Untitled Sermon (5)
23:44–49. Luke noted four things that occurred at the time Jesus died. First, two symbolic events took place while Jesus was on the cross. Darkness came over the whole land for three hours, from the sixth hour (noon) until the ninth hour (3:00 P.M.). Jesus had already told those who arrested Him that “this is your hour—when darkness reigns” (22:53). Darkness was reigning because of His crucifixion. The other symbolic event was the tearing in two of the curtain of the temple, which separated the holy of holies from the rest of the temple. The curtain divided people from the place where God had localized His presence. The tearing from top to bottom (Matt. 27:51) symbolized the fact that now, because of Jesus’ death, people had freer access to God as they no longer had to go through the sacrificial system (cf. Rom. 5:2; Eph. 2:18; 3:12). Jesus was the only Sacrifice needed to enable people to have a proper relationship with God.
Second, Luke noted that Jesus’ death occurred because He willed it. Breathing His last (Luke 23:46), He voluntarily gave up His life (John 10:15, 17–18).
We must keep in mind that what our Lord accomplished on the cross was an eternal transaction that involved Him and the Father. He did not die as a martyr who had failed in a lost cause. Nor was He only an example for people to follow. Isaiah 53 makes it clear that Jesus did not die for His own sins, because He had none; He died for our sins. He made His soul an offering for sin (Isa. 53:4–6, 10–12).
The three hours of darkness was a miracle. It was not an eclipse, because that would have been impossible during the Passover season when there is a full moon. It was a God-sent darkness that shrouded the cross as the Son of God was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). It was as though all nature was sympathizing with the Creator as He suffered and died. When Israel was in Egypt, three days of darkness preceded the first Passover (Ex. 10:21ff). When Jesus was on the cross, three hours of darkness preceded the death of God’s Lamb for the sins of the world (John 1:29).
Both Matthew 27:45–46 and Mark 15:33–34 record our Lord’s cry at the close of the darkness, a Hebrew quotation from Psalm 22:1, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” What this abandonment was and how Jesus felt it are not explained to us, but certainly it involves the fact that He became sin for us.
Our Lord cried with a loud voice, “It is finished!” (John 19:30) a declaration of victory. He had finished the work the Father gave Him to do (John 17:4). The work of redemption was completed, the types and prophecies were fulfilled (Heb. 9:24ff), and the Saviour could now rest.
He then addressed His Father in the final statement from the cross, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit” (Ps. 31:5). This was actually a bedtime prayer used by Jewish children, and it tells us how our Lord died: confidently, willingly (John 10:17–18), and victoriously. Those who know Jesus as their Saviour may die with the same confidence and assurance (2 Cor. 5:1–8; Phil. 1:20–23).
When our Lord released His spirit, the veil of the temple was torn in two “from the top to the bottom” (Mark 15:38). This miracle announced to the priests and people that the way into God’s presence was open for all who would come to Him by faith through Jesus Christ (Heb. 9:1–10:25). No more do sinners need earthly temples, altars, sacrifices, or priests, for all had now been fulfilled in the finished work of the Son of God.
“Into your hands I commit my spirit” was the Jews’ traditional evening prayer that pious Jews offered before going to sleep. Jesus chose to pray it at the moment he entered the ultimate sleep—death.
This prayer is a quotation from Psalm 31:5, a psalm in which David describes what has befallen him from his enemies (cf. vv. 10, 12, 13), concluding with an assertion of confidence in God (cf. vv. 22–24). When David prayed, “Into your hands I commit my spirit,” he was asking to be preserved from death. But when Jesus, the ultimate son of David, prayed it, it was a prayer of trust in the Father at the moment of death.
When Jesus prayed this “good night” prayer, he prayed it as no other Jew had ever prayed it—because he added “Father” to the beginning—“Father [Abba], into your hands I commit my spirit.” It is a matter of Biblical and scholarly record that no one prayed this way until Jesus did so. The ascription of “Father” was revolutionary! “Father” framed Jesus’ public ministry. It was the signature of his soul from first to last. It is the one recorded word of his youth: “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). It was the implicit title of the One who called to him from Heaven at his baptism: “You are my Son, whom I love” (Luke 3:22). “Father” was the opening word of the prayer he taught his followers to pray (Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2). It was the word he used to accept the cross: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). It was the first word spoken from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Now it was part of the last statement before his death. “Father” was the sustaining lyric of Jesus’ life, and here at death it expressed his ineffable trust and peace at death.
This prayer lifted and personalized from Psalm 31 is beautiful. But we will miss its force unless we feel the triumph in which it came. Luke records that “Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ When he had said this, he breathed his last” (23:46). It was a shout of victory!
This was no ordinary death by crucifixion. Normally the crucified, due to progressive weakening, fell unconscious and died feebly. But Jesus was in lucid control to the very last. He gave up his soul because he chose to do so, with a shout of confident victory.
And why not?
• He had refused to be drugged for the ordeal.
• He had remained, due to his superior Person, fully sensitized to all the suffering of the cross. He chose to suffer fully.
• Wave after wave of our transgressions poured onto him, so that his heart became the cesspool for our sin. Our iniquity focused upon him the infinite searing of a thousand suns. He became sin. He became a curse. He bore it all!
• He shouted the prophetic dereliction in fulfillment of all of Psalm 22. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
• He cried, “Finished!”—“It is finished and always will be finished” (perfect tense).
• And he shouted in the lifting gloom his own version of Psalm 31:5, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
This is why we are able to sing, “Jesus saves.” Only an infinite God/man could take the totality of our sins on himself and then give us his righteousness. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). This is the great exchange: his righteousness for our sin—our sin for his righteousness. How do we receive this? By faith.