Last Words of Jesus, Part Seven

And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, "Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit." Having said this, He breathed His last.
Luke 23:46

Jesus had revealed His love by praying for the forgiveness of the very soldiers who nailed Him to the cross.  He offered the hope of salvation to the criminal next to Him.  He made sure His mother was take care of.  He expressed the agony of being spiritually separated from God while bearing the weight of our sin.  He fulfilled prophecy by asking for a drink.  And finally, He mightily declared that the debt was paid, and it was finished.  Now, Jesus was about to breathe his last.

No man took Jesus life from Him; instead, He laid it down.  This last statement shows Jesus willingly giving up His life.  He committed His spirit to the Father, and He died.

This too was a reference to Psalms.  In Psalm 31:5, it says, "Into Your hand I commit My spirit; You have ransomed me, O Lord, God of truth."

What did Jesus mean by committing His spirit to the Father?  Here, at the end of it all, Jesus was about to give Himself over to the clutches of death.  Jesus is life, and now, He would die.  What lay beyond?

Jesus had said He would be rejected, killed, and on the third day, rise again.  He knew resurrection was ahead.  But that resurrection was clearly the work of the whole Trinity (Galatians 1:1; Romans 8:11).  I believe Jesus was faithfully presenting Himself to God, believing that the Father would work to raise Jesus out of the grave.  Through the power of God, Jesus would conquer death.  And just as Jesus relied on the power of God, and was dependent upon the Spirit in His entire earthly ministry, so He now continues to rely on the Father to call Him back from death.

David wrote in Psalm 16:10, "For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay."

Speaking of this verse, Peter said in Acts 2:29, 31-32, "Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day...he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh suffer decay. This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses."

He pays the debt, gives Himself fully to the Father, and breathes His last.  This was Jesus' great act of surrender, His final humiliation.  And yet, it shows His complete trust in the Father.

And the Father did not disappoint. As we know, and as we celebrated yesterday, Jesus rose!  He conquered death!  He won.

God sent His Son, they called Him Jesus.
He came to love, heal, and forgive;
He lived and died to buy my pardon,
An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives!
Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,
Because He lives, all fear is gone,
Because I know He hold the future.
And I know life is worth the living just because He lives.




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