How did Jesus die? What was the precise cause of Jesus' death?

It is important, too, to observe how carefully scripture excludes the thought that His death was the result of any thing from without, the result of crucifixion — its accompaniment it was truly, but only. For we read that when they came to Him with intent to hasten or precipitate His death by breaking His legs, they found Him dead already, but not so the two malefactors (John 19:31-33); and so Pilate marvelled if He were already dead (Mark 15:44). No! His life He laid down of Himself as He had said (John 10:17-18), and so with loud voice He cried, "It is finished: and he … gave up the ghost," saying, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Matt. 27:50; Mark 15:37; Luke 23:46; John 19:30). Thus, thanks be to His great name and holy, "He the Just one died for us, the unjust, that He might bring us to God — died that we might live" (2 Cor. 5) — "gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil world" (Gal. 1); for "thus it is written and thus it behoved him," as the Son and the Saviour and the Shepherd. And so with John we exultingly cry, "Unto him that loveth us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and made us kings and priests unto God and His Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever." Amen.

He makes another declaration in this chapter which will help us in this matter. He says, "Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again. No man takes it from Me, but I lay it down Myself, I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My Father" (verses 17, 18). What man who ever lived but He could make such a statement? No man takes My life from Me! That means that it was impossible for men to slay Him; in intent they did it, on their part no effort was spared to bring Him down to death, from this point of view they were His murderers; but when they had done all that their devil-inspired malice could devise, He voluntarily laid down His life as a sacrifice for sin. He did not die by the violence of men, nor by any natural cause. I know the popular hymn says, "He died of a broken heart." It is not true. But was not His heart broken? It was indeed. "Reproach," He said, "has broken My heart." But He lived with a broken heart. The lowly Man of Sorrows stretched forth His hands in earnest entreaty to men all the day long, and they answered Him with reproach and rejection. And His tender heart was broken by their conduct; but He lived on until His hour was come; then He yielded up His life as a sacrifice for sin, so that when the soldiers came to close up the work of that brutal day, they marvelled that He was dead already. One act alone on their part remained to be done, and that was to pierce His sacred side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. "And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knows that he says true, that ye might believe." (John 19:35). But why this care to emphasize the fact that blood and water flowed forth? Well, whoever in the history of the world had beheld blood and water flowing from the side of a dead man? Yet John saw it, and what he saw proved that the death of Jesus was supernatural even as His birth was.

He makes another declaration in this chapter which will help us here, and I claim your special attention for it. He says, "Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again. No man takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself, I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My Father" (vv. 17-18). What man who ever lived but He could make such a statement? No man takes my life from me! That means that it was impossible for men to slay Him; in intent they did it, on their part no effort was spared to bring Him down to death, but when they had done all He voluntarily laid down His life as a sacrifice for sin. He did not die by the violence of men, nor by any natural cause. I know the popular hymn says, "He died of a broken heart." It is not true. But was not His heart broken? Yes, it was. But He lived with that broken heart. Yes, the lowly Man of Sorrows stretched forth His hands in earnest entreaty to men all the day long, and they answered Him with reproach and rejection. And His tender heart was broken by their conduct; but He lived until His hour was come; then He yielded up His life as a sacrifice for sin, so that when the soldiers came to close up the work of that brutal day, they marvelled that He was dead already. One act on their part alone remained to be done, and that was to pierce His sacred side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. "And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knows that he says true, that ye might believe" (John 19:35). But why this care to emphasize the fact that blood and water flowed forth? Well, if the Lord had not been dead, and if the spear thrust had slain Him, blood only would have been seen; the blood and water proved that the spear was thrust into the side of a dead Christ; He had already yielded up His life.

Yet He died not by the death of the cross, though He died upon the cross. His suffering was cut short before the wonted time; for this, among other reasons, that the scripture might be fulfilled, "a bone of him shall not be broken" — "Pilate marvelled if he were already dead, and, calling the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead." (Mark 15:44.) "When they came to Jesus and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs." (John 19:33.)

Rapid was man's wicked movement in its hurried enmity against the Lord to murder Him! And He yielded Himself to their hands; yet when all was accomplished that man could do, He was content and lingered not for the usual death of the cross — Having cried with a loud voice, He yielded up the ghost. In Psalm 69:20, we read, Reproach hath broken my heart; and it seems as though this indeed was the immediate cause of the Lord's death. Sorrow upon sorrow had burst in upon Him, when, having cried with a loud voice, He ceased to breathe. That it was unusual for one crucified so soon to die, is evident from the first of the above quotations. And one reason for its being so is seen in the second; for it was written, "a bone of him shall not be broken" — so graciously had God, by the predictions of His prophets, set a stamp upon every step of the path through which His beloved was to pass; and thus not only showing how greatly He loved to ponder all those steps of the lonely way of His Son, but how anxiously He desired to give every confirmation possible to them that should draw near to Him through Jesus.

"And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice [saying], Eloi, Eloi,164 lama sabachthani? which is being interpreted, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Ps. 22:1) It was no exhaustion of nature. Jesus did not die because He could not live, as all others do. He had still the full energy of life. He died not only in atonement, but to take His life again. How else could He have proved the superiority of His life to death, if He had not died? Still less could He have delivered us. "We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son" (Rom. 5:10). ["Saying"]: so AC, etc., 1, 33, 69, Syrpesch hcl Arm. Goth. Edd. omit, after ℵBDL, Syrsin Memph.

But, whatever might be the thoughts of Christ and His sufferings with regard to men (those dogs, those bulls of Bashan), the work which He had to accomplish contained depths far beyond those outward things. Darkness covered the earth — divine and sympathetic testimony of that which, with far deeper gloom, covered the soul of Jesus, forsaken of God for sin, but thus displaying incomparably more than at any other time, His absolute perfection; while the darkness marked, in an external sign, His entire separation from outward things, the whole work being between Him and God alone, according to the perfectness of both. All passed between Him and His God. Little understood by others, all is between Himself and God: and crying again with a loud voice, He gives up the ghost. His service was completed. What more had He to do in a world wherein He only lived to accomplish the will of God? All was finished, and He necessarily departs. I do not speak of physical necessity, for He still retained His strength; but, morally rejected by the world, there was no longer room in it for His mercy towards it: the will of God was by Himself entirely fulfilled. He had drunk in His soul the cup of death and of judgment for sin. There was nothing left Him but the act of dying; and He expires, obedient to the end, in order to commence in another world (whether for His soul separate from the body, or in glory) a life where evil could never enter, and where the new man will be perfectly happy in the presence of God.

There were other reasons beside that of weakness which would have led Him to yield up the cross to another, reasons at which we have already looked. That after still further anguish He was able at the close to cry with a loud voice, shows that His death was not due to exhaustion, but was the willing giving up in undiminished perfection the life He had taken in order that He might lay it down.

The Son of God died on the tree, where the wicked hand of man had nailed Him, and the eternal purpose and grace of God had appointed Him. There He died, and died because He was there. The Lamb was slain. Who would think of gainsaying such a thought? Wicked hands murdered Him, and God provided Him as His own Lamb for the altar. Who would touch for a moment so needed and precious a mystery? And yet the Lamb gave up His own life. No exhaustion under suffering, no pressure of the cross, led Him to the death; but His life He yielded of Himself. In token of being in full possession of that which He was rendering up, "He cried with a loud voice," and then "gave up the ghost." The history of the moment admits of no other thought; and, I will add, neither should the worshipping affections of the saints. Pilate marvelled that He was dead already; he would not believe it; he had to satisfy himself of it. No time had been passed on the cross sufficient to extort the life, so that the legs of the others had to be broken. But He was dead already, and Pilate must make inquiry, and call for the witness, ere he would believe it.

The thought we claim is thus the only interpreter of the strict, literal history of the fact. And our souls, had we grace, would bless God for such a picture of His slain Lamb, and of our crucified, dying, killed, and murdered Saviour. Do we blot out the record that He was the slain Lamb, or silence the song in heaven which celebrates that mystery, when we say, that His life the slain Lamb rendered up Himself? The history of Calvary, which the Holy Ghost has written, sustains this thought; and again we say, What we claim is the only interpreter of the strict history of the fact. He was free, and yet under commandment. Faith understands it all. And according to this mystery, when the hour had come, as we read, "He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost" (John 19:30). He owned the commandment which He had received, and yet of Himself yielded up His life. He was obedient unto death, and yet laid down His life as of Himself.

But here in our Gospel we read "And Jesus having cried again with a loud voice dismissed His spirit." It is significant that twice we read of His loud voice. There was no sign and evidence of exhaustion. His life was not taken from Him but He gave His life; He laid it down Himself. The King Himself, when the moment had come, dismissed His spirit. And now we behold a three-fold result of His death. The veil in the temple was rent. The earth was shaken, and the tomb's were opened and the centurion made his confession as well as those who were with him.

(Vv. 37, 38). When all was accomplished, "Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost." His cry with a loud voice proved, indeed, that His death was not the result of the failure and exhaustion of natural powers. One has said, "Jesus did not die because He could not live, as all others do." If the holiness of God was to be met, and salvation to be made possible for sinners, He must die; but no man took His life from Him. He, Himself, gave up His life.