The seven last sayings of Jesus at the Cross (part 3)
Sixth and seventh
By Pr Isaiah White
“Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit”- (Luke 23:46)
It is not always easy for us to understand what Jesus meant or what exactly these words meant to Him as He spoke them.
When Jesus said: “Into thy hands, I commit my Spirit”, to the audience around, it was familiar. He was solving the riddle and a prophecy of ages.
He was not just re-echoing the words of King David in Psalms 35:1, “Into thy hand, I commit my spirit; thou hast redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God”, but completing what was incomplete and fulfilling the prophecy that was channeled through His lips.
When David sang the words in Psalms 35, he had gone through very devastating circumstances in life both as an individual, a father and a king.
The soul of man does not die because the spirit of life is in it. The spirit of life is what keeps our mind thinking, our conscience working, our hearts beating, our legs walking and our arms moving.
This is what Jesus is entrusting to the Father. I am convinced it is the very spirit of life itself. He did what all of us must do, entrust our very life to the Father.
Job said in Job 1:21: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Commit your life to God! There is nothing else we can offer or trust God with than our spirits. Jesus demonstrates through this last saying how He had entrusted God with everything in His entire life.
“It is finished”-John 19:30
Our Lord and Savior had suffered at the Cross and spoken six times. He gave an assured promise to the thief who never deserved it when He told him he was going to be with Him in paradise (Luke 23:43).
He commissioned one of His disciples to take care of His lonely mother and entrusted the life of His mother under the care of this disciple (John 19:26-27).
He emotionally questioned why His divinity could dessert Him in the time of need (Matthew 27:45-46).
Under all this unimaginable pressure, His entire body dried up but most importantly His Spirit was thirsty for sinners (John 19:28-29).
The thirst our Lord suffered on the Cross was for both sinners and saints.
Jesus wanted all sinners and saints, strong and weak to always commend our spirit into the hands of the Lord as He did in His final saying at the Cross (Luke 23:44-49).
From ‘It is finished’, we learn that the three English words are a translation of one Greek term, ‘Tetelestai’.
It matters that we observe a few things about the usage of this term in the world that Jesus lived.
According to preceptaustin.org ‘Tetelestai’ is the perfect tense of the verb teleo, which is derived from telos (a goal achieved, a consummation, a result attained) and means to bring something to a successful end or to its intended or destined goal.
It does not mean just to complete a task but to carry it out fully, to bring it to the finish or perfection.
It is a word of finality. The idea is: “It is finished, it stands finished, and it always will be finished.
His work of redemption is complete and nothing needs to be or can be added to it.
Sin is atoned for (Hebrews 9:12, Hebrews 10:12), Satan is defeated and rendered powerless (Hebrews 2:14-15, 1John 3:8), every requirement of the law has been satisfied and God’s holy wrath against human sinning has been satisfied or propitiated (Romans 3:25, Hebrews 2:17, 1John 2:2, 4:10).
Redemption is eternally secured. We are reconciled in Christ’s “fleshly body through death” that we might be presented before God “holy and blameless and beyond reproach” (Colossian 1:22).
Tetelestai intends three accomplishments: 1-the debt has been fully paid, 2-the great controversy between evil and good has been won by good, and 3- Judgment has been served God vindicated and believers justified. It is finished.
