“And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost. Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man. And all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts, and returned. And all his acquaintance, and the women that followed him from Galilee, stood afar off, beholding these things.”
We have been looking at the times that the Lord cried out while He was on the cross. We know that John was the only one of the twelve disciple who actually witnessed the Lord while He was on the cross but we also know that there were women who watched (John 19: 25). John was written much later than the other three gospels so he added some material that was missed but he did not witness the entire experience because he took Mary home to his own house during the hours of darkness. The other information must have been given to the gospel writers by Mary Magdalene or one of the other women.
Acts 3: 1 tells us that the ninth hour was the hour of prayer and this passage tells us that the awful hours or darkness ended at the hour of prayer as well. At this stage the veil of the Temple was torn down the middle, from the top to the bottom. The idea of salvation includes the removal of a restriction. In Ex 14: 13 the Israelites were blocked on every side but the Lord promised to save them and removed the water. The veil in the Temple was a restriction that blocked access to the Lord’s presence but when the Lord Jesus Christ died this restriction was removed. Hebrews 4: 16 reminds us that we can come boldly unto the throne of grace because the Lord Jesus Christ effected the removal of the blockage.
This passage tells us that the Lord cried with a loud voice, that was the cry “It is finished”, and then He said “Father, into they hands I commend my spirit.”
In the first prayer that the Lord made while He was on the cross, He said, “Father” but in the fourth cry He said, “My God” but now that the work was finished He was able to say “Father” again. During the time that the Lord was acting as our substitute He was cut off from God by our sin but now that the problem of sin had been dealt with the Lord is free to pray again to the the Father. The first time the word “father” occurs in the Bible is in Gen 2: 24 where we read that a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife. Marriage occurs when a person make a public declaration that he is leaving a place where he belongs and is going to new place where he belongs. The idea of “father” contains the concept of belonging. When the Saviour prayed to the Father, He indicated to us that He belonged in a certain place. This is also why He told us to use the word “Father” when we pray. We belong to the “Father” and is is natural for us to pray to Him.
The Lord Jesus Christ commended His spirit “into” the Father’s hands. The first time we see “into” is in Gen 2: 7 where the Lord breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils and he became a living soul. The last time we read about “into” is in Rev 22: 14 where the people that do His commandments have the right to the tree of life and may enter into the city. on the other hand there are those who are without. When we read about into in the Bible we understand that there is without and that the person who goes “into” has a living connection with the identity. The Lord Jesus Christ was “without” while He bore our sins, for “Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree” (Gal 3: 13) but now the curse was over and there is a connection forged with the price of blood.
The Lord works with individuals and through individuals so the use of “thy” is very important. This indicates that the there is a personal relationship between the father and the son. It is possible to be a member of a large group but the intimacy and rest that comes from a personal relationship is not available. We, each sinner saved by grace, have a personal and intimate relationship with the Father based on the personal intimate relationship between the Father and the Son.
The first time that we see the expression “thy hand” is in Gen 14: 20. In this case Melchizedek the king of Salem blessed Abram and praised the most high God who had delivered his enemies into his hand. There is a sense of having complete control over someone or something that is in a person’s hands. In Hebrews 2: 7 we read that God has set the Son over the works of His hands and He has put all things in subjection under His feet. When the Lord Jesus prayed before He went to the cross, He submitted Himself to His Father’ authority (Matt 26: 39) now He is submitting Himself to His Father’s care.
The use of the first personal pronoun again emphasises the individual relationship. If you deal with a bureaucracy the relationship may be individual from one side but there is nothing personal on the other side. However, the relationship between the Father and the Son is personal both ways, the Father cares about the Son as an individual and the Son trusts and cares about the Father as an individual. This same relationship flows through to those who are “in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8: 1).
While some versions say that the Lord Jesus committed His spirit to the Father, the Lord actually commended His spirit to the Father, this is an entirely different things. In Gen 12: 15 Pharaoh’s princes commended Sarah to Pharaoh and I 2 Cor 12: 11 Paul says that the Corinthians ought to have commended him. The Lord Jesus was expressing the fact that He had done something worthy of commendation before He made this statement. As Judge of all the earth, He said that He was satisfied with the work that He had done when He said “It is finished” and then He further went on to convey that fact to the Father. Gen 39: 8 reminds us that committing something means that the thing committed is put into the other’s care but our Saviour was not assigning His care to the Father; there was never any question that the Father cared for the Son, He was expressing His satisfaction at the job that He had just done well.
In Gen 1: 26 we read that God made man in His own image, this means that we all are spiritual creatures with the ability to relate to God. In Gen 1: 2 the Spirit of the Lord moved over the face of the waters but in Gen 6: 3 the Lord said that His spirit would not always strive with man, He had reached the stage where He was no longer going to fight with sinful man, who had rejected the relationship that we were created to enjoy, to have the only relationship that was all good.
When the Lord Jesus said these words, He knew that the whole program was complete, there was nothing left to say so He gave up the ghost. In Gen 25: 8 we read that Abraham gave up the ghost and died. While only the first part of the expression is used here we know that it means the Lord Jesus Christ died. However, he was in control and chose the time. In Rom 6: 23 we read that the wages of sin is death. However, even though the Lord Jesus Christ died as our substitute, He was always without sin. Death had no right to claim Him, death had to wait until it was summoned. Rev 20: 14 tells us that death and hell will be cast into the lake of fire, that is, they will be eliminated altogether when the Lord creates the new heaven and the new earth, this is the time when death was defeated.
Some people try to tell us that the Lord Jesus died of loss of blood or even of a broken heart, but that is not true. Like the seventh day of creation the Lord rested because He was finished, here the Lord Jesus Christ gave up the ghost because all the legal requirements for everlasting life were satisfied, He was now free to rest from His labour.
No person, power or spirit in all creation had the authority to take His life away from Him. He had the power to lay down His life but He also had power to take it up again (John 10: 18). By giving Himself up to death the Lord was setting the precondition for His resurrection. He had laid down His life and, just as He said, He would soon take it up again. But after this He would remain alive forever.
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