTheology #Apologetics #BTheory #EternalNow #DefendTheWord

Production Note

This teaching is presented using an AI digital twin of Gene Williams. The research, arguments, theological model, and teaching content are his own.

Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.

When John wrote, "In the beginning was the Word," what did he mean by the Word?

Was the Logos borrowed from Greek philosophy, or was John drawing upon a much older Jewish theological world?

In this teaching, we examine the Jewish and Greco Roman background of John 1 by tracing three important concepts: Sophia, the Greek term for Wisdom, Memra, the Aramaic term for Word, and Logos, the term John uses for the eternal Word who became flesh.

We begin with the Wisdom traditions of the Hebrew Bible, especially Proverbs 8, and follow their development within Second Temple Jewish literature such as Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon. These writings increasingly associate divine Wisdom with creation, revelation, instruction, and God's activity within the world.

We then examine the Memra traditions preserved in the Aramaic Targums. These Jewish interpretive traditions frequently speak of the Word of the Lord in connection with creation, revelation, covenant, judgment, and divine presence. Because the surviving Targums developed over time, we also consider the historical limits of using them as direct evidence for John's Gospel.

The discussion then expands into the broader Jewish world of divine agency, including the Angel of the Lord, the Divine Name, the Glory of God, and the Son of Man. These traditions demonstrate that ancient Jewish monotheism already possessed sophisticated ways of discussing God's transcendence, presence, revelation, and activity.

We also examine the Greek background of Logos, including Heraclitus, Stoicism, and Philo of Alexandria. Greek philosophy helps explain why the term Logos could communicate effectively within the Hellenistic world, but vocabulary does not automatically determine John's theology.

John's prologue remains deeply rooted in the language and imagery of Israel's Scriptures. He begins with the words, "In the beginning," immediately taking us back to Genesis. From there, he develops familiar biblical themes of creation, life, light, glory, and the presence of God among His people. All of those themes come together in his climactic statement that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

The revolutionary claim of John is not merely that God possesses Wisdom or speaks through His Word. It is that the eternal Word through whom all things were created has entered human history in Jesus Christ.

Greek language provides the vocabulary. Jewish theology provides the primary conceptual world. Jesus Christ is the one John identifies as the Logos made flesh.

Also available through YouTube Music as an episode of Theophilus Podcast.

Research and Further Study

This teaching draws from the following papers:

• The Word Made Flesh: Sophia, Memra, and Logos in Jewish and Early Christian Thought

• John 1: The Word Made Flesh, The Jewish Roots of the Logos

The academic study examines Wisdom traditions, Targumic Memra theology, Jewish divine agency, Greek philosophical uses of Logos, Philo of Alexandria, the Johannine Prologue, and the emergence of early Christology in greater detail.

Defend the Word Ministries

DefendtheWord.com

Academic Papers

GeneWilliamsJr.academia.edu

Remember these wise words I once took to heart when studying Scripture:

"If it's weird, it's important. What you know may not be so."

Think carefully. Follow the evidence. And let's see where it leads.

#JesusChrist #Christology #John1 #Logos #WordMadeFlesh #Sophia #Memra #SecondTempleJudaism #JewishRoots #BiblicalTheology #Apologetics #DefendTheWord

Production Note

This teaching is presented using an AI digital twin of Gene Williams. The research, arguments, and teaching content are his own.